Cisco Umbrella vs Skyhigh Security comparison

Cisco and Skyhigh Security are both solutions in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category. Cisco is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.0, while Skyhigh Security is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.7. Cisco holds a 10.3% mindshare in SASE, compared to Skyhigh Security’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Skyhigh Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Skyhigh Security and Cisco Umbrella compete in the cloud security solutions category. Skyhigh Security has the upper hand in identifying and analyzing shadow IT whereas Cisco Umbrella is particularly strong in DNS layer security and threat intelligence.

Features: Skyhigh Security provides extensive insights into cloud service usage with risk assessments and analytics, its capabilities to categorize risks such as data, user, legal, and business risks enable businesses to make informed decisions. User analytics and deep DLP integration enhance compliance. Cisco Umbrella is known for its DNS layer security and threat intelligence, providing protection against ransomware and phishing with easy deployment and compatibility with existing infrastructure.

Room for Improvement: Skyhigh Security's interface can be sluggish, requiring manual confirmations. Report generation lacks flexibility, particularly in filtering data. Cisco Umbrella needs improvements in reporting capabilities, better DNS service support for IPv6, and better integration with existing SIEM products. Its pricing model can be confusing to some users, who also desire improved support channels.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Skyhigh Security can be deployed across hybrid, on-premises, and public cloud environments; however, customer support experiences are mixed. Cisco Umbrella supports hybrid and public cloud environments and offers easy deployment. It generally receives positive feedback for customer service, though some concerns about pricing and support delays exist.

Pricing and ROI: Skyhigh Security has a reasonable pricing model, based on the number of administrative users, with separate licenses for discovery and security capabilities, allowing flexibility. Cisco Umbrella's pricing is seen as fair, operating on a subscription model with multiple tiers, but is viewed as being on the higher side by some users. Both solutions offer solid ROI by mitigating security risks.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Umbrella vs. Skyhigh Security Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. Skyhigh Security

April 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 10.3%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skyhigh Security is 1.9%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford

Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water

It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless

One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. 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 user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured

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Rohan Singh

Consultant at KRS Systems

Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent

The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple. The single pane of glass management makes it very easy to manage your rollout. We get a lot of "single panes of glass" and, eventually, you need a pane of panes of glass. But it's always good to have a clear and graphical view, and Umbrella's is nice and easy to read. Definitely, of the panes of glass that we do have, it's one of the easiest to use. The single pane of glass is good to group users together and separate people out. Some people need different types of security. Some people are more vulnerable. Some have more highly valuable assets, like C-suite people. It's really good to be able to have end-users defined inside of that. You don't have to jump around. You don't have to figure out who's who. It's all done through one pane of glass. What most people don't realize is that it's running in the background, which is a really nice aspect when it comes to security. Often, when you deploy a security tool, it takes up CPU performance. Everything slows to a grind. But Umbrella is so simple and easy and it doesn't affect the end-user experience. It's the best of all worlds. It's nice when people realize that they're being protected when they go to the wrong site. I think people are happy that they're protected, but it's nice that they rarely notice it. It's generally easy to maintain network connectivity, but with Umbrella, the nice part is that whichever connectivity you're on, you're always secure. With Umbrella, as long as you're online, you're going to be protected.

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Santiago Gomez

Cio at a security firm with 11-50 employees

Has improved the organization's PCI compliance with data loss prevention

I use the solution on a Macintosh computer and it has issues and does not work when I try to log in from the Safari Browser, but it works fine when I log in from the Google Chrome browser. The console has issues when the login is done through a Safari Browser. The console has to be more competitive and the compatibility of the browser needs to be better. I want to know about Skyhigh's competitiveness with other brands and about the vulnerability assessment and micro segmentations. I know Skyhigh has other products, but right now, I am studying what this new product is about. They only have English support, so I would like for them to add some Spanish support.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

"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."

"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."

More iboss pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its reliability."

"We've found it to be stable and good for our customers."

"Umbrella, being one pane for managing, being all-encompassing, allows us to quickly go in, make a change, and it applies to either every location, if we want it to, or we can have policies in place that only apply to certain users or certain computers."

"Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers."

"I like the DNS layer security."

"The solution is very easy to manage. We found the initial setup, for example, to be quite simple."

"The core business of Cisco Umbrella is non-malware. That's all it does: block the malware on the gateway."

"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

"I like the encrypted disk feature and the endpoint protection."

"We have gained a deep insight into our Shadow IT usage as well as the different activities involved in Office 365."

"Improves creation of security alerts on web proxy logs by having a separate system interpret said logs."

"It also prevents you from writing data to your Gmail and does not allow you to move your data outside of the corporate system. That is the most important feature for me."

"The risk rating of each cloud application has been very useful. Whenever we discover a new application is use, we are able to quickly determine if this application is safe to use and whether or not we should allow our end users to be able to access it."

"All the information available on each service, including its risk assessment."

"The initial setup is fairly straightforward and easy to perform."

"What I found most valuable in Skyhigh Security is its stability. The solution also has good KB articles that make it simple for users to do the deployment of Skyhigh Security themselves, without the need for integrators."

More Skyhigh Security pros

Cons

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."

"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."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More iboss cons

"In my experience with Umbrella support, sometimes the response times take a bit more time than we would like... sometimes, if you go through email, it can take quite a while to get a response."

"We would like to see the enhancements made to the EDR, as we see features that are running endpoint management."

"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."

"It would be useful if they had a malware protection engine running inside their own VM."

"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."

"I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market."

"I'd like to see improvement in its overall integration with all the other platforms. There's some integration between Umbrella and Meraki, but an overall Cisco problem is that there are so many different tools, and finding easy, seamless ways of connecting everything together is always a challenge."

"The prices need to go lower. The price of technology is just crazy."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

"I think that the User Interface could be improved."

"An area for improvement in Skyhigh Security is its UI. It needs to be enhanced and made more user-friendly. Right now, the UI of Skyhigh Security is sometimes confusing. For example, my company is deploying Skyhigh Security for a client and integrating it on the cloud, from an on-premises deployment to a hybrid deployment. Though the experience isn't bad, there needs to be more enhancements. Another room for improvement in Skyhigh Security is the limited training resources, especially when you compare it with Cisco, which has many study materials in the market, even free training resources. You'll get limited resources if you search for Skyhigh Security tutorials on Google and YouTube. Because of high-security requirements and the training material for Skyhigh Security not being available, most engineers and architects avoid the product because there'd be a lack of knowledge in configuring and achieving the goals you'd want to reach via the use of Skyhigh Security. The NOC team deploying the product is having difficulty getting training resources for Skyhigh Security. You'll be charged an enormous amount if you search the market for training because of the limited resources available. Skyhigh Security needs to work on marketing and awareness as an improvement to the product."

"They could be integrated with CASB. I think normally McAfee has this solution in the cloud, but for us the best is on-premise."

"The virtual solution requires improvement."

"The cloud needs improvement with respect to DLP."

"MVISION Cloud is not well known and there should be more information about the solution. There could be integration to local applications."

"It is an expensive solution."

"Support for securing more cloud apps."

More Skyhigh Security cons

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."

"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 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."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."

"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."

"In terms of licensing, we're not able to be extremely clear with the customer because it's based on their reporting. It's not based on the actual traffic. If they say they have 50 users but they have 80, we'll just buy for 50 users. That's something where we'd like to have more flexibility."

"The pricing is pretty fair. It's 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."

"Cisco Umbrella is not a cheap product. However, it's not a matter of the cost; it's more a matter of the value of security. It is easy to measure this value when you have a security incident. I think the price is a good trade-off for a product that can help you avoid security threats."

"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."

"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

"The solution is quite expensive. As we take add-ons continuously as per our customer's requirements, there are additional charges."

"The tool is not expensive."

"There is an annual licensing cost to use McAfee Web Gateway. The purchasing of licensing can be difficult for the government sector."

"Skyhigh provided a FedRAMP solution, tokenization, a better shadow IT capability, and lower cost."

"Pricing is not out of reach."

"There is a license required to use this solution and it is paid annually. The price is reasonable."

"This is an expensive product, although it is made for larger enterprises and not for small organizations."

"The licensing fees are based on what environments you are monitoring."

More Skyhigh Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

53%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?

Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.

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What needs improvement with iboss?

Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctl...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

We used it for student and faculty filtering on campus.

See all answers

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...

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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...

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What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?

Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.

See all answers

What do you like most about McAfee Web Gateway?

Data loss prevention and user behavior analysis are two valuable features.

See all answers

What needs improvement with McAfee Web Gateway?

The solution has room for improvement in its DDoS protection. Additionally, the documentation needs enhancement to pr...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for McAfee Web Gateway?

The typical use case for our clients is cloud security.

See all answers

Comparisons

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 18% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Cloudflare One vs iboss

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 18% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 10% of the time

Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Umbrella Competitors

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Skyhigh Security

Compared 16% of the time

Netskope vs Skyhigh Security

Compared 13% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Skyhigh Security

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Skyhigh Security

Compared 4% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Skyhigh Security

Compared 4% of the time

More Skyhigh Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Skyhigh Security

March 2025

Download Skyhigh Security product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

OpenDNS

McAfee MVISION Cloud, McAfee MVISION Unified Cloud Edge, McAfee Web Gateway, McAfee MVISION CNAPP, and Skyhigh Networks, McAfee Web Gateway

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

iboss

Demo not available

Cisco

Skyhigh Security

Overview

iboss offers a comprehensive security platform designed for diverse use cases such as web filtering, data loss protection, corporate proxy services, and URL filtering.

iboss integrates advanced features to address dynamic security needs, leveraging its strength in SASE, ZTNA, AI initiatives, and cloud integration, while ensuring seamless operations for remote work. It excels in historical forensics, malware protection, and flexible cloud deployments. Users benefit from comprehensive traffic scanning, robust malware detection, and PaaS capabilities that reduce hardware management. An intuitive admin console ensures efficient management with content filtering and low false positives. SSL decryption enhances security, while DLP protects data in AI conversations. Deployment is rapid and scalable, allowing effortless integration with emerging technologies.

What features does iboss offer?

Granular Web Filtering: Provides precise control over web content access.
Traffic Scanning: Monitors data through multiple ports for security breaches.
Malware Detection: Ensures superior protection against malware threats.
PaaS Capabilities: Eliminates need for hardware management.
SSL Decryption: Enhances data protection by decrypting secure connections.
DLP Capabilities: Safeguards data during AI interactions.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Scalability: Adapts quickly to growing demands and emerging tech integration.
Rapid Deployment: Reduces time to implement security measures.
User-Friendly Admin Console: Facilitates efficient operations management.
Low False Positives: Increases accuracy of threat detection systems.

iboss finds significant application in sectors such as education, where web filtering for K-12 is crucial, and in corporate environments requiring robust proxy services and URL filtering for network security. Its adaptability is essential in scenarios demanding flexible, decentralized security frameworks, particularly for remote work setups.

iboss

Cisco Umbrella delivers rapid DNS security with over 30,000 customers, providing outstanding threat protection and handling more than 600 billion requests daily. It's recognized for high threat efficacy in the SSE domain and integrates elements like SWG, ZTNA, CASB, and more.

Cisco Umbrella is renowned for its effective DNS-layer security against ransomware and phishing. It offers flexible content filtering and integrates seamlessly with existing networks while providing single-pane-of-glass management for centralized monitoring. Its robust threat intelligence and customizable policies are central to its appeal. Users highlight room for improvement in areas like WHOIS data inclusion, malware enhancement, and reporting analytics. Integration with other threat feeds and better client support are requested for more comprehensive coverage.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS-Layer Security: Blocks malicious domains, preventing ransomware attacks.
Web Content Filtering: Allows users to manage lists for strict content control.
Seamless Integration: Blends with systems like Active Directory and Meraki.
Remote Protection: Keeps remote users safe across different locations.
Single-Pane Management: Facilitates effective monitoring and reporting.

What should users expect in reviews about Cisco Umbrella?

Threat Intelligence: Provides comprehensive malware and attack data.
Customizable Policies: Enables tailored security measures for users.
Integration Options: Works with diverse systems for holistic security.
Ease of Use: Offers a straightforward experience for administrators.
Remote Worker Security: Ensures protection outside traditional networks.

Industries implement Cisco Umbrella primarily for DNS-level security, web filtering, and protecting remote employees. It strengthens cybersecurity frameworks by blocking malware and avoiding access to harmful sites. The tool is widely integrated with Active Directory and Cisco Meraki, providing consistent internet security for employees.

Cisco

Skyhigh Security protects organizations with cloud-based Zero Trust security solutions that are both data-aware and simple to use. Skyhigh’s Security Service Edge portfolio goes beyond data access and focuses on data use, allowing organizations to collaborate from any device and from anywhere without sacrificing security, while providing the visibility and control required to monitor and mitigate security risks.

The Skyhigh Security Service Edge portfolio includes Skyhigh Secure Web Gateway, Skyhigh Cloud Access Security Broker, Skyhigh Private Access, and Skyhigh Cloud Native Application Protection Platform. All solutions form a fully converged, consolidated platform, and are managed from the same single console.

Skyhigh Cloud Access Security Broker protects data and stops threats in the cloud across SaaS, and PaaS, and IaaS environments from a single, cloud-native enforcement point. It enables organizations to accelerate their business by giving them visibility and control over their data in the cloud and protection from threats with a frictionless deployment model.
Skyhigh Secure Web Gateway connects and secures your workforce from malicious websites and cloud apps from anywhere, any application, and any device. It protects users from threats and data loss with integrated Remote Browser Isolation, Cloud Access Security Broker and Data Loss Prevention capabilities while providing the ability to access the web and cloud.
Skyhigh Private Access is the data centric Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solution that provides integrated Data Loss Prevention scanning and seamless Remote Browser Isolation integration for robust data protection, using Zero Trust principles. Apply a unified policy across web, SaaS, and private apps.
Skyhigh Cloud Native Application Protection Platform is the industry’s first platform to extend Cloud Access Security Broker, bringing application and data context to converge Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) with IaaS Data Loss Prevention for IaaS public clouds. Skyhigh CNAPP provides consistent data protection, threat prevention, governance, and compliance throughout the cloud-native application development lifecycle.

Skyhigh Security Benefits

Modern Data Protection. Extensible data protection policies to determine what can be accessed, shared, and how it can be used.
Zero Trust for the Cloud. Extend zero trust to the cloud ensuring that your sensitive data is accessed, shared, and stored appropriately.
Actionable Insights. Unified view of data and risk, regardless of where and how the policy is enforced.

Skyhigh Security Features

99.999% Uptime. Connects users seamlessly and without disruption through Hyperscale Service Edge with cloud-native web security that operates with ultra-low latency and 99.999% uptime.
Remote Browser Isolation. Prevents threats of a web page from reaching endpoints with intelligent, multi-layer remote browser isolation technology that provides secure web browsing through robust machine learning analysis on real-time telemetry.
Cloud Registry. The world’s largest and most accurate registry of cloud services based on a customizable 261-point risk assessment to support risk-aware cloud governance.

Skyhigh Security

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

Western Union.Aetna.DirecTV.Adventist.Equinix.Perrigo.Goodyear.HP.Cargill.Sony.Bank of the West.Prudential.

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. Skyhigh Security

April 2025

Free Report: Cisco Umbrella vs. Skyhigh Security

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Skyhigh Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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See our list of best Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) vendors, best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors, and best Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) vendors.

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