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CAST AI vs Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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
7.4
Organizations saved 20-40% on cloud costs with CAST AI, enhancing efficiency and reallocating funds to high-priority tasks.
Sentiment score
4.3
Umbrella offers 231% ROI in three years, reducing security risks, costs, and downtime, despite high setup costs.
I have seen a return on investment, and the ROI was visible within a few months through cloud cost reduction alone.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions
The ROI was visible within a few months through cloud cost reduction alone.
Siem Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
CAST AI has reduced approximately 40% of our AWS bills and AWS cloud bills.
Sr.Devops engineer at Scaler
The platform has helped reduce security risk by proactively blocking malicious websites, phishing attempts, and other threats at the DNS layer before they reach the end users.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
We have seen a significant return on investment, which I mentioned earlier in the data.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
We have seen an approximate ROI of around 231% over three years.
Soc For Ddi at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.1
CAST AI's customer service is praised for responsiveness, expertise, effective guidance, and high satisfaction in Kubernetes environments.
Sentiment score
4.7
Umbrella's customer service is praised for prompt, effective support, quick issue resolution, and excellent accessibility for ongoing projects.
I would rate the customer support 10 out of 10.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin
The governance and security of CAST AI are solid, providing sufficient visibility into cluster changes and optimization actions.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions Ltd.
Response times are reasonable and the team is knowledgeable.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions
I can reach them anytime for any problem I am having in my environment, and they provide great support with minimum downtime for any problem I may have.
Soc For Ddi at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco Umbrella's customer support is very good, and the product itself is supported by strong customer service.
Cyber Security Engineer at CNS Engineering
I rate the customer support of Umbrella 10 out of 10.
Product Manager at Frontier Business systems
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
CAST AI offers robust scalability, efficiently managing dynamic Kubernetes environments and workloads without performance bottlenecks, ensuring automatic adaptability.
Sentiment score
5.1
Umbrella's cloud service offers effortless scalability for organizations of any size, ensuring security and easy onboarding across all locations.
It is a SaaS platform that will scale automatically.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin
CAST AI's scalability is very good; it scales effectively with cluster growth and increasing workload complexity.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions
It scales effectively with cluster growth and increasing workload complexity.
Siem Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Since it is a cloud-delivered service, it can support a growing number of users, devices, and locations without requiring significant on-premises infrastructure.
Data Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Umbrella has definitely handled our organizational growth perfectly.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella's scalability is very much flexible as you just buy a license and you can scale as much as you want.
Product Manager at Frontier Business systems
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
9.0
CAST AI reliably excels in Kubernetes environments, with no downtime, effectively implementing user-approved optimization suggestions consistently.
Sentiment score
8.1
Umbrella provides reliable, scalable, and secure service with minimal downtime, despite occasional connectivity issues requiring application restarts.
In most cases, the optimization suggestions are practical and effective.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions Ltd.
CAST AI has proven to be stable and reliable in production environments.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions
Umbrella is definitely a scalable and stable solution.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella has taken action by preventing and blocking access.
Specialty Cybersecurity at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
To my knowledge, everything went well when I was using that technology.
Field on-site engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

CAST AI needs improvements in documentation, interface, customization, reporting, cost insights, automation, governance, and cloud integration for Kubernetes.
Umbrella faces challenges with cost, integration, and features, requiring improved reporting, AI capabilities, and user interface enhancements.
There are many pros here, including easy onboarding, simple deployment, and excellent Kubernetes visibility, strong spot instance automation, and automated right-sizing.
Sr.Devops engineer at Scaler
More detailed documentation and deeper visibility into certain optimization decisions would also be helpful.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin
To improve CAST AI, I would like to see more granular reporting, deeper cost allocation insights, and additional customization options for optimization policies.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions Ltd.
There is no downtime or challenges.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella's strong DNS layer security helps block malware, phishing, ransomware, and malicious domains through centralized policy management.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
If Cisco can enhance integration breadth and policy flexibility, it would alleviate frustrations for teams managing a hybrid multi-vendor environment.
Network Security Engineer at Syndicateinfo solution
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users commend CAST AI for its cost-effective, usage-based pricing, enhancing savings and operational efficiency for large Kubernetes environments.
Umbrella offers competitive pricing and robust security features, though some users note tier-restricted features and remote reporting limitations.
In terms of pricing, I believe the pricing is reasonable because of the amount of savings and operational efficiency it delivers, making it easier to justify the investment.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin
I have not found the price to be too high for the features it provides.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Pricing was reasonable considering the cost savings achieved
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions
The cost compared to other solutions is really cheap.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella is a high-enterprise cost product, so one should look at their budget before implementing this solution.
Soc For Ddi at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Although Umbrella may be priced higher, the security features, centralized management, threat protection, and ease of deployment provide good value for the investment.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
 

Valuable Features

CAST AI optimizes Kubernetes with automated scaling, cost efficiency, resource management, and recommendations, enhancing performance and reducing expenses.
Umbrella enhances security with AI-driven intelligence, reducing incidents and supporting hybrid workforces without VPNs through robust features.
CAST AI has had a positive impact on my organization through cost reduction. On average, I think the savings are between 15 and 20 percent, and for certain workloads, these savings can be even higher.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
CAST AI has positively impacted our organization by reducing cloud costs, improving resource utilization, and allowing our engineering team to spend less time managing infrastructure and more time on platform improvements.
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions
With CAST AI, nodes are added or removed automatically as workloads change, helping us maintain application performance while reducing unnecessary cloud costs.
Siem Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Umbrella has positively impacted my organization by allowing our IT team to know that our users and our remote locations are having safe traffic.
Managing Director
I am able to achieve almost net zero incidents.
Product Manager at Frontier Business systems
The platform effectively leverages threat intelligence and automated analysis to identify and block malicious domains, phishing attempts, and emergency cyber threats.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
 

Categories and Ranking

CAST AI
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Umbrella
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Cost Management category, the mindshare of CAST AI is 1.9%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Umbrella is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Cost Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Umbrella0.8%
CAST AI1.9%
Other97.3%
Cloud Cost Management
 

Featured Reviews

DeepakReddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr.Devops engineer at Scaler
Automated cost controls have cut cloud waste and free our team to focus on new projects
CAST AI can be improved in that automation policies require careful tuning. Sometimes it can be confusing for non-technical people or managers who are not familiar with technical details. However, it is good for technical people who are already into DevOps or cloud engineering. Spot strategies may need adjustment for sensitive workloads. The reporting and UI part can be somewhat better. Technical support can also be improved. Documentation is somewhat unclear sometimes, but not everywhere. There are many pros here, including easy onboarding, simple deployment, and excellent Kubernetes visibility, strong spot instance automation, and automated right-sizing. These features are very good for our organization because they reduce a lot of cost and reduce a lot of manual effort. However, some things can be improved, such as automation policies that require careful tuning and may need somewhat more help. Spot strategies can be improved, and some UI and documentation can also be improved.
Srivathsanr R. - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Gained clearer financial governance and have improved cloud cost visibility and forecasting
I do not feel that anything needs to be changed. Umbrella is solving the purpose and is on point. The UI is intuitive and user-friendly. The learning curve is very easy. The features provided are on point. There is no downtime or challenges, and it is easy to learn and easy to use. In total, I do not feel that improvement is needed as per our organizational use case. Maybe for other organizations, they might have some suggestions, but for our organization specifically, I do not feel that they are lacking somewhere. It is already providing us the best thing. Almost everything is working as we expect. Small things we do not always point out. I feel that it works well and we do not have such problems with them specifically.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
26%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST AI?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that the proposal they shared with us included an ongoing monthly cost. There was a one-time setup cost as well, but all that we spent with...
What needs improvement with CAST AI?
CAST AI can be improved by managing the role-based access control better. I think it would be better for CAST AI to improve how access permissions are handled for developers. That would be a benefi...
What is your primary use case for CAST AI?
My main use case was to migrate development and staging environments to Kubernetes using CAST AI, and with them, we created these environments. We moved them from virtual machines to Kubernetes clu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Umbrella?
The cost aspect is not something I focus on because security is something that cannot be equated to money when it comes to security. Time saved is significant. With a firewall, the slowness of site...
What needs improvement with Umbrella?
To improve Umbrella, I think that every application needs ongoing improvements over time because technology continuously updates; sometimes, Umbrella disconnects automatically without any notificat...
What is your primary use case for Umbrella?
My main use case for Umbrella is for VPN purposes, and we are also using Cisco Meraki for our network. One specific example of how I use Umbrella for VPN purposes in my daily work is that we have r...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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Anodot
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rubicon, Microsoft, Credit Karma, LivePerson, AOL, Vroom, Outfit7, Telit, NetSeer, Wix, Inneractive, EyeView, Etoro
Find out what your peers are saying about CAST AI vs. Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.