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Cisco Umbrella vs Skyhigh Security vs iboss comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 10.2%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iboss is 1.7%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skyhigh Security is 1.8%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

Featured Reviews

Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures internet navigation safety and boosts productivity
The features of Cisco Umbrella I prefer most are DNS protection and traffic redirect. With Cisco Talos's threat intelligence, we reduce the impact of malware traffic in our network, and we currently see the behavior of equipment and choose the correct sites. Cisco Talos has helped us reduce the impact of malware traffic. We can see the behavior and choose the correct sites. We're currently testing secure access with Umbrella in order to secure access to core applications. It's a product that the user doesn't even know is there, even though it is protecting them. It's not hard on the equipment. And, for us, it centralizes everything, which improves productivity. With the Experience Insights feature of Cisco Secure Access, we've seen impacts on the management of user connectivity by allowing us to deliver safe connectivity. We are testing the Secure Access product with Cisco Umbrella to improve our connectivity with our users in order to secure access to the corporate applications. Cisco Umbrella is in the cloud, which is nice.
Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Santiago Gomez - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"​They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. ​​"
"Meraki features and cloud-based functionality are advanced and easy to manage centrally."
"Some clients only want DNS security, while others want more of the advanced features that it has available."
"The agent that gets installed on the endpoints or on people's laptops and devices is a Cisco AnyConnect Umbrella module. It's one of the most impressive things because you are able to protect your users anywhere they are."
"The reports and notifications are the most useful part of the platform. As soon as you deploy the security layers, the reporting is very comprehensive. It helps you to have, at a glance, a clear view of what's going on."
"It makes it really easy to accomplish content filtering. We don't have to do a lot of customization. You just click the box for the content category and it's up to date."
"There is much differentiation within the licensing so if anyone wants DNS security from the DNS security log, we are there already, and if anyone wants to go to a secure internet gateway, that is also available. We can get the integrated cloud DLP license keys. That is a good benefit with Cisco Umbrella. You can get a complete solution in a single licensing."
"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"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 solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"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."
"The solution performs well."
"They were very, very aggressive in the market to get a new market share or to take over market share while other companies were being broken up."
"Box API features with DLP capabilities."
"The management is very good."
"Skyhigh Security is user-friendly in terms of configuration and UI."
"A stable solution with good support."
"The threat protection capabilities are very strong."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward and easy to perform."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a graphical representation of the entire network."
"I would like them to make some videos, practical videos, the kind with steps that people can use to learn and deploy"
"There are a couple of different pieces that have different portals. I know they're working on getting them all into one portal, but that's probably the biggest thing that needs improvement right now. It's not a single pane of glass yet."
"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 faced an issue regarding virtual appliances (VAs) during deployment. They could improve the quality and management of the virtual appliances offered right now. You can't see much because it is a Linux machine, and they have customized it. You don't have any route access to the machine, only seeing limited things in it. When we opened a ticket, they didn't know much about VAs themselves. So, that is where it is lacking right now. I know this will improve in the long run."
"Cisco Umbrella could be improved by making the policies more granular, as in some cases, it's difficult to find the correct link to open a specific site securely."
"Some countries don't have a DNS server leading to a domain resolution IP, not at a local level."
"Although Cisco Umbrella has an excellent global network footprint, there is still room for improvement and growth in this area. Additionally, there are bandwidth limitations associated with the connectors that need to be addressed. To be a viable solution for larger offices, Cisco Umbrella must continue to expand and improve its capabilities in these areas."
"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."
"Its pricing could be better."
"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."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"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."
"I think that the User Interface could be improved."
"Though the Skyhigh Dashboard is processing large amounts of data, the speed of the Dashboard could be improved."
"They only have English support, so I would like for them to add some Spanish support."
"De-tokenization."
"It needs to be more user-friendly, as it is a little bit complicated to use."
"MVISION Cloud is not well known and there should be more information about the solution. There could be integration to local applications."
"One area for improvement I've seen in Skyhigh Security is that it lacks support for unsanctioned applications, where customers have their applications. Those applications do not come from Microsoft or other popular vendors. For example, Microsoft has support for Teams and it has support for OneDrive, but it doesn't have support for custom applications built by customers. Customers have internal teams building and publishing applications to the external world, but Skyhigh Security doesn't have support for those applications, and this is the main problem I've seen. The solution only supports a pool of applications that are from Microsoft and other major SaaS vendors. McAfee doesn't provide support for custom applications, compared to other vendors who provide it. For example, Bitglass and Netskope both have support for custom applications. Another area for improvement in Skyhigh Security is that its API support is a little weak. I also have not seen a strong integration between the solution and other McAfee products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"The price could be lower."
"You can request an evaluation license​."
"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"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 is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"Pricing is not out of reach."
"Skyhigh provided a FedRAMP solution, tokenization, a better shadow IT capability, and lower cost."
"Pricing for Skyhigh Security is okay, though there's always a scope for price improvements. Its pricing is okay compared to other products because other products have very expensive licensing costs. Along with the licensing, support is also provided for Skyhigh Security, so pricing is reasonable, but if there's proactive or better support, that will justify the pricing. I haven't interacted with the Skyhigh Security technical support team yet, so I'd give pricing a four out of five rating for now."
"They definitely charge a huge amount. All the security service providers charge a huge amount."
"There is a license required to use this solution and it is paid annually. The price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is good and we pay an annual license."
"Have a risk-based approach towards pricing."
"The biggest thing to watch for is the difference in price per monitored user for the different API integrations."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
35%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...
What do you like most about McAfee Web Gateway?
Data loss prevention and user behavior analysis are two valuable features.
What needs improvement with McAfee Web Gateway?
The solution has room for improvement in its DDoS protection. Additionally, the documentation needs enhancement to pr...
What is your primary use case for McAfee Web Gateway?
The typical use case for our clients is cloud security.
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
iBoss Cloud Platform
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
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Western Union.Aetna.DirecTV.Adventist.Equinix.Perrigo.Goodyear.HP.Cargill.Sony.Bank of the West.Prudential.
Find out what your peers are saying about Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and others in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). Updated: June 2025.
858,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.