BlueCat Edge vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

BlueCat and Cisco are both solutions in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category. BlueCat is ranked #5 with an average rating of 9.0, while Cisco is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.1. BlueCat holds a 3.3% mindshare in DS, compared to Cisco’s 21.6% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of BlueCat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

BlueCat Edge

Read 7 BlueCat Edge reviews

947 Views
343 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Cisco Umbrella

Read 121 Cisco Umbrella reviews

4,893 Views
2,757 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

BlueCat Edge

Cisco Umbrella

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Cisco Umbrella and BlueCat Edge operate in the enterprise DNS security market. Cisco Umbrella seems to have an edge in ease of use and seamless integration with cloud services, while BlueCat Edge stands out with its DNS traffic management and detailed logging capabilities.

Features: Cisco Umbrella excels with DNS-based protection, advanced threat defense, and user-friendly management, providing comprehensive web content filtering and seamless integration with cloud services. BlueCat Edge offers robust DNS traffic management with precise DNS routing and security policies, enhancing enterprise-level DNS configurations. Detailed logging and visibility assist users in troubleshooting and security audits.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Umbrella could benefit from deeper threat intelligence integration and improved malware protection. Enhancing its reporting capabilities, customization for user-specific rules, and third-party tool integration are suggested. BlueCat Edge might accelerate the implementation of feature requests and offer finer security settings control, like content category filtering. Improved visibility and data export capabilities are also needed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Deployment of Cisco Umbrella is straightforward with flexible cloud options. Its customer service is recognized for excellent technical support. BlueCat Edge provides similar flexibility, performing notably well in hybrid and on-premises setups, and its customer service, while effective, could benefit from more efficient feature enhancement processes.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Umbrella is priced reasonably and its comprehensive features usually justify the cost, with flexibility in licensing tiers to suit different needs. BlueCat Edge, although viewed as more expensive, offers value in scalability for large enterprises. Both solutions realize ROI through increased productivity, reduced security risks, and effective threat management, with Cisco Umbrella noted for reducing hardware costs and support times.

To learn more, read our detailed BlueCat Edge vs. Cisco Umbrella Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Edge vs. Cisco Umbrella

April 2025

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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

5th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

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

121

Ranking in other categories

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of BlueCat Edge is 3.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 21.6%, down from 27.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Domain Name System (DNS) Security

Featured Reviews

David Muscat

Principal Architect, System Design /Enterprise-Hybrid Cloud DNS Lead at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Provides good visibility and control, and we can quickly put it in place and integrate it

About Nine months ago, we were still using their Edge endpoint version 3. We recently moved to version 4 of their Edge endpoint. In Edge endpoint version 3, we did not have the ability to clean up our dashboards properly. As we decommissioned sites and commissioned new sites, we were left with a mess of data still sitting there because of the way they had originally designed version 3. Now the old data is gone, and the function of the new version 4 has really helped with that. It was a nuisance for the past few years. 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. I would call it a work in progress. I am still finding things that bug me in terms of how something functions. I might find out how to do something when it is not documented. That is great, but documentation becomes an issue with me on that.

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Sabbir Ahmed

Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd

Blocks threats before they reach the user's device

Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability. The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users. Additionally, strong winds can disrupt its functionality, and the opening and closing mechanism can be awkward in tight spaces.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The namespace and access control features are notable."

"IP Address Management (IPAM) is the most valuable."

"BlueCat has increased security efficiency tremendously within the first month of deployment."

"It allows us to easily monitor our subnets and routers."

"Edge has reduced the complexity and has been more reliable."

"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."

"We implemented BlueCat Edge to solve the visibility and security issues we were having."

"The unparalleled visibility offered by BlueCat Edge is arguably the most critical benefit we receive."

"The documentation is good, and we have been able to resolve any issues ourselves."

"It has improved our organization from a security posture perspective. We feel more confident now knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related. This is a very nice feature that provides peace of mind."

"We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far."

"For us and for customers, it's the ease of integration with Meraki. It's just a couple of clicks. That allows us to deploy very fast, and it doesn't change the way a customer uses his service. It's just more secure."

"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."

"The reports and notifications are the most useful part of the platform. As soon as you deploy the security layers, the reporting is very comprehensive. It helps you to have, at a glance, a clear view of what's going on."

"The most valuable feature is the website protection capabilities because it prevents end-users from entering bad sites that potentially have malware or could be used for phishing."

"The most valuable features are the dashboard, visibility, and reporting capabilities. Our customers can see how much Umbrella is protecting their organization. If you don't know what you've got, you can't protect it. With Umbrella, you get the visibility and see the protection that it's providing. We can get PDF reports on a weekly basis of any malware activities and any denial of service or command-and-control-type activities."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

Cons

"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."

"The main improvement for BlueCat Edge's security configuration would be more granular control."

"A more graphical user interface would be a benefit."

"I have concerns about several aspects of BlueCat's site management."

"BlueCat should consider deploying feature enhancement requests faster, especially if they are simple to implement."

"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."

"BlueCat should consider deploying feature enhancement requests faster, especially if they are simple to implement."

"Its price is on the higher side."

"Support for multiple domains is important to us."

"I'd like to see improvement in its overall integration with all the other platforms. There's some integration between Umbrella and Meraki, but an overall Cisco problem is that there are so many different tools, and finding easy, seamless ways of connecting everything together is always a challenge."

"Lower costs including licensing, support, and renewals would be beneficial."

"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."

"Its on-prem rollout is quite challenging. It needs better coordination with the Internet Service Provider. It is a cloud-based solution, and any endpoint that connects to it has to go through all the gateway ISPs, but some of the ISPs block HTTPS-based DNS. That's where the challenge occurs with Umbrella."

"They should provide more integrations and bring things together so that there is a more standard feel to their platform. We also use Cisco ISE, and it has a very different feel from Cisco Umbrella."

"There are a couple of interface issues. I know that they say that there are feature enhancements that are noted. For example, we've got the Cisco Meraki security appliances, and there, we geofence our company to where we're allowed to send and receive traffic. So, in our case, by default, we only allow traffic to six different countries, which allows us to effectively prevent traffic for the majority of bad players in the world, but they don't give you an easy way to do that in Cisco Umbrella. With Cisco Meraki, I can specify or pick the countries. I can say that I want to only allow traffic from these six countries, and I'm done. With Cisco Umbrella, I have to rely on the fact that they're going to prevent traffic to other countries. They're going to decide if it's good or bad."

"Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We find the current pricing model more reasonable compared to the previous per-IP pricing."

"The licensing model for BlueCat Edge seems very good, although I can't confirm if it's specific to our contract."

"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."

"As an educational partner, we get better licensing structures. We are very happy with that. It has been very nice that Cisco has partnered with the educational sector to bring that."

"Its value exceeds its pricing."

"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"Cisco solutions are generally perceived to be rather expensive. We have constant internal discussions as to whether we should offer lower-priced security solutions from some of the competitors."

"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."

"Cisco has a set price for a single license up to 100, but whenever we get over 100, we have to ask for a quote."

"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."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

19%

Educational Organization

17%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BlueCat Edge?

We implemented BlueCat Edge to solve the visibility and security issues we were having.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?

Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.

See all answers

Comparisons

EfficientIP DNS Firewall vs BlueCat Edge

Compared 28% of the time

Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection vs BlueCat Edge

Compared 17% of the time

F5 BIG-IP DNS vs BlueCat Edge

Compared 13% of the time

EfficientIP DNS Blast vs BlueCat Edge

Compared 12% of the time

EfficientIP DNS Guardian vs BlueCat Edge

Compared 8% of the time

More BlueCat Edge Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 16% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 9% of the time

Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Umbrella Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Edge

June 2025

Download BlueCat Edge product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella

June 2025

Download Cisco Umbrella product report

Also Known As

BlueCat DNS Edge

OpenDNS

Overview

BlueCat Edge is an intelligent DNS resolver and caching layer that leverages existing DNS infrastructure to provide unprecedented visibility and control over DNS traffic. As a first hop DNS resolver, BlueCat Edge intelligently manages DNS forwarding rules and logs all queries to offer intuitive analytics and data governance. By monitoring all queries and IP addresses with BlueCat Edge, enterprises can also leverage BlueCat’s advanced Threat Protection and policy-based network/security features to protect the enterprise against cyber threats, such as domain name generation algorithms and tunneling that lead to data exfiltration or network downtime.

BlueCat

Cisco Umbrella delivers rapid DNS security with over 30,000 customers, providing outstanding threat protection and handling more than 600 billion requests daily. It's recognized for high threat efficacy in the SSE domain and integrates elements like SWG, ZTNA, CASB, and more.

Cisco Umbrella is renowned for its effective DNS-layer security against ransomware and phishing. It offers flexible content filtering and integrates seamlessly with existing networks while providing single-pane-of-glass management for centralized monitoring. Its robust threat intelligence and customizable policies are central to its appeal. Users highlight room for improvement in areas like WHOIS data inclusion, malware enhancement, and reporting analytics. Integration with other threat feeds and better client support are requested for more comprehensive coverage.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS-Layer Security: Blocks malicious domains, preventing ransomware attacks.
Web Content Filtering: Allows users to manage lists for strict content control.
Seamless Integration: Blends with systems like Active Directory and Meraki.
Remote Protection: Keeps remote users safe across different locations.
Single-Pane Management: Facilitates effective monitoring and reporting.

What should users expect in reviews about Cisco Umbrella?

Threat Intelligence: Provides comprehensive malware and attack data.
Customizable Policies: Enables tailored security measures for users.
Integration Options: Works with diverse systems for holistic security.
Ease of Use: Offers a straightforward experience for administrators.
Remote Worker Security: Ensures protection outside traditional networks.

Industries implement Cisco Umbrella primarily for DNS-level security, web filtering, and protecting remote employees. It strengthens cybersecurity frameworks by blocking malware and avoiding access to harmful sites. The tool is widely integrated with Active Directory and Cisco Meraki, providing consistent internet security for employees.

Cisco

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

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Edge vs. Cisco Umbrella

April 2025

Free Report: BlueCat Edge vs. Cisco Umbrella

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