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Cisco Umbrella vs Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

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)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (5th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
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)
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 4.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 6.8%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker is 0.9%, 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 Umbrella6.8%
iboss4.4%
Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker0.9%
Other87.9%
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.
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.
Kamal Kumar Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Consultant at Genpact - Headstrong
Stable product with essential document tracking features
In my organization, we worked with around ten to fifteen different technologies, including Bitglass, and CASB was not among our top priorities. While CASB might benefit some organizations, it was optional for our specific setup, considering the other security measures and technologies we had in place. I found no particularly valuable features regarding CASB resolutions. There are other tools available that can achieve the same functionalities and perform similar tasks. For example, I can accomplish tasks like encryption or secure data movement from our office to the internet using alternative services like Zero Trust solutions. Because of this, our organization considered removing it from our system due to its limited benefits compared to other products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"This is a very good solution and my clients are impressed with it."
"The most valuable feature is that it secures our network against blacklisted or malicious websites."
"Cisco is a very efficient and on-point solution that controls the whole network and settings on one page."
"I like that it integrates with the infrastructure. I also like the kind of data and intelligence that's built-in. It helps create innovative reports for security."
"It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution."
"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."
"The most valuable feature for us is the DNS-based protection."
"It's very stable, reliable and does its job."
"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."
"The quarantine feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The quarantine feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"From stability and availability standpoints, it is pretty good."
"The product is stable."
 

Cons

"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability within the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"It could be improved by having a local data center and caching, which can provide protection support. I would like to be able to channel my intel and my network traffic to their clouds, and this feature is not available. Advanced protection or any malware file support, which might be required, is not available."
"I would like to see integration with SecurNX in the future."
"It needs a better price point."
"Data reporting could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"I think it's a very basic solution, and because of that, Cisco Umbrella would not be a suitable solution for large companies."
"The TLS encryption needs to be improved. It's not state of the art."
"Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker should be cheaper."
"They are priced significantly higher and less cost-effective than alternative options."
"The TLS encryption needs to be improved. It's not state of the art."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"Pricing depends on the automation requirements of the organization."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"You can request an evaluation license​."
"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."
"Cisco has a set price for a single license up to 100, but whenever we get over 100, we have to ask for a quote."
"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."
"Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."
"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."
"We had an enterprise contract with them for about 32,000 users at that point, which has now grown."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise52
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
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...
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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
FireLayers, PCASB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
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: April 2026.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.