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Cisco Umbrella vs Palo Alto Networks DNS Security 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)
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 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 Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is 13.4%, 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

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.
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

"My overall rating for Cisco Umbrella is ten out of ten."
"For me, it's important that I get a connection to my corporate network in a secure and fast way. This product just runs in the background and doesn't need any attention. For me, as a user, it's perfect."
"We like Cisco Umbrella because of DNS security. It's one step ahead of whatever we are using for regular web filtering. In that way, it's more secure than other web filtering products."
"The solution is extremely stable. It has excellent performance."
"The security and access control features."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is very important. We have a very small team. We can't spend a lot of time going from product to product to product to either investigate or set up policy. We need to have one place that we can go to and set everything up."
"What we like most is security and how easy it is to integrate with other appliances."
"I haven't needed to reboot the servers for years due to their excellent stability."
"DNS sinkhole is a valuable feature."
"The product is easy to install."
"The most valuable feature is DNS filtering."
"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."
"The support team has good knowledge about the solution."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable features are data exfiltration and DNS tunneling."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more integrations with more products. Some of the integrations need to be simpler as well. For example, the integration with Cisco Secure Firewall could be simpler. It would be good to make reporting simpler. For those who don't use SecureX, it would be good to make Umbrella really simple to use upfront. It's not a difficult product, but it can be daunting for someone who isn't exposed to it because there are so many options."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"Although Cisco Umbrella has an excellent global network footprint, there is still room for improvement and growth in this area. Additionally, there are bandwidth limitations associated with the connectors that need to be addressed. To be a viable solution for larger offices, Cisco Umbrella must continue to expand and improve its capabilities in these areas."
"There is room for improvement in the dashboard. It could stand to be a bit more detailed. I would also like to be able to customize the dashboard to focus more on what is important for my company."
"There are cheaper solutions in the market"
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"The installation is more complex because the solution has another approach to security."
"We would like to have cloud-based management."
"The solution’s scalability could be improved."
"Sometimes, it blocks legitimate traffic for custom applications, requiring manual intervention."
"Every vendor that sells DNS or firewalls needs to be able to protect against DNS look-up attacks and DNS naming hacks. This is true of Palo Alto as well as others."
"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."
"I'm not really sure what needs improvement. The only hiccup I've really seen is a couple of the DNS requests get flagged as the Sophos traffic instead of DNS traffic, but that's more of their app detection in the DNS Security. I haven't really seen any issues with the DNS security."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a subscription cost."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
"I think it's worth the money."
"Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."
"Cisco has a model called ELA. With ELA, if you buy the solution you will have the complete security portfolio and you can pay it yearly or after three years, it depends on the contract."
"The price could be lower."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"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."
"The product is expensive compared to Fortinet."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as two."
"The product is expensive. My company makes payments on a quarterly basis towards the solution's costs."
"The solution's pricing is equal to Cisco AMP or Cisco Umbrella."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"There aren't many vendors offering DNS security solutions, but generally, Palo Alto subscriptions tend to be more expensive than other security vendors."
"There is an annual license for the solution and I am satisfied with the pricing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
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
 

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: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.