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Akamai Edge DNS vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

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

Akamai Edge DNS
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (9th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Akamai Edge DNS is 2.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 23.3%, down from 25.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella23.3%
Akamai Edge DNS2.1%
Other74.6%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

YA
Ensures global distribution and DDoS protection while offering seamless integration and low latency DNS responses
For user experience, Akamai Edge DNS should allow notes to be added for each record, as this is something Infoblox supports. Without notes, managing changes in DNS records can be difficult, especially for large companies with over 1,000 records, as they may not know who requested changes without proper documentation. I requested this feature two years ago, but it has not been added yet. Akamai Edge DNS could also improve its AI capabilities.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I recommend Akamai Edge DNS because it is distributed globally and prevents DDoS attacks."
"I haven't had any problems with the stability of Akamai Edge DNS in the past five years."
"We can maintain control of the configuration, and it seems to be covering the use case that we need."
"It is a very stable solution since it has a security feature that allows you to recover zone files if you accidentally delete them."
"The high availability of Akamai Edge DNS is impressive due to their numerous POPs, which help in supporting all attacks, including DDoS counterattacks."
"Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization."
"Cisco Talos threat intelligence significantly influences my company's ability to act against emerging threats, giving us the chance to patch our side or take precautions when zero-day vulnerabilities emerge."
"Helps block personal email accounts."
"Improves security through DNS visibility, which can block malware, phishing, C&C, etc."
"Cisco Umbrella is such a solution and can be implemented very fast and easy. All that we must do is redirect the DNS registers in their routers, or the active directory service of the enterprise that are going to use in Umbrella services. If you buy the service now, in two hours you are protected by the service because it's very fast to put in service."
"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."
"The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by allowing us to do protective DNS instead of URL filtering, which lets us avoid having to backhaul traffic and run it through a firewall in a data center."
"The solution is extremely stable. It has excellent performance."
 

Cons

"The only area that needs improvement is the pricing for DNS zones."
"The solution has a fairly complex setup with our cloud vendors, including Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle."
"The only area that needs improvement is the pricing for DNS zones. The price is higher than competitors, and Akamai should offer a better pricing model."
"Akamai Edge DNS is expensive, and the pricing is higher compared to Infoblox."
"CNAME flattening is a feature that Akamai does not support."
"It's easier for us to have support features with companies who are Cisco representatives, but sometimes, it's hard for us to get the help we need without having to use our contacts within Cisco."
"It should have more integrations with multiple end user OEMs."
"I would like them to make some videos, practical videos, the kind with steps that people can use to learn and deploy"
"The product can be pretty expensive."
"I would like to see more integration between Cisco Umbrella and Cisco DNA Center."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since Akamai is the industry leader, I imagine the solution would be a little more expensive than some other vendors."
"Cisco has a model called ELA. With ELA, if you buy the solution you will have the complete security portfolio and you can pay it yearly or after three years, it depends on the contract."
"The licensing and pricing structure of Cisco Umbrella is in line with standard systems on the market, and we have no specific requirements in this area. Overall, we have found it to be an acceptable pricing model for our organization."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"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."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"We were using the free version, and we implemented the paid version about two months ago. I'm paying a fair price, but everything is negotiable with Cisco. One of the benefits that I got by having Cisco Umbrella is the licensing of the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business49
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai Edge DNS?
It is a very stable solution since it has a security feature that allows you to recover zone files if you accidentally delete them.
What needs improvement with Akamai Edge DNS?
For user experience, Akamai Edge DNS should allow notes to be added for each record, as this is something Infoblox supports. Without notes, managing changes in DNS records can be difficult, especia...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Edge DNS?
As a reseller company for Akamai, my typical use case for Akamai Edge DNS is its distribution worldwide, providing DDoS attack prevention which is crucial in current times.
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. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security functi...
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-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

Akamai Fast DNS
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Otto Group
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Edge DNS vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
873,282 professionals have used our research since 2012.