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Vishwajeet Pandey - PeerSpot reviewer
senior technical administrator at Ogma Consulting
Reseller
Top 5Leaderboard
A very efficient and on-point solution that controls the whole network and settings on one page
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "The solution could be faster as the process is very slow."

What is our primary use case?

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.

What needs improvement?

The solution could be faster as the process is very slow.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella as a reseller for four to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the solution’s stability an eight and a half out of ten.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have deployed it to small businesses.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward and takes few hours to complete.

I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

What was our ROI?

ROI is pretty good. I rate it as eight out of ten.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You need to buy an additional license for customer services. The licensing is moderate.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution as eight and a half out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
PeerSpot user
Laurent Dauphin - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Manager at Axians
Reseller
Top 10
A DNS security solution that is useful for web filtering
Pros and Cons
  • "The customer experience is very good, and the product improves security posture."
  • "Cisco Umbrella is difficult to manage and needs to include a dashboard. It needs to improve pricing as well."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for DNS security and web filtering. Our industries include banking and insurance. 

What is most valuable?

The customer experience is very good, and the product improves security posture. 

What needs improvement?

Cisco Umbrella is difficult to manage and needs to include a dashboard. It needs to improve pricing as well. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Cisco Umbrella's stability a nine out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the tool's scalability an eight out of ten. 

How was the initial setup?

The tool's deployment is easy; I rate it a nine out of ten. The speed of deployment depends on various factors, including our communication with other customer contacts.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. 

What other advice do I have?

Cisco Umbrella is the best solution for DNS security in the market. Our customers are enterprise businesses. I rate it an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
October 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
871,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Network Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Very easy to accomplish content filtering, we don't need to do a lot of customization for it
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "I would like for them to continue building on IPS and IDS functionalities."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for Cisco Umbrella is for content filtering and for different access lists. We have different lists for different departments of what they can access.

How has it helped my organization?

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. 

This ability is very important to my organization because we're in the financial sector and security is at a premium. 

What is most valuable?

Cisco Umbrella is pretty straightforward and simple to use. We recently did social media blocking and it was really easy for our marketing department to access it. It's pretty straightforward. 

It helped free up IT staff for other projects. It saves us a lot of time by blocking potential breaches. It's very reliable.

Umbrella has definitely helped us improve our cybersecurity resilience by blocking malicious links and adware.

What needs improvement?

I would like for them to continue building on IPS and IDS functionalities. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Cisco Umbrella for five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's been very reliable. I haven't had any issues with it. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is easy. It's deployed through group policies. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We're a Cisco shop. We have a lot of their products.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI through its pop-up blocking. 

What other advice do I have?

We hope that Cisco will help us consolidate tools more than it is now by incorporating more IPS and IDS functionality. 

My advice to someone considering Cisco Umbrella would be to focus on how easy is to use the GUI and how easy it is to navigate. You pretty much just click a box and the content categories work. 

I would rate Cisco Umbrella a ten out of ten. 

If your needs vary by department, I would advise making different groups for different departments. It's easier to do it that way than to set it up and go back to tie it to different AV groups. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Consultant Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Has DNS integration with data directories and enables our customers to be secure
Pros and Cons
  • "Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers."
  • "The pricing changes too fast. We get the license and we need to relicense it because they already made changes to it. We always need to be on top of the licenses because they're always changing."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers use Umbrella for a security network. They want to have DNS connectivity and drop traffic before it becomes dodgy. 

Clients implement Umbrella with the full proxy. 

How has it helped my organization?

Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers.

What is most valuable?

DNS is the most valuable feature of Umbrella. We want to have DNS integration with data directories and we have customers asking about the Azure Integration. 

We try to fit all the Cisco Secure products together. This is the value the customers can see as well. We enable the Firewalls, Umbrella, and AMP so that the customer can see the whole view of what Cisco is doing. 

What needs improvement?

Our customers want to be able to work remotely. They want Umbrella to work securely from the office and to work securely outside of the office. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Umbrella for years now. We have an Umbrella internally as well. I sell Umbrella to customers. We offer the full setup to them.

We are resellers and integrators.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is getting better.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fine. The central management, that comes with most solutions, is really good. It's easier for us to go from two devices to 20 devices.

How are customer service and support?

We have had quite a good experience with their support so I can't complain about it. Most of the time TAC cases are quite straightforward and do not take a long time to fix.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

Our clients deploy on public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, on-premise, or SaaS.

I am an engineer and do the initial deployment for them and make tweaks until it works for them. 

The complexity of the deployment will depend on the client's requirements. Some of them have straightforward requirements and some of them are quite detailed. The implementation itself is fine but there can be details where we need to check the documentation and make sure we're following what they require. 

Customers use the Firewall Migration for the migration mostly from the ASAs. We do the ASA to FTD migration, which doesn't work well.

Two or three engineers are required for the deployment. The installation is done by different engineers.  

We also do the maintenance. So whatever we deployed, we also support. We do all the support requirements, updating and reviewing the deployment that we did. We do the config that is required. For example, for the migration, if we deploy something, we come back to review what we did because we want to make sure that the customer is more secure than it was before. So we just rerun the same configuration, trying to find out if there's a gap that we can fix and make sure that the customer is secure.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing changes too fast. We get the license and we need to relicense it because they already made changes to it. We always need to be on top of the licenses because they're always changing.

What other advice do I have?

Cisco Talos seems to be working fine for our customers. 

My advice to somebody considering this solution is to try it. It's probably the best option to try it and see if it works. Do a proof of concept and proof of value for the customer.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
PeerSpot user
reviewer2107437 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Provides good protection and quick support and is very stable
Pros and Cons
  • "It has certainly saved us time. If we go and look at what's rejected on the requests from the hospital itself, it has saved about 5% or 6% time."
  • "Its price could be better."

What is our primary use case?

Most of the time, it's for security reasons in terms of looking at what DNS requests are being done and other things like that.

How has it helped my organization?

It has certainly saved us time. If we go and look at what's rejected on the requests from the hospital itself, it has saved about 5% or 6% time.

It's there to keep everything secure. Hospitals are a very nice target for attacks. We have been under an attack from Russia once, which was a DDoS attack.

It secures our infrastructure from end to end so we can detect and remediate threats.

What is most valuable?

The protection from users doing stupid things is valuable. The dashboard gives me the information I need.

What needs improvement?

Its price could be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable. I've never seen any problems with it.

How are customer service and support?

It's perfect for the things we have with it. There is a quick resolution. There are no problems at all. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've not used a similar solution. We went for Cisco Umbrella because they are delivering good products. We also have all Cisco switches in place, and then we have Cisco ACI and DNA Center. We only don't have Cisco firewalls.

I am not aware of any tools that we could consolidate or get rid of by using Cisco Umbrella because it was installed about five or six years before I came here.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

It's a very good product. I'd rate it an eight out of ten. Overall, I am satisfied with the product.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Presale Engineer at Telekom Deutschland GmbH
Reseller
Has good technical support and is scalable and easy to deploy
Pros and Cons
  • "Cisco's technical support is pretty good. When a solution is available, they will find it. On a scale from one to ten with ten being the best, I'd rate Cisco's technical support at nine."
  • "The locks and management could be better. The product is fairly new, and it may take some time to get all the features up and running."

What is our primary use case?

Our clients use Cisco Umbrella compared with SD-WAN or Meraki solutions. They use layer 7 firewall and web proxy in most use cases and fewer DNS security functionalities.

How has it helped my organization?

Cisco Umbrella has replaced on-premises firewalls in our client's branches. Our client had one central cloud solution, and now, they no longer need the local firewall.

What is most valuable?

Our clients have found that Cisco Umbrella increases its security posture because there is a central policy that fits everything.

Though Cisco Talos is usually part of the backend, it is mandatory to have a good solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been implementing Cisco Umbrella for three years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not seen any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and support?

Cisco's technical support is pretty good. When a solution is available, they will find it. On a scale from one to ten with ten being the best, I'd rate Cisco's technical support at nine.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We sell both Cisco and Zscaler. If the client already has a Cisco solution, then Umbrella is usually a better fit. In cases when a customer already uses Zscaler, has another SD-WAN solution, or has a different vendor, Zscaler may be the first choice.

As a Cisco Secure reseller, we bring value to our customers through our technicians and engineers who consult with them and implement the solution. This is a benefit from our partner side.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment is quite easy. It's internal, and with a few clicks, Cisco Umbrella can be up and running.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Cisco should make the solution cheaper.

What other advice do I have?

The locks and management could be better. The product is fairly new, and it may take some time to get all the features up and running.

Overall, I would rate Cisco Umbrella an eight on a scale from one to ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
PeerSpot user
Network Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Easy to use and the categories are very clear
Pros and Cons
  • "We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far."
  • "I would like to see Cisco enable us to get objects from the internet. I would also like to be able to choose groups."

What is most valuable?

What I find most valuable about Cisco Umbrella is its ease of use. I also value the clearness of the categories. We have not experienced any issues or incidents with the categories. However, we are looking more deeply at the product now. 

What needs improvement?

We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far. However, there are some features available in Fortinet and Palo Alto that are not available in Cisco, like objects, for example. I would like to see Cisco enable us to get objects from the internet. I would also like to be able to choose groups. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for two to three months now. 

How are customer service and support?

For most of our technical support needs, we mostly go through our partner. However, for some infrastructure-related inquiries, we have had to contact Cisco's technical support and we were happy with the experience.  

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple. Deployment at our main sites took about three to four weeks. 

What about the implementation team?

We received help from a local partner, NTT Global, during the deployment. They helped us set up Meraki and Umbrella. 

What was our ROI?

We hope to see a return on investment with Cisco Umbrella. We have a big team managing the infrastructure, so we hope to save time in the day-to-day protection of the tower, which would be the return on investment.

Globally, we also hope to save time on the LAN. We aim for a single pane of glass management model with the dashboard. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

From what I remember about the pricing, Cisco Umbrella is a bit more expensive than the quotes we got from its competitors. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at several products, including Fortinet and Palo Alto. We experienced a bug with Fortinet during testing and ultimately ended up going with Cisco Meraki products. We have not had an incident yet with Cisco Umbrella.

What other advice do I have?

The solution helped us save time and this was a major reason we chose it. We expect to save 15% to 20% in time.

We are aiming to consolidate our entire network and LAN infrastructure with Cisco Umbrella. We are on the way to achieving that with this solution.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Zaigham Abbas - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Reseller
We don't need to access multiple devices in order to give access to our internal resources
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

We have deployed an on-prem virtual appliance for Active Directory (AD) and user mapping. We have integrated our AD with it as well as all the pre-reqs that come with it.

How has it helped my organization?

It is a DNS solution. It stops us at the first layer of Layer 7, stopping at the DNS level. It just removes the burden for opening a connection, then looking at the firewalls and all the parameter devices. It has a single pane of glass that keeps you secure.

It has helped us in terms of the roaming client. That has helped us in terms of security. Whereas, previously the roaming client was bothering us, which got us into this solution. That has helped the end user with laptops and devices for different sites. This keeps us secure at all times wherever they go.

We are not using a DNS solution, but we have been using the firewalls and all the proxy firewalls instead, which has really helped us since we now know that the entire network environment is being secured by Umbrella. It gives us a real pat on the back that we are being backed by the Talos cloud and its security. We are monitoring in real-time. It works by itself to assess all the security features and parameters through Talos, which is really interesting and good for our environment.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are actually the reporting with all the visibility. It gives a hawk-eye view when we map AD with Umbrella. It gives us the visibility of every user, e.g., which sites and content are being used and who is accessing what. That has really been a good new addition for me.

We don't need to access multiple devices in order to give access to our internal resources. We are secured in having everything on a single pane of glass, which keeps us secure as well. We can enter the configuration to reach our destinations based on the main names. Other than that, it also secures us by not looking at only the destination, but also the predefined security parameters that Cisco Umbrella has provided. For example, if I coded command and control centers (CNCs), then most phishing websites, where there are known websites caught by Talos, are being categorized as the bad domain. That is where it gives us a nice, handy lift.

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.

It gives us a quick view into what we are looking at. We don't need to go to the different devices and see where our traffic is starving, etc. So, we have better visibility, when using Umbrella, from its single pane of glass.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for seven or eight months.

How are customer service and support?

We used support when we were deploying the VAs. So, we have opened tickets a couple of times when we were stuck.

The technical support is alright. I would rate it as eight of 10. There was one time when I opened a ticket regarding the VAs, which didn't go quite well. However, it has been a good experience overall.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use another DNS solution. This solution was our first.

How was the initial setup?

It is very easy to maintain network connectivity. For medium- and large- enterprises, it is not going to take more than a week or so to deploy the solution. Or, you can deploy it with fewer complexities in a couple of hours. Therefore, it is not that hard to gel it into your existing network. So, it works like a charm for us.

In our environment, all traffic was going to the data center. It didn't take us much time, or the complexity of the network wasn't much, so it didn't bother us to pre-plan its migration. We just had to change all our DNSs on the perimeter firewalls and point them towards Umbrella, and that was it.

What was our ROI?

It has helped us to remediate threats more quickly.

It is pretty much handy in terms of what it offers. Actually, it is all about how it caters to your security. Every solution has their pros and cons, but Cisco Umbrella catches all the vulnerabilities and things that could hit any organization.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Previously, we were not tracking roaming clients, which were changing networks every time. I was wondering if something was hitting the endpoints, because we wouldn't know. When Cisco Umbrella joined our network, it explored all our networks. This was really interesting and a key part of why we chose it.

What other advice do I have?

The end user isn't tech-savvy and doesn't care what is being done. As far as the system admin and network admins are concerned, their work has been reduced in terms of management and managing the entire network.

I would rate the solution as nine out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.