Cisco Umbrella vs Zscaler Internet Access comparison

Cisco and Zscaler are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Cisco is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.2, while Zscaler is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6. Cisco holds a 10.9% mindshare in WSG, compared to Zscaler’s 10.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

Zscaler Internet Access and Cisco Umbrella compete in the web security category. Zscaler Internet Access has the edge with robust web security and ease of deployment, whereas Cisco Umbrella shines with strong DNS security and integration capabilities.

Features: Zscaler Internet Access offers strong web security with website filtering, making it ideal for regions like the UAE, alongside features like DLP, CASB, and real-time threat protection. Its ease of deployment and user-friendliness are significant advantages. Cisco Umbrella provides DNS security and smooth traffic redirect capabilities, featuring ease of integration and threat intelligence through Cisco Talos, and notable API and remote browser isolation.

Room for Improvement: Zscaler Internet Access could improve its role-based access, expand data center locations, and refine pricing. Users face challenges with policy visibility and cloud app support. Cisco Umbrella could enhance policy options and improve API integration, with noted demands for expanded firewall features and better support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zscaler Internet Access is stable and user-friendly, though its technical support could improve in response time. Cisco Umbrella is noted for seamless deployment but requires careful integration for full connectivity, with varied support experiences.

Pricing and ROI: Zscaler Internet Access is perceived as costly for SMEs but offers extensive features that justify the price for large enterprises, providing favorable ROI through managed services. Cisco Umbrella has competitive pricing, especially in bundles with other Cisco products, offering integrated security and ease of deployment to alleviate cost concerns.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Umbrella vs. Zscaler Internet Access Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. Zscaler Internet Access

April 2026

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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 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
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella	10.9%
Zscaler Internet Access	10.9%
iboss	2.8%
Other	75.4%

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula

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.

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Bryan Bettencourt

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.

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Mohan Janarthanan

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.

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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."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

"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."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

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

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."

"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."

"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"

More iboss pros

"When we have laptops that leave the building, they could connect to public WiFi before they establish a VPN connection back into the company. For that duration or that period of time when they're not docked in the network or on a VPN, they effectively don't have that full layer of security that I provide inside the building. This tool stands in during that period of time, and we extend the security settings through their basic firewall or their cloud-based firewall at that time. So, we do content filtering and control access, but they also are looking at new domains, IP addresses, and bad requests. They're blocking them on my behalf when a laptop is not sitting behind our security appliances."

"Umbrella has helped my IT staff in two ways. First, our security team was able to get more insights into the users, their devices, and the sites they browse. Second, our system administration team was able to manage DNS resolutions in a way that is more accessible and less intrusive to our domain system."

"Cisco is a very efficient and on-point solution that controls the whole network and settings on one page. We can monitor the entire network."

"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."

"My overall rating for Cisco Umbrella is ten out of ten."

"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."

"Cisco Umbrella has improved our organization in the sense that we have more users working from home because of the pandemic."

"We use various types of Umbrella and I'd recommend the solution as one of the best on the market that works well in different environments and is extremely easy to deploy."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

"We have seen an ROI; this is a well published product, and you get value for your money."

"Zscaler Internet Access's best feature is the granular policy controls."

"The solution replaces multiple vendor technologies with one which makes it worth the cost."

"The protection is most valuable."

"Zscaler covers all the features needed to replace a VPN or proxy solution; they are good, and they've been on the market for 15 years now, so they are mature enough."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to drop packets."

"We don't have to buy equipment to use it. And when our engineers set it up on our side, we just configured a few settings and we were in."

"Zscaler covers all the features needed to replace a VPN or proxy solution. They are good. They've been on the market for 15 years now, so they are mature enough."

More Zscaler Internet Access pros

Cons

"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."

"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."

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

"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."

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."

"Its pricing could be better."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."

More iboss cons

"Client delivery and client updates should be improved. Client delivery was not as easy as expected. Another area for improvement is the integration of escalation procedures for security issues."

"It would be better if there was a little bit of flexibility for organizations that don't have SD One in their environment. Because of the complexity of the environment, it's not easy to actually turn on the feature of the secure internet gateway for our users."

"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."

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

"The product has been rejected by business due to the pricing; no ROI as such."

"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."

"It needs better integration with external threat feeds to improve scoring."

"I would like to have the ability to prevent certain sites/data from showing on the reports."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

"One thing that they could improve is the ability to import rules from other platforms."

"Zscaler Internet Access's troubleshooting is very limited, and their textbook logs need to be more informative."

"The response time and engagement model for technical support could be improved to handle complex outages more efficiently."

"I don't know whether it's Zscaler or not, however, sometimes I can't access my time management. I need to wait and try again a few hours later. Typically, if I let some time pass, I can access it again."

"They should enhance the audit reporting feature."

"The pricing is an issue. It is expensive if you have all of your users in the same location."

"If they can also integrate with the multi-factor authentication to prompt users to do another, second-factor authentication, that would be ideal."

"The tool should improve the predefined dictionaries."

More Zscaler Internet Access cons

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."

"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 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."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"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 price should be slightly lower than the current price because if you look at the whole solution, it is simply a threat intelligence solution to block blacklisted things. The price should be lower looking at the features provided by the solution. The price isn't too high either, but it could be lower."

"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."

"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."

"I think it's worth the money."

"Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."

"There is a subscription cost."

"The pricing was marvelous."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

"The price is competitive. It's not cheap and it's not expensive."

"It is quite expensive. It does its job, but it is quite expensive for what we need."

"The pricing is an issue. It is expensive compared to other firewalls on the market."

"ZIA follows a subscription model pricing and charges you based on the number of users. I would say its price is good."

"It is costlier than other solutions."

"The solution is a little bit expensive. On a scale of one to five, I would rate it as a three."

"The price of Zscaler Internet Access should improve, it is expensive."

"The pricing is fair based on its competitive market."

More Zscaler Internet Access pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	50
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	51

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	37

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...

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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.

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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...

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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 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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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 ...

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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...

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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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs iboss

Compared 5% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Palo Alto Networks DNS Security vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 3% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 3% of the time

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 1% of the time

More Cisco Umbrella Competitors

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 10% of the time

Netskope vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 4% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 2% of the time

More Zscaler Internet Access Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

April 2026

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella

April 2026

Download Cisco Umbrella product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Internet Access

March 2026

Download Zscaler Internet Access product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

OpenDNS

ZIA

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

Cisco Umbrella provides fast-deploying DNS-layer security with powerful threat protection capabilities. Trusted by over 30,000 entities, it ranks highly in DNS security and effectively supports secure remote work environments.

Cisco Umbrella offers comprehensive DNS security, web filtering, and ease of use, enhancing network security through robust threat protection and malware prevention. It processes over 600 billion requests daily, making it a leader in its field. The seamless integration with existing infrastructures and cloud-based nature makes it suitable for remote and distributed work environments, ensuring consistent security throughout. Management is streamlined with a single-pane interface that simplifies administration, while in-depth reporting capabilities provide valuable insights for continuous monitoring.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS Security: Provides leading protection by managing DNS queries and blocking malicious sites.
Web Filtering: Offers granular control over web content to safeguard internet usage.
Ease of Integration: Fits well into existing infrastructures, simplifying deployment and use.
Intuitive Management: Single-pane management streamlines administration and enhances usability.
Cloud-Based Flexibility: Supports secure remote work environments.

What benefits can users expect from using Cisco Umbrella?

Superior Threat Protection: Reduces risk by effectively detecting and preventing cyber threats.
Consistent Security: Provides uniform protection across network environments.
Efficiency and Visibility: Leverages comprehensive reporting for better security insights.
Easy Deployment: Quick and straightforward setup with minimal disruption.

Cisco Umbrella is widely adopted in industries requiring advanced DNS-level security to counteract malware, phishing, and cyber threats. Its ability to monitor and protect remote and roaming employees makes it an attractive option for sectors highly dependent on cloud services. By managing DNS queries and blocking harmful sites, Cisco Umbrella enhances cybersecurity across networks, providing an added layer of protection for businesses worldwide.

Cisco

Zscaler Internet Access is a cloud-native security service edge (SSE) platform. Its main purpose is to provide AI-powered protection for all users, all applications, and all locations. The solution replaces other legacy network security solutions to stop advanced attacks and prevent data loss by using a comprehensive zero trust approach.

Zscaler Internet Access Features

Zscaler Internet Access has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Proxy (native SSL)
IPS and advanced protection
Cloud sandbox
DNS security
Cloud firewall
URL filtering
Bandwidth control
DNS filtering
Cloud DLP w/EDM and IDM
Cloud access security broker (CASB)
Cloud security posture management (CSPM)
CloudBrowser isolation
Cloud secure web gateway (SWG)
Zero trust network access (ZTNA)
Digital experience monitoring

Zscaler Internet Access Benefits

There are several benefits to implementing Zscaler Internet Access. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Fast access with zero infrastructure: Zscaler Internet Access creates a fast, seamless user experience because of its direct-to-cloud architecture. With no infrastructure, Zscaler Internet Access helps you eliminate backhauling, which improves performance and simplifies network administration.

Threat intelligence: By using threat intelligence, Zscaler Internet Access can stop ransomware, zero-day malware, and advanced attacks via Inline inspection of all internet traffic, including SSL decryption, and a suite of AI-powered cloud security services.

Consistent security: With Zscaler Internet Access, your security policy goes everywhere your users go. When you move security to the cloud, all users, applications, devices, and locations remain protected and secure based on identity and context.

Hybrid workforce: Zscaler Internet Access enables secure access to all external and internal apps from anywhere, so remote work is not an issue. You can also enforce business policies that follow the user, making security identical regardless of location.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Zscaler Internet Access users.

A Service Manager at a construction company says, "There are a bunch of different capabilities that are valuable within the platform. We use quite a lot of them, but not everything. The ones that are most important to us are the URL Filtering and the application control. For our needs, the cloud-native proxy architecture is a very good solution. This architecture helps with cyber threats because we inspect most of the traffic and we can see that a lot of threats are stopped directly in the secure web gateway."

Owen N., Security Architect at Claro Enterprise Solutions, explains that the solution’s most valuable features include “The integration of the gateway that inspects all ports and protocols. So, there is threat prevention; The cloud sandbox; VNS security; Access control that will protect URL filtering and the cloud firewall; Data protection that will protect your gateway, like your CASB or your cloud DLP; The capabilities of this will point your traffic to Zscaler Cloud.”

An Architecture Senior Manager at an insurance company mentions, "The data loss prevention feature is the most valuable. It stops our users from inadvertently leaking our customers' data to the Internet or anywhere else it shouldn't go." He also adds, “The solution provides quick access to cloud services, securing our data and allowing us to inspect all our traffic.”

Zscaler

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. Zscaler Internet Access

April 2026

Free Report: Cisco Umbrella vs. Zscaler Internet Access

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