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Azure DNS vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.4
Azure DNS offers reduced costs, high ROI, pay-as-you-go billing, reliability, operational simplicity, and substantial time savings.
Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Umbrella enhances security and productivity, reduces costs, and simplifies network management, offering significant ROI and client satisfaction.
The ROI is always high because Azure DNS setup is essential and does not incur high charges.
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using the solution is that it makes it a lot easier to delegate some of the tasks that were traditionally used, such as building policies on the firewalls and doing it through Cisco Umbrella.
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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.1
Azure DNS support is generally praised for reliability and responsiveness, but experiences vary depending on user plans and outsourced services.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella provides knowledgeable support, but users desire faster response times despite high satisfaction and effective resources.
Technical support is minimally required for DNS-related tasks if you have previous experience.
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
If I don't need to go to support all the time, that means the product is working fine, so I'm very happy with them.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure DNS offers exceptional scalability, supporting enterprises of all sizes and up to 400 users, with high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
8.2
Cisco Umbrella offers scalable, cloud-based cybersecurity, easily handling thousands of users and sites while adapting to organizational needs.
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Azure DNS offers excellent reliability and stability, though some users face installation challenges and scalability needs improvement.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is praised for its stability, high uptime, minimal glitches, and seamless performance across platforms with high user satisfaction.
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
Cisco Umbrella Secure Access is pretty stable in my mind, and we have not seen many glitches that would have interrupted services at customer locations.
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure DNS needs domain registration, better redundancy, improved documentation, enhanced integration, and clearer pricing to address current shortcomings.
Users seek improved integrations, security features, customization, licensing flexibility, interface ease, support, pricing, and deployment for Cisco Umbrella.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
 

Setup Cost

Azure DNS is cost-effective with flexible, usage-based pricing and free queries, often included in broader Azure agreements.
Cisco Umbrella pricing is flexible yet debated, with negotiable discounts and enterprise bundles but mixed views on cost transparency.
Azure DNS charges based on the number of zones enabled, offering some free queries monthly, which keeps costs low.
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
 

Valuable Features

Azure DNS ensures secure, integrated DNS management with automation, private zones, traffic management, and low-latency global resolution.
Cisco Umbrella offers robust DNS security, easy deployment, and integration, enhancing protection and visibility for hybrid work environments.
Azure DNS provides end-to-end P2P connectivity and enhances security, making it more secure and reliable.
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
The best possible thing is that it is very easy to deploy, easy to configure, and very fast to get onboarded with a customer because this is a cloud-based service.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure DNS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (4th)
Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Azure DNS and Cisco Umbrella aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Azure DNS is designed for Managed DNS and holds a mindshare of 6.9%, down 8.8% compared to last year.
Cisco Umbrella, on the other hand, focuses on Domain Name System (DNS) Security, holds 21.2% mindshare, down 26.7% since last year.
Managed DNS
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

Dieudonné-Nsabimana - PeerSpot reviewer
Overall experience improves efficiency and lowers operational challenges
* Add native management routing (geo‑routing, failover, weighted records) directly within Azure DNS zones to reduce dependency on extra services. * Cost Efficiency: Offer bundle pricing tiers or discounts for high‑volume enterprise customers, or an option for cost‑optimized internal DNS zones. * Improved Error Diagnostics: Provide more descriptive error codes and guided troubleshooting steps in the portal or CLI.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Azure DNS or Amazon Route 53?
Azure DNS is a hosting service of DNS domains. It has excellent operating time and performance, resulting in fast resolution. We like the ability to view everything in the Azure portal - this makes...
What do you like most about Azure DNS?
The tool is easy to manage and use.
What needs improvement with Azure DNS?
* Add native management routing (geo‑routing, failover, weighted records) directly within Azure DNS zones to reduce dependency on extra services. * Cost Efficiency: Offer bundle pricing tiers or di...
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

No data available
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

M-Files
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 Cloudflare, Amazon Web Services (AWS), BlueCat and others in Managed DNS. Updated: August 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.