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Cisco Umbrella vs Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Infoblox BloxOne Threat Def...
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 22.8%, down from 29.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense is 5.8%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

Alessandro Braga - PeerSpot reviewer
Has comprehensive reporting and scales easily
The reports and notifications are the most useful part of the platform. As soon as you deploy the security layers, the reporting is very comprehensive. It helps you to have, at a glance, a clear view of what's going on. The integration between Cisco Secure solutions is pretty good. We have been able to deliver the solution in a few days. The integration of Umbrella and Meraki is literally one click away from the customer. One of the reasons why we chose Umbrella was its capability to perform end-to-end detection of malware and web traffic. In the last two years, we have been covered, detection has been faster, and we have been able to contain some potential threats along the way. We use the Umbrella stack from DNS protection to web and content protection. Our workforce is made up of 150 Macs; thus, we use Mac as a client. We have some PCs and integration with the network in our co-working spaces. Utilizing Cisco Secure has helped us save time. Being a nimble organization, we don't have IT staff who are fully dedicated to security. The maintenance is also not very time-consuming. In terms of the amount of time saved, it would be half an FTE a year, given the fact that we are informed and notified when threats arise. In terms of operating expenditures, we have been able to negotiate a better cyber insurance rate with our insurance company due to the fact that we are covered by Umbrella. Another benefit of using Cisco Umbrella is application scanning. We have been able to understand how many other applications we were consuming in the cloud, address them, and save money. Without Cisco Umbrella, we would not have realized that we had so many cloud applications in the company. We have been able to close at least four or five applications that were duplicates of others that we were already using in the company. We have realized approximately 10,000 to 12,000 euros a year of immediate savings in an organization of 150 people, which is quite significant.
Igor Van Den Ouden - PeerSpot reviewer
A hybrid solution for DNS security with insights and security reports
The most valuable feature is policy redirecting and security reports. It detects threats and blocks them. Also, it offers DNS handling and data extraction. It provides a centralized view of connected users and incoming data sources. It is integrated via the API to different monitoring systems that send out alerts. We haven't had any false positives due to this solution.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The integration features within, for example, the Cisco VPN product and the Umbrella module are valuable."
"Umbrella, being one pane for managing, being all-encompassing, allows us to quickly go in, make a change, and it applies to either every location, if we want it to, or we can have policies in place that only apply to certain users or certain computers."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is really important. In today's era, administration costs and operational expenses will cost you a lot, and it reduces that as well. You don't need extra resources to manage all your parameter firewalls, looking at every single device to allow resources internal access. By just introducing the single-pane-of-glass management, it has lifted the burden off of management, especially the network management."
"The documentation is good, and we have been able to resolve any issues ourselves."
"I like the original functionality, which allows for providing secure DNS services."
"Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers."
"Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."
"I think recently with many people working from home, Cisco Umbrella has been very useful. For example, we can manage the device and the network when the employee is not working on the local host. Cisco Umbrella is very valuable for this kind of infrastructure."
"Infoblox has helped us improve in the way that we look at data as it comes in and out. We monitor and manage queries from every device that sits inside our company, e.g., every user, every laptop, and every query. When you type something into the web, Infoblox will scan or manage that. If it is going somewhere bad, then it will block them. From a metrics perspective, it gives us data, letting us go back and find those impacted or infected clients to either clean their devices or remove them from the network."
"The most valuable feature is blocklisting. It's good at what I like to describe as the "silly side cases." We have this annoying security architecture that says we must do this, that, and the other, so we try to make it easier on ourselves."
"The product is stable."
"Using the reporting, we can tell that we have gained an extra layer of protection. Just by looking at it, we can see what is being blocked before it even makes it to the firewall. It is definitely working."
"The dossier feature is perfect for starting an investigation."
"With the model we have, we are able to scale very easily if we need to."
"Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense furthers the existing security posture rather than replacing or trying to replace any existing products."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the granularity for which you can categorize what you want to block versus what you don't want to block."
 

Cons

"It would be useful if they had a malware protection engine running inside their own VM."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"I would like to see integration with SecurNX in the future."
"Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability. The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users."
"It would be better if there was a little bit of flexibility for organizations that don't have SD One in their environment. Because of the complexity of the environment, it's not easy to actually turn on the feature of the secure internet gateway for our users. We have not been able to explore that option yet."
"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."
"We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella."
"There are some situations where we would like to block things for specific user groups. I know that Umbrella does that, but it's not that easy.... when you want a specific task for specific rules and policies for user groups, you have to go three levels down in the menu, and it's hard to find where you do that task."
"The product could be cheaper."
"A lot of their documentation needs improvement."
"The documentation needs to be improved because there are a lot of different models that it can be deployed in, and it's somewhat confusing determining what you need and how to set it up to best cover your use cases."
"Within the past two years, we discovered certain bugs in their products. The resolution of these bugs took a little too much time, especially if our production environment is down for a certain amount of time, then we are losing money. That is hard to convey to Infoblox support, e.g., we actually need the system up and running again within two or three hours. The awareness of these so-called production down incidents is not really easy to convey."
"The product is slightly more expensive compared to other DNS solutions."
"This is not just Infoblox, this could be any portal provider, cloud provider, sometimes they change the look of the customer-facing options and it's not completely clear why they make the change."
"We would like to see more reporting capabilities that are now offered only with the on-premises reporting appliance."
"The dashboard and reporting features need improvement. The user needs more informative dashboards so they can get to the results directly without getting deep in the report to get to the information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When talking about Cisco solutions in general there pricing model is horrible. For example, you can sell a Meraki-based solution, but if the customer starts shopping around, someone is going to have access to the pricing at a level that you cannot compete because they do not have uniform pricing. Not everybody gets fair pricing. Unless you are one of the real major corporations selling the solution your ability to compete is impossible. Cisco will acknowledge the situation and assure you next time it will be in your favor but it never becomes favorable for you. Cisco is not very good in this regard. However, Umbrella is good."
"You can request an evaluation license​."
"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"There is a subscription cost."
"I think Cisco Umbrella is priced well. We have a mix of customers with different verticals such as education. We have clients in the commercial space as well. Umbrella is at a good price point for all of our customers."
"The price is quite good."
"If you only wanted the DNS filtering and none of the other products built into Threat Defense, it would be nicer if they could do that a la carte since we are not really using a lot of the solution."
"Infoblox BloxOne offers pretty good documentation. Check its documentation, then do a PoC. Infoblox is very good at providing PoCs."
"There is a significant charge for this product but I think that it's worth it when we look at what it's able to prevent."
"When you buy the subscription, there are no additional costs to add any additional buttons."
"It is a very expensive system. You need to go over the licensing before purchase to make sure you're getting what is needed, not anything extra."
"The licensing is set up such that you pay for the number of active users that you're defending at the moment."
"It's a pricey solution because it's for the advanced kind of customer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security functi...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
What do you like most about Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense?
The most valuable feature is policy redirecting and security reports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense?
The product is expensive depending on all features. I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
BloxOne Threat Defense, Infoblox ActiveTrust, Infoblox ActiveTrust Cloud
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim
Council Rock School District, EagleView, Schneider Electric, Baptist Memorial Health Care, American University
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.