Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL] vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL] and Cisco Umbrella are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL] users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Cisco Umbrella users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL] and Cisco Umbrella are competing in cloud-based security solutions, with Cisco Umbrella seen as more favorable due to its advanced features and perceived value.

Features: Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL] included web filtering, anti-malware protection, and basic web security suitable for many businesses. Cisco Umbrella extends security with DNS-layer protection, comprehensive threat intelligence, and an advanced feature set, offering a modern approach to security.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco ScanSafe featured a straightforward deployment process and satisfactory customer service, appealing to those in need of quick implementation. In contrast, Cisco Umbrella offers a more streamlined deployment experience, enhanced integration, and scalable solutions, which are beneficial in dynamic environments needing flexible and rapid deployments.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco ScanSafe was recognized for its cost-effectiveness, providing strong ROI, particularly for smaller businesses aiming to manage security costs effectively. While Cisco Umbrella might entail a higher setup cost, it delivers significant ROI through its extensive security offerings and advanced protection, deemed worthy of its premium for businesses seeking robust security solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Report (Updated: May 2026).

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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

iboss

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula

Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support

The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.

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Enrique-Diaz Jolly

Principal Consulting Engineer, Founder, Own at Jolly Security Inc

Super stable with huge capacity but is retired so is no longer supported

The solution is scalable and has a huge capacity. You may experience delays if you are sending requests outside of websites because the proxy has to download and provide content. Speed is dependent on many factors including the combination of networks, tasks, locations, and networking services. Things have become a bit more complicated than with classic website models where the server contained content so there was a straight connection. Now there are distribution networks and other services that are all configured to work differently in various directions. At the end of the day, URLs are still URLs so their categorization remains the same.

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Bryan Bettencourt

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."

"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."

"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."

"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."

"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."

More iboss pros

"The cyber security features they offer are most trusted."

"The solution is super stable because it is made up of a bunch of mega proxies."

"It is valuable to be able to block whole categories or groups at one time."

"The web security is great."

"The cyber security features they offer are most trusted"

"It is an easy solution to implement, the web security is great, the filtering of different URLs has been very helpful, it also acts as a firewall which is quite helpful in terms of security, we've used it for content scanning and filtration in the data center, since this is on the cloud the cost has gone down, it's got good features and is easily manageable, and Cisco is rather well-known and robust."

"Umbrella has helped my IT staff in two ways. First, our security team was able to get more insights into the users, their devices, and the sites they browse. Second, our system administration team was able to manage DNS resolutions in a way that is more accessible and less intrusive to our domain system."

"I haven't found any issues related to latency or any other issue."

"OpenDNS is either a good complement to your existing web content filtering solution at the enterprise level, or it is a good free or easy-to-deploy alternative for home and SMB use."

"Cisco Umbrella is such a solution and can be implemented very fast and easy. All that we must do is redirect the DNS registers in their routers, or the active directory service of the enterprise that are going to use in Umbrella services. If you buy the service now, in two hours you are protected by the service because it's very fast to put in service."

"The implementation is pretty easy."

"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."

"The most valuable feature is that it secures our network against blacklisted or malicious websites."

"The Secure Internet Gateway benefits my company because now our whole traffic goes to the Umbrella Cloud and it gets checked there, so nothing malicious is coming into our network."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability within the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing."

"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."

"The dashboards for local use could be better."

"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."

More iboss cons

"The solution is not supported well because it is legacy."

"The licensing could be better. They are an expensive product."

"The licensing could be better."

"The solution is not supported because it is legacy and almost out of market."

"Setup is not that difficult, but it really requires proper technical training."

"Cisco has good technical support although sometimes our clients would like it to be better in some areas."

"I'd like to see improvement in its overall integration with all the other platforms."

"The solution could be faster as the process is very slow."

"We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella."

"The locks and management could be better. The product is fairly new, and it may take some time to get all the features up and running."

"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."

"It's a very new product, so it's quite immature at the moment. It can be more user friendly."

"The pricing could be improved."

"The product can be pretty expensive."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

Information not available

"I think it's worth the money."

"The price is quite good."

"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."

"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 price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."

"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."

"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."

"It has a reasonable price. It is certainly not as expensive as it used to be. It is in line with other offerings on the market. There are a number of different flavors of Umbrella. They could bring Umbrella SIG down a bit because its price is a little bit high for what it does, but I also understand why its price is high."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Non Profit

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	8

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	50
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	51

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...

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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. Zs...

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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-nat...

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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 bu...

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Comparisons

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs iboss

Compared 5% of the time

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Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL]

Compared 38% of the time

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL]

Compared 29% of the time

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Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 17% of the time

Palo Alto Networks DNS Security vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 3% of the time

Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco Umbrella Competitors

Product Reports

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iboss

May 2026

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Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

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Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS [EOL] report

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Cisco Umbrella

May 2026

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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

ScanSafe Web Security SaaS

OpenDNS

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

Cisco ScanSafe is a cloud hosted web filtering service which enables you to create, enforce and monitor Web usage policies. Layering real time rule-based filters with up-to-date and accurate categorization database, Web Filtering enforces your organization's acceptable usage policy, protecting you from the legal liabilities of inappropriate content, reducing bandwidth congestion and improving employee productivity.

Cisco

Cisco Umbrella provides fast-deploying DNS-layer security with powerful threat protection capabilities. Trusted by over 30,000 entities, it ranks highly in DNS security and effectively supports secure remote work environments.

Cisco Umbrella offers comprehensive DNS security, web filtering, and ease of use, enhancing network security through robust threat protection and malware prevention. It processes over 600 billion requests daily, making it a leader in its field. The seamless integration with existing infrastructures and cloud-based nature makes it suitable for remote and distributed work environments, ensuring consistent security throughout. Management is streamlined with a single-pane interface that simplifies administration, while in-depth reporting capabilities provide valuable insights for continuous monitoring.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS Security: Provides leading protection by managing DNS queries and blocking malicious sites.
Web Filtering: Offers granular control over web content to safeguard internet usage.
Ease of Integration: Fits well into existing infrastructures, simplifying deployment and use.
Intuitive Management: Single-pane management streamlines administration and enhances usability.
Cloud-Based Flexibility: Supports secure remote work environments.

What benefits can users expect from using Cisco Umbrella?

Superior Threat Protection: Reduces risk by effectively detecting and preventing cyber threats.
Consistent Security: Provides uniform protection across network environments.
Efficiency and Visibility: Leverages comprehensive reporting for better security insights.
Easy Deployment: Quick and straightforward setup with minimal disruption.

Cisco Umbrella is widely adopted in industries requiring advanced DNS-level security to counteract malware, phishing, and cyber threats. Its ability to monitor and protect remote and roaming employees makes it an attractive option for sectors highly dependent on cloud services. By managing DNS queries and blocking harmful sites, Cisco Umbrella enhances cybersecurity across networks, providing an added layer of protection for businesses worldwide.

Cisco

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.

Arup Group, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, K&L Gates, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Transplace

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

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May 2026

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