No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

BlueCat Edge vs IBM NS1 Connect comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM NS1 Connect
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of BlueCat Edge is 3.2%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM NS1 Connect is 2.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM NS1 Connect2.1%
BlueCat Edge3.2%
Other94.7%
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.
Sanchit Makkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Dns architect at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Intelligent global traffic steering has improved reliability and reduced latency for users
IBM NS1 Connect has a very steep learning curve in terms of learning the custom filter chains and the complex multi-region setup, which requires a specialized DNS expert and can be difficult for beginners. One has to get trained on IBM NS1 before starting to use it. The documentation and the interface could be improved, as a step-by-step video configuration guide would be helpful in new implementations. Daily change audit features and easier rollback options should also be provided in the GUI itself. The dashboard and the GUI have gray areas for advanced tasks, which require API interaction and can be overwhelming for beginners.

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."
"IP Address Management (IPAM) is the most valuable."
"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."
"The unparalleled visibility offered by BlueCat Edge is arguably the most critical benefit we receive."
"We implemented BlueCat Edge to solve the visibility and security issues we were having."
"Scalability-wise, it's pretty good."
"We find that the low latency access to DNS queries has a direct effect on the customer experience. Visiting a site, whether it's an AdTech-based solution or marketing tech, the fact that whatever we're rendering on a page can be rendered better than the industry standard, in terms of time, ensures a better user experience."
"The Filter Chain is one of the most valuable features, for geo-load balancing and geo-fencing. The Filter Chain is the most useful because it allows us to do several things. With geo-fencing we can redirect a particular user to a particular answer. That's very valuable for us. Filter Chains with monitoring is our strategy to provide redundancy."
"IBM NS1 Connect has positively impacted my organization by providing controlled downtime, reduced downtime, and time saving through automation, as approximately forty to fifty percent of our time is saved through automation and enhanced visibility."
"It massively speeds things up. Today, we allow developers to deploy services and have externally facing DNS scrapers that are created automatically without the addition of human intervention."
"The fact that it's an API-first platform for DNS and application traffic management is one of the reasons we looked into NS1. We use it for a lot of automation and metrics gathering and it's been great."
"I couldn't recommend a better product than NS1 for managed DNS and CDN load balancing right now."
"Going with NS1 has also improved the user experience for our users."
"Their Pulsar filters allow us to collect RUM metrics from our users so that we can determine the best paths for our users to take. That has been very useful in providing the best user experience, and for responding to and recovering from downtime of our multiple CDNs."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Its price is on the higher side."
"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."
"I have concerns about several aspects of BlueCat's site management."
"The main improvement for BlueCat Edge's security configuration would be more granular control."
"I believe IBM NS1 Connect can be improved in several ways. The main concern I identified is the cost, which is higher than other solutions despite its uses."
"Pricing can be more transparent, especially when dealing with tight budgets."
"The technical support is slow. You raise a PR, and then it takes several weeks for them to respond."
"We use our client in our infrastructure to communicate with NS1. This client is a bit complex in the way that it is set up. NS1 has their own client solution that you can deploy into your platform to do this, but even that is a bit complex. So, I would like a very simple, thin, light API agent that we can deploy into our platform to communicate with NS1. That would be welcome."
"There could maybe be additional ways to manage traffic. There are no major improvements we're looking for. It's a very complete solution."
"We would really like them to become a DNS registrar."
"When we first deployed, we flipped the switch, and it didn't work as well as we expected."
"We care about monitoring and telemetry work, and NS1 provides a pretty good system for monitoring. We can monitor our endpoints and points of presence around the world. If there are any issues, we can easily remove them from our network, but this area needs some improvement because it is not always reliable in NS1. In the past, we had a number of false-positive cases when the monitoring system told us about some problems in our infrastructure that were not true. NS1 is improving the system, and we are constantly talking about this with them. I know that they are releasing a new version of their monitoring system, which is really important for us, but this is a different area where we would expect them to improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We find the current pricing model more reasonable compared to the previous per-IP pricing."
"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."
"The licensing model for BlueCat Edge seems very good, although I can't confirm if it's specific to our contract."
"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."
"From a cost standpoint, it's certainly not the most expensive out there, and it's also not the cheapest, but it does well to balance the cost and the functionality/reliability."
"We pay about $30,000 a month. We used to pay about $20,000 with Dyn every month, for lower volume than we're doing right now, but it had none of the features that we have available with NS1, so it was worth it for us. It seems competitive for us, given that we're doing 4.5 billion requests."
"Everything can always be cheaper, but as it is today the pricing is fair."
"NS1's pricing is much more aggressive than its competitors in the market and you get more value out of what you pay for it."
"The cost of this product is one of the reasons that we chose it."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

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...
What needs improvement with NS1 Managed DNS?
I believe IBM NS1 Connect can be improved in several ways. The main concern I identified is the cost, which is higher than other solutions despite its uses. Additionally, they could improve their h...
What is your primary use case for NS1 Managed DNS?
My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is handling DNS traffic and routing traffic. A specific example of how I use IBM NS1 Connect to route traffic is routing the API, the websites' API, and the app...
What advice do you have for others considering NS1 Managed DNS?
Regarding IBM NS1 Connect's AI capabilities, the accuracy and reliability of output involve least privileged API keys, API key rotation, secret management, and monitoring and alerting, with alerts ...
 

Also Known As

BlueCat DNS Edge
NS1 Managed DNS, NS1
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Swisslos, Cologne Bonn Airport, TYROLIT
Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday
Find out what your peers are saying about BlueCat Edge vs. IBM NS1 Connect and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.