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Cisco Umbrella vs Palo Alto Networks DNS Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
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)
Palo Alto Networks DNS Secu...
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 24.7%, down from 29.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is 14.9%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

Rohan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent
The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple. The single pane of glass management makes it very easy to manage your rollout. We get a lot of "single panes of glass" and, eventually, you need a pane of panes of glass. But it's always good to have a clear and graphical view, and Umbrella's is nice and easy to read. Definitely, of the panes of glass that we do have, it's one of the easiest to use. The single pane of glass is good to group users together and separate people out. Some people need different types of security. Some people are more vulnerable. Some have more highly valuable assets, like C-suite people. It's really good to be able to have end-users defined inside of that. You don't have to jump around. You don't have to figure out who's who. It's all done through one pane of glass. What most people don't realize is that it's running in the background, which is a really nice aspect when it comes to security. Often, when you deploy a security tool, it takes up CPU performance. Everything slows to a grind. But Umbrella is so simple and easy and it doesn't affect the end-user experience. It's the best of all worlds. It's nice when people realize that they're being protected when they go to the wrong site. I think people are happy that they're protected, but it's nice that they rarely notice it. It's generally easy to maintain network connectivity, but with Umbrella, the nice part is that whichever connectivity you're on, you're always secure. With Umbrella, as long as you're online, you're going to be protected.
Aneeq Zia - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhances our internal DNS and that it blocks malicious DNS queries
The support depends. Support from distributors can be frustrating sometimes, but if you get support directly from Palo Alto, it's perfect. For direct Palo Alto support, I'd rate it a nine out of ten. Distributor support is more like a six out of ten. They are not really supportive and have slow response times.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, it is a very good solution. It is a simple solution and very easy to set up."
"We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far."
"I haven't needed to reboot the servers for years due to their excellent stability."
"Cisco Umbrella is absolutely stable."
"It has helped reduce my unit's security events."
"One valuable feature is definitely its simplicity in terms of deployment. It is very easy to integrate it into the environment without any heavy lifting. Users didn't notice that we implemented it. You can start with a very low monitoring mode and start observing what Cisco Umbrella sees."
"When it comes to hybrid work it's pretty effective. We've got the agents. We can protect people inside our building and, when they're using their laptops out in the field, they're still protected. It's working well."
"Helps block personal email accounts."
"The most valuable feature is DNS filtering."
"The solution's most valuable features are data exfiltration and DNS tunneling."
"The most valuable features of the solution are DNSSEC and the domain generation algorithm."
"When comparing other cloud-based DNS security solutions to this one I have found the main beneficial feature in this solution to be we do not need to change our architecture."
"DNS sinkhole is a valuable feature."
"I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten."
"We now have insight into our DNS requests and we can actively see how many thousands of malicious requests have gotten knocked down in the last day or week that we didn't have before. There's more insight for both security and more insight."
"DNS security is required to filter out the DNS traffic, any DNS-based attacks, DNS DDoS attacks, and DNS amplification attacks."
 

Cons

"Cisco Umbrella is difficult to manage and needs to include a dashboard. It needs to improve pricing as well."
"Client delivery and client updates should be improved. Client delivery was not as easy as expected. Another area for improvement is the integration of escalation procedures for security issues."
"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."
"Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."
"It's easier for us to have support features with companies who are Cisco representatives, but sometimes, it's hard for us to get the help we need without having to use our contacts within Cisco."
"There are cheaper solutions in the market"
"I'd like to see improvement in its overall integration with all the other platforms. There's some integration between Umbrella and Meraki, but an overall Cisco problem is that there are so many different tools, and finding easy, seamless ways of connecting everything together is always a challenge."
"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 solution’s scalability could be improved."
"Sometimes, it blocks legitimate traffic for custom applications, requiring manual intervention."
"With Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, sometimes the DNS clients don't work well, and they get disconnected, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The solution can capture more market if made more cost-competitive than Infoblox or Cisco Umbrella."
"Pricing is one of the areas of concern in Palo Alto Networks DNS Security since it is an expensive product. I feel that the product's pricing is an area that could be improved."
"The product should provide email protection."
"If the tool offers improved data security, I think it would be good."
"The scalability can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."
"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."
"There is a subscription cost."
"The pricing was marvelous."
"The solution's pricing is equal to Cisco AMP or Cisco Umbrella."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"There is an annual license for the solution and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"The product is expensive. My company makes payments on a quarterly basis towards the solution's costs."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as two."
"The product is expensive compared to Fortinet."
"Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is an expensive product. I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten points are expensive."
"There aren't many vendors offering DNS security solutions, but generally, Palo Alto subscriptions tend to be more expensive than other security vendors."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
824,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
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 needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
If the tool offers improved data security, I think it would be good. If some of our company's partners or customers want to distinguish the license between Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and Palo ...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
I use the solution in my company to protect our enterprise network. I use the tool for data exfiltration.
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
No data available
 

Learn More

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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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.