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Cisco Secure Email vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco Secure Email enhances security, reduces costs, and boosts productivity, providing ROI similar to preventive insurance against breaches.
Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Umbrella enhances security and productivity, reduces costs, and simplifies network management, offering significant ROI and client satisfaction.
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
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.
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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Secure Email is praised for its knowledgeable, proactive support with quick resolutions, despite occasional delays for some users.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella provides knowledgeable support, but users desire faster response times despite high satisfaction and effective resources.
Cisco's tech support can be hit or miss, depending on the engineer you get.
The support is pretty decent, with a rating of eight out of ten.
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
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.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Secure Email excels in scalability, supporting large enterprises seamlessly, with minor hardware challenges noted by some users.
Sentiment score
8.2
Cisco Umbrella offers scalable, cloud-based cybersecurity, easily handling thousands of users and sites while adapting to organizational needs.
The on-premises hardware is not very scalable, but switching to the SaaS offering is expected to improve scalability.
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Secure Email is praised for reliability, stability, and efficiency, outperforming rivals with minimal issues and high user ratings.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is praised for its stability, high uptime, minimal glitches, and seamless performance across platforms with high user satisfaction.
Based on my experience, the stability of Cisco Secure Email is very strong.
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
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.
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Email needs UI improvements, simplified pricing and deployment, enhanced features, and streamlined management for better user experience.
Users seek improved integrations, security features, customization, licensing flexibility, interface ease, support, pricing, and deployment for Cisco Umbrella.
The solution should better analyze the actual content rather than only focusing on the email header or origin.
It would be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated into the Email Security Gateway so customers don't have to buy two products for full email protection.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Email offers robust features and value, with prices varying based on services, usage, and licensing complexity.
Cisco Umbrella pricing is flexible yet debated, with negotiable discounts and enterprise bundles but mixed views on cost transparency.
Its cost is bundled with other Cisco products.
The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out.
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Email offers strong spam and malware protection, seamless Active Directory integration, and customizable security features for effective threat management.
Cisco Umbrella offers robust DNS security, easy deployment, and integration, enhancing protection and visibility for hybrid work environments.
It also possesses multiple modules for spam detection, malware detection, and threat intelligence, which are valuable in categorizing emails and determining actions.
It is highly effective in catching phishing and spam emails.
It covers everything through email, like antivirus, IDS, and IPS.
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.
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (3rd)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
2nd
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), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 12.1%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

Kostas Karidas - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps prevent security breaches but fails to improve in the area of AI
I have not noticed any impressive advanced threat protection mechanisms in the tool. I don't know if there are any AI features in the product. I don't know if there is any other technology embedded in the solution. Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats. My company has seen plenty of scenarios where Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats, spam emails, and fraudulent domains. The product is good for dealing with spam emails, and it can take care of more than 100 spam emails per day. A huge number of spam emails are monitored with the help of Cisco Secure Email. I would not recommend the product to other businesses because you need to have some kind of expertise in configuring and knowing a bit about the tool's GUI. The tool also lacks in the area of AI mechanics. If I would like to have an overview and review another solution, I would go for another product other than Cisco Secure Email. I can definitely suggest others to look at the product and review it, but I would also recommend that they compare it with the other solutions in the market. I wouldn't prioritize Cisco Secure Email over other tools. Either the support partner of the product or I take care of the tool's maintenance phase by looking into the configurations and doing some fine-tuning. I rate the tool a seven to eight out of ten.
Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Email?
Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The user interface of the Email Security Gateway ( /products/security-gateway-reviews ) should be improved. It would be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated i...
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

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
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 Secure Email vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.