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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

"It transparently protects users from rogue web sites."
"The weekly reportings are great. The investigation is super and the application management is equally great."
"In general, Umbrella is a competitive solution for small or large enterprise."
"We use Cisco Umbrella for web security and it's very good."
"We are not using a DNS solution, but we have been using the firewalls and all the proxy firewalls instead, which has really helped us since we now know that the entire network environment is being secured by Umbrella."
"The most valuable features for us include tenant lock, content filtering, and DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated."
"I would describe the experience deploying Cisco Umbrella overall as super easy. It was awesome. It was lovely to deploy it."
"Personally speaking, this tool has proven itself invaluable in allowing myself and my team to perform our duties efficiently and securely."
"I receive a monthly report and I've never had a problem so I presume that it's doing its job well."
"McAfee Web Protection is good technology, absolutely, and it has a very particular configuration that you can implement in a granular way."
"The most valuable features of McAfee Web Protection are the reporter, and you have the option to have an agent installed in the notebooks or on the mobiles. You are able to have the same policies inside and outside of your organization which is a benefit."
"Provides good accessibility and handles any overload very well."
"The LiveSafe version works very well and has a very small price."
"One of the best things we've found is when you are at home, all the rules that we applied here in our facility or our office go to the cloud, the same rules apply to anyone who works at home, and we block the ability to go to any site that is found on the blacklist, which has improved a lot lately because now we have almost zero PC compromise."
"It's a solution that permits making a granular configuration and it is easier to deploy the same configuration on a lot of devices using the central console. It is the master of the product."
"The most valuable feature is the ease in the configuration for security roles."
 

Cons

"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"It should have more integrations with multiple end user OEMs."
"Customization for basic users can be complex, as it is targeted toward only technical users."
"The solution's technical support is not very good."
"The product has been rejected by business due to the pricing; no ROI as such."
"In the future, they should combine some of the Cisco AMP features that they already have, for anti-malware purposes."
"Cisco Umbrella could be improved by making the policies more granular, as in some cases, it's difficult to find the correct link to open a specific site securely."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"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."
"The configuration could be simplified because it is more complex to make the configuration on McAfee."
"We used a consultant to help us set it up. Unfortunately, he was not that good."
"The technical support is good, but it's always "I'll call you back", especially when there are no threats."
"The manufacturerers should have more transparancy about exactly what is getting filtered when you use the product and why."
"The initial setup could be simplified, there is a learning curve during the implementation."
"Endpoints are lightweight agents, eating too much of the host resources."
"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

"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."
"The price could be lower."
"We did a good negotiation, and at the moment, its price is fine."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"I am not sure, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think it's $1.00 or so per device/month."
"In terms of licensing, we're not able to be extremely clear with the customer because it's based on their reporting. It's not based on the actual traffic. If they say they have 50 users but they have 80, we'll just buy for 50 users. That's something where we'd like to have more flexibility."
"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"Its price for us is quite expensive because it's a subscription, and we just use it for the DNS log. So, for us, it's quite expensive."
"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."
"$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."
"The license number would be approximately $35,000."
"The pricing is cheaper than some of the other options that are available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Non Profit
6%
Marketing Services Firm
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
11%
Performing Arts
11%
 

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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