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Cisco Duo vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 23, 2024

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
6.7
Cisco Duo enhances security, reduces threats, lowers costs, and boosts morale with efficient multifactor authentication, yielding substantial ROI.
Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Umbrella improves security, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness with cloud access, integrating seamlessly and reducing operational costs and malware.
I think Cisco Duo offers a good return on investment for startups, newer organizations, or those utilizing cloud-based applications.
Identity and Access Management Principal at Mobily
I have not seen ROI with Cisco Duo; probably the opposite, because it impedes productivity time to be able to get into the system.
Network Engineer at West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, Inc.
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Duo is the security and the ease of setting it up.
Chief Technology Officer at University of Redlands
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
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.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
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.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Cisco Duo's customer service is generally positive, with quick responses and strong documentation, but some users note delays.
Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Umbrella excels in support efficiency, but purchasing and real-time support integration need improvement despite good documentation.
They got back to us quickly, were nice, and gave us what we needed.
Infrastructure Engineer at a government with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate their support 10 out of 10.
Senior Network Engineer Specialist at Zenith Comp Co.,Ltd.
I would rate support for Cisco Duo a 10, as I have never had a negative experience.
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
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.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Duo is highly regarded for its scalability, flexibility, and seamless integration, efficiently supporting diverse organizational needs.
Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Umbrella is scalable, supporting seamless user growth and integration, making it ideal for organizations of any size.
In my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well.
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
I believe Cisco Duo is very scalable because it is cloud-based.
Identity and Access Management Principal at Mobily
We started out with just the basics, getting a token, and then we changed to push, and now, we have added the offline mode.
Network Engineer at West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, Inc.
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Network Engineer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
Senior Network Engineer at Boys Town
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Duo is highly stable, with rare outages, positive user feedback, effective communication, and proactive updates ensuring reliability.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is highly reliable, offering consistent performance and high uptime with minor glitches easily resolved.
We have not had any Cisco Duo outages across all the companies I have worked for that utilize Cisco Duo.
Senior Engineer at a legal firm with 1-10 employees
When there is a bigger problem, we get notifications from Cisco Duo saying, 'Hey, we have a problem,' and that has helped us.
Network Engineer at West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, Inc.
We have never experienced any downtime.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
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.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Duo users seek improvements in telephony, integration, pricing, on-premise support, authentication speed, and legacy system compatibility.
Cisco Umbrella struggles with integration, customization, user interface, and performance, needing improved documentation, security features, and deployment processes.
If you don't have internet access, you can't access your computer, only local access is available.
Security and Network Team Lead
It lacks some dynamic identity management features compared to other products such as SailPoint.
Senior Iam Associate at Cognizant
Cisco should allow easier integration with third-party equipment because Cisco's own equipment is expensive.
Procurement Officer at Emerging Systems
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
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.
CTO at Next Technologies Ltd
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Duo offers affordable, flexible pricing for enterprises, balancing cost-effectiveness with premium features and scalability for user needs.
Enterprise buyers appreciate Cisco Umbrella's security but have mixed opinions on its pricing, citing flexibility and potential cost issues.
The pricing is acceptable to them.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
Their website lists $3 per month per user for the Essential license.
Senior Network Engineer Specialist at Zenith Comp Co.,Ltd.
One of my customers recently received a billing statement charging 3,600 US dollars for 100 users for one year.
Sr. Network Security Engineer at Topnet Internet Services Provider. Riyadh, Saudi A
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Duo offers seamless integration, multi-factor authentication, geo-locking, and intuitive management for robust network security and identity verification.
Cisco Umbrella features robust security, seamless deployment, granular control, enhancing hybrid work protection and compliance with ease of use.
From a management perspective, I appreciate that we can enroll or control devices on the back end for people who get a new phone and forget to handle Cisco Duo properly and need to add a new device.
Network Engineer at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Our company benefits from all those features of Cisco Duo with confidence, and we feel very secure with it in terms of authentication of our logins.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
The benefit of having a complete passwordless environment in our organization is that it's gotten people away from using the sticky note under their keyboard - which is a huge problem.
Director, Technology at Deer Creek High School
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.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
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.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (2nd), Access Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (5th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 8.0%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 12.8%, up from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella12.8%
Cisco Duo8.0%
Other79.2%
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.
Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at PROA
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
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise39
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business49
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What do you like most about Duo Security?
They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, specifically in single sign-on.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that one of the most powerful features is the licensing model and the price. According to the pricing, it is really fantastic to get th...
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

Duo Security
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Cisco Duo vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.