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BlueCat Edge vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

BlueCat Edge
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
123
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 May 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of BlueCat Edge is 3.2%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 18.1%, down from 25.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella18.1%
BlueCat Edge3.2%
Other78.7%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2284602 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Engineer at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Has enhanced DNS routing, an easy setup and good reliability
I would like to see improvements in threat detection and the ability to add categorization for blocking queries, such as those related to adult entertainment. Also, some features to filter out valid threats would be useful. Additionally, having a standardized location for query redirection without needing to stand up a server instance would be beneficial.
BB
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Ensures comprehensive protection with seamless threat logging and efficient policy management
My favorite feature of Cisco Umbrella is probably just the DNS and the fact that when a security threat happens, all of that gets logged in their Umbrella portal, and it's very easy to find who's been accessing the site and how many people have accessed it, so that we can go to them and make sure they're not compromised. The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast. The fact that there's a virtual database that has all that information is great on our portal.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It allows us to easily monitor our subnets and routers."
"The unparalleled visibility offered by BlueCat Edge is arguably the most critical benefit we receive."
"Edge has reduced the complexity and has been more reliable."
"Scalability-wise, it's pretty good."
"We implemented BlueCat Edge to solve the visibility and security issues we were having."
"IP Address Management (IPAM) is the most valuable."
"What I found most valuable is the ability to put it in place and integrate it very quickly. It allows us to create routing rule sets to route DNS traffic where it needs to go most efficiently in our environment."
"I would recommend Cisco Umbrella to other interested companies; it's a very flexible and secure application — it's very good."
"We like Cisco Umbrella because of DNS security; it's one step ahead of whatever we are using for regular web filtering, and in that way, it's more secure than other web filtering products."
"The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple."
"It provides centralized, device-agnostic management of the Internet experience."
"Ever since we started using this product last year, it has been stable."
"The most valuable features are the protection against ransomware and phishing."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its reliability."
"There is much differentiation within the licensing so if anyone wants DNS security from the DNS security log, we are there already, and if anyone wants to go to a secure internet gateway, that is also available."
 

Cons

"I would like to see improvements in threat detection and the ability to add categorization for blocking queries, such as those related to adult entertainment."
"A more graphical user interface would be a benefit. It would be nice if I could click on a subnet and it would show me all of my links and everything."
"The main improvement for BlueCat Edge's security configuration would be more granular control."
"I have concerns about several aspects of BlueCat's site management."
"Its price is on the higher side."
"A more graphical user interface would be a benefit."
"One pain point concerning DNS Edge is the inability to see per Edge endpoint, what devices are querying against it. They do have the capability for you to look at that data, but the data is roughly 24 to 48 hours old. I am looking for real-time data, and I cannot get that per Edge endpoint."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"It needs better integration with external threat feeds to improve scoring."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"My biggest concern, and I'm sure everyone's biggest gripe with TAC, is just turnaround time. If you open a case in the evening, you might get an agent in another region, and then your ticket cycle only goes from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM when you're out of work."
"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."
"This solution is difficult to configure."
"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."
"Security, overall, can always be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm doing a costing and licensing comparison between the BlueCat DNS Integrity and Micetro by Men&Mice. BlueCat has given me a range instead of a specific price. They gave me a range of ten thousand to two hundred thousand USD. That was a bit too wide for the cost comparison. Based on what I'm seeing, they are definitely on the higher side and very expensive."
"One of the nice benefits of getting DNS Edge is that you buy the subscription, and you are allowed to deploy as many Edge endpoints as you need. You do not need a separate license for each one. If you deploy 20 of them, you will not be billed for that many. It is one subscription. You can deploy as many as you need and consume as much as you need. The cost comes in based on the number of IPs that you are consuming and running through DNS Edge. We have that pretty much locked in for what we need for internal purposes. Being able to save money on deploying Edge endpoints has saved us drastically from deploying other BlueCat products in lieu of that."
"The licensing model for BlueCat Edge seems very good, although I can't confirm if it's specific to our contract."
"We find the current pricing model more reasonable compared to the previous per-IP pricing."
"Cisco Umbrella is not a cheap product. However, it's not a matter of the cost; it's more a matter of the value of security. It is easy to measure this value when you have a security incident. I think the price is a good trade-off for a product that can help you avoid security threats."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"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 licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."
"There is a subscription cost."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BlueCat Edge?
I'm not aware of the exact pricing and licensing as I was not part of the procurement process. However, there was a significant cost reduction thanks to BlueCat Cloud DNS managing external solutions.
What needs improvement with BlueCat Edge?
BlueCat should consider deploying feature enhancement requests faster, especially if they are simple to implement. They need to focus and deploy such features in the next version itself, which woul...
What is your primary use case for BlueCat Edge?
We have deployed BlueCat Edge across our organization globally. Regional-based queries are directed to BlueCat Edge, and they are resolved within the regions themselves. For instance, we have an An...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bundle with other Cisco purchases.
 

Also Known As

BlueCat DNS Edge
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Swisslos, Cologne Bonn Airport, TYROLIT
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 BlueCat Edge vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.