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Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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 Secure Internet Acc...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
23rd
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
9th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is 2.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 21.2%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2159601 - PeerSpot reviewer
A user-friendly security SaaS provider with an easy setup
Akamai SPS Threat Avert is deployed on-cloud in our organization. Users should choose Akamai SPS Threat Avert based on their needs and the organization's capability. If it's a small-scale business, I would recommend exploring other solutions that will be fairly cheaper than Akamai SPS Threat Avert. However, if it's an enterprise business with a lot of transactions, security concerns, and compliance issues, I would advise them to go ahead with Akamai SPS Threat Avert. Although it's a good solution, Akamai SPS Threat Avert is expensive and best suited for enterprise-level businesses, not mid-level or low-level organizations. Overall, I rate Akamai SPS Threat Avert a nine out of ten.
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

"The best feature of Akamai SPS Threat Avert is that it's very user-friendly compared to other technologies."
"​They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. ​​"
"I haven't needed to reboot the servers for years due to their excellent stability."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Cisco's support is better nowadays."
"The interface is well organized, so you can easily find everything. Even if you don't have much experience with Cisco, you can easily navigate the solution and find your way around. Everything has been done well, from the deployment to monitoring."
"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 run a real lean networking team, and cloud deployments are super easy."
"The most valuable feature is that it secures our network against blacklisted or malicious websites."
"I also think that the dashboard view is really helpful. Whenever sites get blocked, we get the details and the users who are connecting to them."
 

Cons

"Akamai SPS Threat Avert's pricing could be improved because it's a very expensive enterprise solution."
"A feature I would appreciate seeing enhanced in Cisco Umbrella would be the ability to add or remove agents that we have, instead of just relying on how long the devices have been connected to the platform."
"Sometimes there are some lags, and I have to refresh multiple times to access parts of the dashboards. Sometimes the dashboard pages crash and I'm not sure why, so that's one area for improvement."
"Its price could be better."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"The solution's technical support is not very good."
"I don't have an answer for how Cisco Umbrella can be improved, as it has been some time since I've worked with it."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Provided the features Akamai SPS Threat Avert provides, it is bound to be expensive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"There is a subscription cost."
"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"In terms of licensing, we're not able to be extremely clear with the customer because it's based on their reporting. It's not based on the actual traffic. If they say they have 50 users but they have 80, we'll just buy for 50 users. That's something where we'd like to have more flexibility."
"The price is quite good."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."
"Licensing with Cisco can be a little complex, but I think it's comparable with that of other similar products. It's always hard to put a price on security, but the price is fair for the value it provides."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
5%
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
The best feature of Akamai SPS Threat Avert is that it's very user-friendly compared to other technologies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Provided the features Akamai SPS Threat Avert provides, it is bound to be expensive.
What needs improvement with Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Akamai SPS Threat Avert's pricing could be improved because it's a very expensive enterprise solution. AWS and a lot of other vendors are usually not that much expensive.
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 Enterprise Threat Protector, Akamai ETP, Akamai SPS Threat Avert
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MCNC, Educational Testing Service
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 Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.