Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Umbrella vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 7, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
10th
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (20th), Internet Security (8th), Web Content Filtering (5th), ZTNA as a Service (14th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
2nd
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
4th
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (4th), Application Control (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (8th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Jack Hamm - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 20, 2024
We experienced benefits immediately but the report generation is lagging
iboss excels on the networking side but lags slightly behind competitors like Zscaler and Netskope in terms of security feature parity. I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention. Using iboss for DLP instead of traditional endpoint solutions is preferable, but its current feature set requires some clunky workarounds. I'd also like to see better integration of DLP into the platform. Additionally, while it's improving, reporting can be slow at times. This is problematic when generating reports for executives who expect them immediately. I'd like to see further improvements in reporting speed and efficiency.
Rohan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 26, 2022
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.
Vikram Srirama. - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 4, 2023
A VPN alternative that delivers a zero trust model
The primary use cases for the Zscaler include secure channel access for applications, private file service access, and remote connectivity to the active directory. These are the top three essential functionalities provided by Zscaler Previously, we utilized HubSpot, which required connecting to…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"The security and access control features."
"I was able to implement it myself. It was really easy to install. You could install it on a server locally if you want to. If you have the biggest site, you would do that, but for my site, it was just directing all the traffic out through the Cisco Umbrella DNS. It was really handy. When the owners of the company went overseas, I knew that they would be secure because even if they were not on the company network, they would still go through the Cisco Umbrella servers. It was a complete solution for protecting the company with outgoing data."
"It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution."
"Stability-wise, it's good. I have never encountered any bugs."
"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."
"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."
"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 features for us include tenant lock, content filtering, and DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated."
"Has a good zero trust feature."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The best feature is the ability to establish the connection between your public network and automatically connect to the intranet connection."
"The in-line DLP feature is one of the most vital features"
"Zscaler Cloud DLP provides you with basic DLP features that you get out of the box such as keywords, regular expressions, and data identifiers, for example, your social security numbers, and credit card numbers, with everything built into the product, so you can directly use those features within the policies. You don't need to create it from scratch, and to me, this is the biggest benefit of Zscaler Cloud DLP. You have a lot of templates to choose from in the solution, rather than having to create templates from scratch or reinvent templates."
"I like the web filtering capabilities."
"The product's most valuable features are cloud-based services and secure internet access. We don't have to set up any physical appliances."
"The most valuable features of Zscaler CASB are API integration and DLP."
 

Cons

"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"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."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."
"Security, overall, can always be improved."
"I would like to see DLP integration in the next release of this solution."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better."
"I would like to see integration with SecurNX in the future."
"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"It would be useful if they had a malware protection engine running inside their own VM."
"You won't find anything that can help you with the configuration part and other areas related to the product if you search for proper or exact details of Zscaler Cloud DLP online in very easy language."
"They should work on a replica account. There could be alerts and replica files sent to the DLP team during data collection."
"It has massive room for improvement. The Zscaler product itself is okay, but it doesn't give enough granularity for us as an organization to stipulate rules or processes, especially for data-driven services. For instance, we can stick on SSL inspection, but it's just a click box. It doesn't allow us to go any further into the detail of the SSL inspection. We also can't pull it out without having an additional logging server. It just doesn't give us enough granularity. They should give us more control over the interfaces because it is all backend. They weren't very open to discussing their backend architecture with us in terms of their own data centers. They can maybe a little bit more open about what components are there and how the backend infrastructure works alongside Zscaler. Its licensing can be better. Some of the additional licensing costs are quite high, and they should have certain features ready and available as a baseline rather than having to purchase additional licenses for it. Their support should also be improved. I initially had a consultant from Zscaler for its deployment, but the support that I had throughout the deployment of the project wasn't the best."
"Occasionally, issues arise in the LogStack by a third party, particularly for government websites accessed by numerous users."
"The solution needs to improve a lot of aspects."
"Occasionally, there are certain delays in report generation."
"We faced certain migration and implementation challenges in executing the tasks, so I would suggest improvement related to the stability of the solution."
"The DX layer could be better if it had improved visibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"As an educational partner, we get better licensing structures. We are very happy with that. It has been very nice that Cisco has partnered with the educational sector to bring that."
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"When talking about Cisco solutions in general there pricing model is horrible. For example, you can sell a Meraki-based solution, but if the customer starts shopping around, someone is going to have access to the pricing at a level that you cannot compete because they do not have uniform pricing. Not everybody gets fair pricing. Unless you are one of the real major corporations selling the solution your ability to compete is impossible. Cisco will acknowledge the situation and assure you next time it will be in your favor but it never becomes favorable for you. Cisco is not very good in this regard. However, Umbrella is good."
"The price is quite good."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The pricing was marvelous."
"In terms of market positioning, I would describe Zscaler Private Access as offering optimal pricing. Based on our experience, Cato Networks tends to be slightly more expensive."
"The solution has increased prices this year."
"My company is a Zscaler Private Access partner, so the customers pay for the license fees."
"The technical support is good."
"There is definitely an ROI."
"Zscaler Cloud DLP is moderately priced. We pay around 2 million rupees per year."
"In the long run, cloud services are not inherently costly."
"It's expensive currently. But when purchasing for a large number of users, there's room to negotiate. It's really up to the procurement team."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) solutions are best for your needs.
812,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

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.
What needs improvement with iboss?
A positive improvement would be to expand into more areas for product monitoring. You have an agent that resides on t...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We use it for URL filtering to enforce our enterprise Internet use policy. We use it for our current initiatives in a...
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 do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What do you like most about Zscaler SASE?
The most valuable features of Zscaler Private Access are reliability, scalability, and availability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler SASE?
Zscaler SASE is quite expensive compared to other solutions. The price is not fixed and it does not include all of th...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
Zscaler SASE, Zscaler DLP, Zscaler CASB, Zscaler CSPM, Zscaler Browser Isolation, Zscaler Posture Control
 

Learn More

 

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
Siemens, AutoNation, GE, NOV
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
812,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.