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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)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
25
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

"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"I recommend iboss for organizations looking for strong cloud-based web security and centralized access control."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."
"Stability-wise, it's good. I have never encountered any bugs."
"We use the entire Cisco solution and we are happy with the product integration."
"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."
"Cisco Umbrella has definitely helped improve some aspects of our security posture, contributing to overall organizational security posture management."
"It's very stable, reliable and does its job."
"The insight into what our users are doing via Cisco Umbrella is valuable. Knowing that we're protecting our users as they leave our network is also valuable now because we've got more hybrid working."
"Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules."
"Helps block personal email accounts."
"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."
"Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker has positively impacted my organization by resolving all of the security issues related to app security."
"The quarantine feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The product is stable."
"From stability and availability standpoints, it is pretty good."
 

Cons

"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"iboss can be improved because the integration could be better; you need to import all the sites that you access today, and there are a few problems whenever you import thousands of websites, making the integration process messy for the users."
"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."
"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, and that is where in 2025 we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"We would like to see the enhancements made to the EDR, as we see features that are running endpoint management."
"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."
"They should provide more integrations and bring things together so that there is a more standard feel to their platform. We also use Cisco ISE, and it has a very different feel from Cisco Umbrella."
"Sometimes there are some lags, and I have to refresh multiple times to access parts of the dashboards. Sometimes the dashboard pages crash and I'm not sure why, so that's one area for improvement."
"It has happened in the past that Cisco Umbrella has denied us access to secure websites."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see the integration of VDI NSX with Cisco Umbrella."
"I would be happy if they could add the whois information of an IP."
"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."
"Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker should be cheaper."
"The TLS encryption needs to be improved. It's not state of the art."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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 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 price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"There is a subscription cost."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"The price is quite good."
"Its price for us is quite expensive because it's a subscription, and we just use it for the DNS log. So, for us, it's quite expensive."
"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 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
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
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 Enterprise7
Large Enterprise12
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.
916,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.