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Cisco Umbrella vs Zscaler Internet Access 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 Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
5th
Ranking in Internet Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Ranking in Internet Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Zscaler Internet Access
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
3rd
Ranking in Internet Security
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.8%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 10.9%, down from 19.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Internet Access is 10.9%, down from 15.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella10.9%
Zscaler Internet Access10.9%
iboss2.8%
Other75.4%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

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.
Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
User access management and threat prevention are enhanced with user-friendly controls
The best features Zscaler Internet Access offers include application control, tenant segregation, and PoP center regions which have low availability zones. The internet access is very successful and bandwidth speed is excellent. It also has application-based control, URL-based control, and SSL inspection capabilities, which are very useful. Additionally, the in-depth CASB segregation is very beneficial to us. One unique feature I found helpful is the tenant level restrictions, which we use to only access our organization's tenant level mail IDs, drives, and specific tenant level access while restricting public access. Zscaler Internet Access has positively impacted our organization as we have noticed substantial outputs and income. It has improved our security environment control and endpoint protection. It prevents numerous web attacks through its AI/ML incorporated capability which identifies malware, threats, and viruses. It has a toggle button to enable features entirely at the tenant level for all users onboarded into Zscaler Internet Access, resulting in much better outcomes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"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."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"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 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."
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"I think recently with many people working from home, Cisco Umbrella has been very useful, for example, we can manage the device and the network when the employee is not working on the local host, and Cisco Umbrella is very valuable for this kind of infrastructure."
"For me, it's important that I get a connection to my corporate network in a secure and fast way. This product just runs in the background and doesn't need any attention. For me, as a user, it's perfect."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is really important. In today's era, administration costs and operational expenses will cost you a lot, and it reduces that as well. You don't need extra resources to manage all your parameter firewalls, looking at every single device to allow resources internal access. By just introducing the single-pane-of-glass management, it has lifted the burden off of management, especially the network management."
"Overall, it has been pretty helpful for what we're using it for."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"I like that it integrates with the infrastructure, and I also like the kind of data and intelligence that's built-in, as it helps create innovative reports for security."
"We like Cisco Umbrella because of DNS security. It's one step ahead of whatever we are using for regular web filtering. In that way, it's more secure than other web filtering products."
"The most valuable feature for us is the DNS-based protection."
"One feature that is valuable to me from an implementation point of view is that it's very easy to implement."
"Whether you are in a hotel somewhere, or in Africa, it does not matter. You will get the Zscaler protection presence anywhere."
"Since this is a cloud based product, we don't have to bother about the hardware or physical status and space."
"Zscaler excels in security protection and the cloud is always up-to-date."
"We like Zscaler's traffic filtering, web security, DLP, and IPS features. The real-time threat protection is excellent."
"Zscaler Internet Access protects using data loss prevention. If you have a CASB exposing your cloud out into the network, then Zscaler Internet Access will go ahead and control that unknown cloud application in the CASB, protecting it. There is also data detection with exact data match. This improves the data coming into your cloud so you are protecting it."
"I would recommend Zscaler Internet Access due to its ease of use and deployment, with a user-friendly interface."
"The users are at different locations, and Zscaler helps us to put the organization's central security controls on these roaming users."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"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 the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"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."
"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."
"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."
"The solution could be faster as the process is very slow."
"The integration with other solutions is a little complex. If you want to integrate with something like ArcSight or LogRhythm or Splunk, you need to do a lot of configuration."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"The reporting could be improved by way of the information that's displayed."
"If you wish to inspect all the traffic and it's integrated with Cisco AnyConnect, all the traffic basically goes through Cisco AnyConnect, which is not a good idea. That means you need to have more internet capacity as a data sampler, so in the case of a split tunnel, we cannot inspect the traffic that is being migrated through the local internet. I'm not sure whether there is a possibility wherein Cisco Umbrella can also inspect the traffic that is outside the AnyConnect tunnel."
"If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it. Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud."
"Initially there were issues in terms of stability and improved a lot now."
"The current reports can, therefore, be somewhat improved and simplified."
"Zscaler Internet Access's troubleshooting is very limited, and their textbook logs need to be more informative."
"In terms of usage, here in the GCC, it's still growing a growing market, so the combination of DLP, data leak prevention, to a certain extent is fine. But what it requires is user-based access or role-based access. The solution needs to grow into that, which definitely takes time. There's not an easy way to integrate it, when you have a cloud-based solution."
"We'd like for them to include some sort of antivirus tool."
"The admin UI and documentation for Zscaler Internet Access could be more intuitive for new users, specifically during initial rollout and advanced policy design."
"With the pricing structure that they currently have, it is only for big customers."
"The tool should improve the predefined dictionaries."
 

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."
"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 overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"I think it's worth the money."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"Cisco uses subscription models for the pricing and there are three subscription plans."
"In the region I'm from, that of EMAR, Europe, the Middle East, Eastern Asia and Africa, our organizations do not have many liquid cash assets, so the price could be better."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"There are multiple bundles: enterprise, business, and transformation. Transformation includes all the features, but recently I've seen a few more line items that are additional costs. Overall, it's expensive."
"Because it's a cloud solution, we pay on a yearly basis. It is affordable and includes tech support and all features."
"It is a few pounds per user per month."
"Our monthly fee is around R3000."
"Zscaler is transparent about its pricing model."
"We have found the solution to be expensive."
"The pricing is fair based on its competitive market."
"The price is competitive. It's not cheap and it's not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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 Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise37
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
iboss can increase security in cyberspace. I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they a...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss for corporate VPN and all the corporate VRF, with basically all user traffic proxying to the internet.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...
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...
Which is better, Zscaler internet access or Netsckope CASB?
We researched Netskope but ultimately chose Zscaler. Netskope is a cloud access security broker that helps identify ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Internet Access?
It is only for big companies currently and they only focus on that. That is one of the problems to get into the marke...
What needs improvement with Zscaler Internet Access?
The admin UI and documentation for Zscaler Internet Access could be more intuitive for new users, specifically during...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
ZIA
 

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
Ulster-Greene ARC, BanRegio, HDFC, Ralcorp Holdings Inc., British American Tobacco, Med America Billing Services Inc., Lanco Group, Aquafil, Telefonica, Swisscom, Brigade Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Zscaler Internet Access and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
889,855 professionals have used our research since 2012.