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Cisco Umbrella vs McAfee Web Protection [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

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
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
McAfee Web Protection [EOL]
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

BB
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Ensures comprehensive protection with seamless threat logging and efficient policy management
My favorite feature of Cisco Umbrella is probably just the DNS and the fact that when a security threat happens, all of that gets logged in their Umbrella portal, and it's very easy to find who's been accessing the site and how many people have accessed it, so that we can go to them and make sure they're not compromised. The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast. The fact that there's a virtual database that has all that information is great on our portal.
VivekGupta7 - PeerSpot reviewer
DGM at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Secure, reasonably priced, and performs well
We used cloud services for testing purposes. We used Amazon cloud services. Depending on the solution, there are a variety of options. There are several options such as Endpoint, WAF, NAC, and SIEM are currently available. A variety of solutions are implemented. It was a third-party implementation by Inspira. McAfee also provides an endpoint solution. McAfee's DLP is also present. Previously, we had used Trend Micro and Symantec. There is a method we had to upgrade our systems, a solution was required, and it had to match the three, four solutions from one company that were going to be cheaper, and there is a bidding process, whoever comes first, based on quality and cost, wins the competition. The requirements were speed, quality, and cost. Because Symantec was about to be renewed, our renewal would be more expensive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers."
"Umbrella is probably one of the best tools out there in all the security landscape."
"Using this solution has meant that we've needed to make fewer firewall changes."
"The most valuable features are the dashboard, visibility, and reporting capabilities. Our customers can see how much Umbrella is protecting their organization. If you don't know what you've got, you can't protect it. With Umbrella, you get the visibility and see the protection that it's providing. We can get PDF reports on a weekly basis of any malware activities and any denial of service or command-and-control-type activities."
"I would recommend Cisco Umbrella to other interested companies; it's a very flexible and secure application — it's very good."
"The feature I appreciate most about Cisco Umbrella is the dashboard and how easy it is to see the reporting, what is blocked and allowed, and it makes it very user-friendly."
"Overall, as a program, it has saved us a ton of time and stress by not having to worry about malware or viruses or anything malicious."
"The price is quite good, and as we are resellers we provide our customers with several solutions to do a comparison, and the reaction is that Cisco is quite good."
"The LiveSafe version works very well and has a very small price."
"It is functional. It has reduced risk and downtime while also ensuring regulatory compliance, which is critical."
"McAfee Web Protection has been around for many years and the solution holds its ground as a product providing good accessibility and handling any overload very well."
"The most valuable feature is the ease in the configuration for security roles."
"Even if the product, as well with the Advanced Threat Defense costs a lot, it's a long-term investment and will help you with attacks."
"Using this type of solution is best practice in the industry."
"The product is very easy to implement, the process is straightforward with no complexities to speak of, and it's very quick to deploy so you can install it and have it up and running in ten minutes."
"It has dependable anti-malware and intrusion prevention features all-in-one package."
 

Cons

"The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence."
"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"You could say the price is a little bit high."
"The main issue that we have is with the final steps or the full integration and getting rid of Zscaler. The company still has to fall back to Zscaler when something in Umbrella is not working as expected, such as when we enable SSL inspection. When something is not working 100%, the company is falling back to Zscaler."
"The integration with other solutions is a little complex. If you want to integrate with something like ArcSight or LogRhythm or Splunk, you need to do a lot of configuration."
"It has happened in the past that Cisco Umbrella has denied us access to secure websites."
"There are a couple of interface issues."
"We used a consultant to help us set it up. Unfortunately, he was not that good. They were out of McAfee people. He was a consultant and knew the product, but he was not a McAfee person. How they managed it and how they worked was not straightforward."
"There is a real need to make sure all the updates and improvements are in order to keep the security at top performance to continue defeating threats that come daily."
"McAfee Web Protection can improve the information provided for hybrid installations in the console. Additionally, having cloud protection would be good."
"The technical support is good, but it's always "I'll call you back", especially when there are no threats."
"We need a better customer experience and more flexibility in the product."
"The configuration could be simplified because it is more complex to make the configuration on McAfee. What can be improved is the support of the agent on smartphones, IOS or Android. That still now is not available yet."
"The solution could always use more security features. If it was more secure, it would be an even stronger product."
"I'm not sure if the solution itself is cloud-based or not. If it isn't they really need to begin to develop that out a bit."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price depends on the use case, and it's a bit linear. But it depends on the customer's strategy and how Cisco plans to optimize the costs."
"The price could be lower."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"Pricing and licensing of Cisco Umbrella is a bit confusing because you have to separate the DNS solution and the full-feature solution. Cisco in Portugal helped us understand which one was the right one for us."
"It has a reasonable price. It is certainly not as expensive as it used to be. It is in line with other offerings on the market. There are a number of different flavors of Umbrella. They could bring Umbrella SIG down a bit because its price is a little bit high for what it does, but I also understand why its price is high."
"The pricing was marvelous."
"Cisco solutions are generally perceived to be rather expensive. We have constant internal discussions as to whether we should offer lower-priced security solutions from some of the competitors."
"The price could be lower."
"The pricing is cheaper than some of the other options that are available."
"The license number would be approximately $35,000."
"$150 Canadian per year."
"In McAfee Web Protection you have the ability to install any appliance you want with the same license. If you need an appliance on-premise, you can install it with the same license because the license is for users, not for appliances. If you need one more, you can install it and you don't have problems with the license or need to change your environment."
"It is not very expensive. It costs 100 Canadian Dollars per year per license. I buy one-year or two-year protection. The license covers my PC, laptops, and telephone. The cost is per user but for multiple devices. It has just the standard licensing fees. There are some options for extended protection. For example, if I wanted to have a VPN, there will be an extra cost. So, there are upgradable features, but I'm very happy with what it is giving me with the basic plan. It gives me the basic privacy protection that I need."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Marketing Services Firm
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
12%
Performing Arts
12%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bundle with other Cisco purchases.
Do you recommend McAfee Web Protection?
I highly recommend McAfee Web Protection. In my opinion, it is a comprehensive web protection platform with a great firewall. I find that it is a lot less bulky than competing solutions on the mark...
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
McAfee Web Gateway, McAfee SaaS Web Protection
 

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
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