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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.
Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at PROA
Ensures internet navigation safety and boosts productivity
The features of Cisco Umbrella I prefer most are DNS protection and traffic redirect. With Cisco Talos's threat intelligence, we reduce the impact of malware traffic in our network, and we currently see the behavior of equipment and choose the correct sites. Cisco Talos has helped us reduce the impact of malware traffic. We can see the behavior and choose the correct sites. We're currently testing secure access with Umbrella in order to secure access to core applications. It's a product that the user doesn't even know is there, even though it is protecting them. It's not hard on the equipment. And, for us, it centralizes everything, which improves productivity. With the Experience Insights feature of Cisco Secure Access, we've seen impacts on the management of user connectivity by allowing us to deliver safe connectivity. We are testing the Secure Access product with Cisco Umbrella to improve our connectivity with our users in order to secure access to the corporate applications. Cisco Umbrella is in the cloud, which is nice.
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

"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."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"The solution is very good for helping workers feel safe, secured, supported, and included."
"It has certainly saved us time. If we go and look at what's rejected on the requests from the hospital itself, it has saved about 5% or 6% time."
"The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform are great."
"The feature I appreciate most about Cisco Umbrella is the dashboard and how easy it is to see the reporting, what is blocked and allowed, and it makes it very user-friendly."
"It analyzes the domain security helps us implement the securest policy."
"Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy."
"We use Cisco Umbrella for DNS filtering and as a secure gateway."
"The feature that we find most valuable is to be able to filter out those web requests that you don't want."
"From stability and availability standpoints, it is pretty good."
"The quarantine feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The product is stable."
"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."
 

Cons

"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"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."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"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."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"The solution is very expensive in Brazil."
"Perhaps an option to be able to block only specific users would be a way to improve the free version of OpenDNS."
"I would like for their support to be faster."
"I would like for them to continue building on IPS and IDS functionalities."
"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 are cheaper solutions in the market."
"We faced an issue regarding virtual appliances (VAs) during deployment. They could improve the quality and management of the virtual appliances offered right now."
"In the way we are using the solution it would be good for us if they would do some simplification of the analytics. They need to improve this feature so they have analytics to show the content of the user activity."
"Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker should be cheaper."
"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."
"They are priced significantly higher and less cost-effective than alternative options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"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."
"In my opinion, Cisco Umbrella now has a good price in the basic packages. When it comes to Cisco Umbrella SIG Essentials package and Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) Advantage package, it depends on whether the project has a good price or not"
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's 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."
"The licensing and pricing structure of Cisco Umbrella is in line with standard systems on the market, and we have no specific requirements in this area. Overall, we have found it to be an acceptable pricing model for our organization."
"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."
"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."
"We were using the free version, and we implemented the paid version about two months ago. I'm paying a fair price, but everything is negotiable with Cisco. One of the benefits that I got by having Cisco Umbrella is the licensing of the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client."
"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%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 Business7
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: June 2026.
899,324 professionals have used our research since 2012.