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Cisco Umbrella vs Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense 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

Domain Name System (DNS) Security
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

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
Igor Van Den Ouden - PeerSpot reviewer
A hybrid solution for DNS security with insights and security reports
The most valuable feature is policy redirecting and security reports. It detects threats and blocks them. Also, it offers DNS handling and data extraction. It provides a centralized view of connected users and incoming data sources. It is integrated via the API to different monitoring systems that send out alerts. We haven't had any false positives due to this solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature for us is the DNS-based protection."
"Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."
"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."
"Helps block personal email accounts."
"I have found the malware protection feature valuable. It is helpful and deliverable and is able to protect my entire organization from getting compromised. It also prevents us from visiting any malicious sites which are not visible to the users."
"The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Umbrella for me is the ease of use of the fact that we've deployed this with our Cisco VPN Secure Client, so every computer has the Umbrella module in it."
"You can manage and create policies based on a group of users. It can permit some URLs and block others."
"I haven't needed to reboot the servers for years due to their excellent stability."
"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."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"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."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"The product is stable."
"Our ability to detect data exfiltration was minimal before Infoblox and the cloud portal was instituted for us. In terms of DNS security as a whole, we had some capability with our firewalls, but this is a lot more specialized because we're sending all of our DNS requests to Infoblox. I'd say we improved 100%."
"Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense furthers the existing security posture rather than replacing or trying to replace any existing products."
"The most important features for us are preventing DDOS DNS attacks."
"The most valuable feature is policy redirecting and security reports."
"With the model we have, we are able to scale very easily if we need to."
"Overall, I would rate the Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense as 8.5 out of 10."
"The reporting ability is helpful. It allows us to control what our users are able to resolve, and then be able to see reports on that."
 

Cons

"Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"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."
"I would like to see more integrability with other products."
"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."
"It had the ability to do a lot of app control. So, every single app that went through that portal was registered, but there is a general issue with the whole app control. As soon as you add a mobile phone to your network, all of the apps get registered through the system, and you can approve, reject, or just let them go through. When I looked at it, it was impossible to manage app control. There was just so much data. I didn't apply that service because I just didn't have the time to manage it. It would be good if there was a way to categorize applications."
"I would like for them to continue building on IPS and IDS functionalities."
"It would be good to have more extensions to third-party products and a client for other device types."
"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."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"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."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"The documentation needs to be improved because there are a lot of different models that it can be deployed in, and it's somewhat confusing determining what you need and how to set it up to best cover your use cases."
"They could work on the UI of their website and make their website more user-friendly."
"We would like to see more reporting capabilities that are now offered only with the on-premises reporting appliance."
"The onboarding is a little rough at times, and you need to have some information at hand. It is pretty good, but it would be useful to have a few good examples to set up things like data exfiltration."
"The dashboard and reporting features need improvement. The user needs more informative dashboards so they can get to the results directly without getting deep in the report to get to the information."
"Endpoint solutions need to improved."
"The research side and the reporting side need improvement. Both of those are items on the menu. They could use a little bit of cleanup to make their respective information more easily understood."
"This is not just Infoblox, this could be any portal provider, cloud provider, sometimes they change the look of the customer-facing options and it's not completely clear why they make the change."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"I am not sure, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think it's $1.00 or so per device/month."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"The pricing model is easier compared to some of the other solutions, and it is also competitive."
"The price could be lower."
"You get what you pay for."
"It has a reasonable price. It is certainly not as expensive as it used to be. It is in line with other offerings on the market. There are a number of different flavors of Umbrella. They could bring Umbrella SIG down a bit because its price is a little bit high for what it does, but I also understand why its price is high."
"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 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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"Infoblox BloxOne offers pretty good documentation. Check its documentation, then do a PoC. Infoblox is very good at providing PoCs."
"It's a pricey solution because it's for the advanced kind of customer."
"When you buy the subscription, there are no additional costs to add any additional buttons."
"There is a significant charge for this product but I think that it's worth it when we look at what it's able to prevent."
"If you only wanted the DNS filtering and none of the other products built into Threat Defense, it would be nicer if they could do that a la carte since we are not really using a lot of the solution."
"It is a very expensive system. You need to go over the licensing before purchase to make sure you're getting what is needed, not anything extra."
"The licensing is set up such that you pay for the number of active users that you're defending at the moment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

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 Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense?
The most valuable feature is policy redirecting and security reports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense?
Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense can be expensive for the commercial sector, particularly in Egypt, as this sector doe...
What needs improvement with Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense?
If Infoblox invests in network observability, especially from the perspective of DNS and IP address observability, it...
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
iBoss Cloud Platform
BloxOne Threat Defense, Infoblox ActiveTrust, Infoblox ActiveTrust Cloud
 

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.
Council Rock School District, EagleView, Schneider Electric, Baptist Memorial Health Care, American University
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: July 2025.
862,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.