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Cisco Umbrella vs Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
Proofpoint Cloud App Securi...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 4.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 6.0%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella6.0%
iboss4.5%
Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker1.0%
Other88.5%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
KamranJameel - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Secure browsing has protected users from DNS threats and improves malware defense
The major issue is that sometimes when you install the client, it shows you protected and displays that it is live with the backend servers and everything. However, in reality, it was not getting any feed from the main client and is just sending your traffic to open DNS, which sometimes causes an issue because the protection you have implemented can be breached by users. The primary thing that Cisco Umbrella lacked most of the time is their client. Previously, they had a separate Cisco client. Now they have merged everything into the Cisco Secure Endpoint client—one client for everything, for Cisco Endpoint, for Cisco AnyConnect, and for Cisco Umbrella, which they did probably in 2025.
Farzad Ebrahimi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Devsecops Cloud Cybersecurity Specialist at CGI
Layered security has protected our cloud AI apps and significantly reduced attack incidents
The best features Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker offers are multilayer protection against security attacks and escalation. The escalation feature in Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker is valuable because we are using more and more users, and it is very scalable in relation to the number of users using the same app on the cloud. The performance of Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker stands out as the number of attacks blocked is more than 90%. Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker has positively impacted my organization by resolving all of the security issues related to app security. I can share specific outcomes, such as a reduction in the number of incidents, which is more than 90% related to the past.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The students were always protected, and the content filtering worked very well, seeming to work better than other products we had tried previously."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"The main advantage of iboss is its cloud-based security centralized policy management, which helps organizations protect users working from different locations, secure access to cloud applications, and reduce security risks."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"Meraki features and cloud-based functionality are advanced and easy to manage centrally."
"The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Umbrella for me is the ease of use of the fact that we've deployed this with our Cisco VPN Secure Client, so every computer has the Umbrella module in it."
"Umbrella has helped my IT staff in two ways. First, our security team was able to get more insights into the users, their devices, and the sites they browse. Second, our system administration team was able to manage DNS resolutions in a way that is more accessible and less intrusive to our domain system."
"For us and for customers, it's the ease of integration with Meraki. It's just a couple of clicks. That allows us to deploy very fast, and it doesn't change the way a customer uses his service. It's just more secure."
"I also think that the dashboard view is really helpful. Whenever sites get blocked, we get the details and the users who are connecting to them."
"Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers."
"One of the great advantages of Umbrella DNS is that it's really simple to deploy. It's easy to install, the users do not notice that it's there, and it doesn't interfere with your work. The simplicity and transparency are great advantages of Cisco Umbrella."
"It has the ability to quickly block new threats."
"From stability and availability standpoints, it is pretty good."
"The quarantine feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The product is stable."
"Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker has positively impacted my organization by resolving all of the security issues related to app security."
"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."
 

Cons

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"I would rate iboss an eight out of ten because it provides strong cloud-based security threat protection, centralized policy management, and visibility into web traffic. I would give it a higher rating if automation, reporting, and troubleshooting capabilities could be improved further."
"Its pricing could be better."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."
"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."
"A feature I would appreciate seeing enhanced in Cisco Umbrella would be the ability to add or remove agents that we have, instead of just relying on how long the devices have been connected to the platform."
"Its on-prem rollout is quite challenging. It needs better coordination with the Internet Service Provider. It is a cloud-based solution, and any endpoint that connects to it has to go through all the gateway ISPs, but some of the ISPs block HTTPS-based DNS. That's where the challenge occurs with Umbrella."
"I would like to see a graphical representation of the entire network."
"I would like to have more applications being recorded."
"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."
"It should have a real-time malware classification engine. It should check the malware on the website. It would be good if it had a real-time malware check for the websites because currently, it just compares the DNS queries of the blacklist. It should also have malware control over file execution and the types of files that the users are allowed to download."
"The TLS encryption needs to be improved. It's not state of the art."
"They are priced significantly higher and less cost-effective than alternative options."
"I think some of the hiccups that we had were with the number of domains that we had and how that had to be implemented in Proofpoint."
"Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker should be cheaper."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"The price could be lower."
"The price is quite good."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"It needs a better price point."
"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."
"We had an enterprise contract with them for about 32,000 users at that point, which has now grown."
"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise51
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by emphasizing the modular function even more during sales presentations and demonstr...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
iboss is primarily used for content filtering within school districts and public K-12 school districts, and it can al...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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. Zs...
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-nat...
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 bu...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker?
Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker can be improved with more AI features, as it could help. I feel it is fine to no...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker?
My main use case for Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker is to protect our applications on the cloud against securit...
What advice do you have for others considering Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker?
My advice to others looking into using Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker is that more AI features are needed. Proo...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
FireLayers, PCASB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
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
Emerging Technologies, HP, CSA, Perion
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,181 professionals have used our research since 2012.