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Cisco SecureX [EOL] vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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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

Cisco SecureX [EOL]
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Dene Lewis - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Technical Strategy and Direction CAE Technology Services Ltd at CAE Technology Services Limited
A scalable SaaS based platform that helps with cyber threat intelligence and automated hunting
I would rate Cisco SecureX a ten out of ten. I find the product to be a fantastic platform. If you are eligible, start using it straight away. The best way to evaluate it is to start using it and see where it fits within your organization. I think it helps our customers really deliver their SecOps goals, and I see it as a core foundation of CAE's own security strategy going forward. Our partnership with Cisco is one that was built on trust over a long period of time. This has enabled us to work together to be able to provide the solutions that our customers need to drive their organizations forward. The value we add as a reseller is being able to work closer with our customers, understand them, and get intimate with their organizations. That enables us to offer them the right solutions that will help them achieve their goals.
KamranJameel - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Secure browsing has protected users from DNS threats and improves malware defense
The major issue is that sometimes when you install the client, it shows you protected and displays that it is live with the backend servers and everything. However, in reality, it was not getting any feed from the main client and is just sending your traffic to open DNS, which sometimes causes an issue because the protection you have implemented can be breached by users. The primary thing that Cisco Umbrella lacked most of the time is their client. Previously, they had a separate Cisco client. Now they have merged everything into the Cisco Secure Endpoint client—one client for everything, for Cisco Endpoint, for Cisco AnyConnect, and for Cisco Umbrella, which they did probably in 2025.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When it comes as a business bundle, we come to customers to provide a one-stop shop, and we provide a return of value on human resources, with an XDR SecureX platform offer that customers love."
"The SecureX solution has the best impact for the customer because it has all the visibility of my applications and my users' applications."
"One of the most valuable features is the simplicity of deploying SecureX. It's very easy to do that and then you gain very detailed visibility into everything that's going on in your network and, obviously, at the device level. There's just a wealth of information that you can pull from all of these products that are part of SecureX. You know exactly if you have an issue or not."
"We've reduced our workload by 20 to 30 percent just from being able to focus on the important things, as this product really does a lot of the grunt work for you."
"It is one of my favorite things that has ever been built."
"SecureX definitely provides us with contextual awareness throughout our security ecosystem, since it allows us to integrate multiple threat intelligence feeds, as well as multiple security appliances and platforms."
"Using SecureX, we can aggregate the data from all our security products, automate many of our tasks that we had to do manually before, save a huge amount of time, and provide many reports about usage of our systems and networks to our leaders and managers to show what we can do to make our security better."
"The automation and orchestration tools are the most valuable features."
"Overall, as a program, it has saved us a ton of time and stress by not having to worry about malware or viruses or anything malicious."
"It provides centralized, device-agnostic management of the Internet experience."
"Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules."
"It enables us to finally allow laptops to be used as workstations and allow data to leave the building."
"The solution is extremely stable, it has excellent performance, can scale if you need it to, the initial setup is pretty straightforward, the pricing is reasonable, and integration is very easy."
"The implementation is pretty easy."
"I like the original functionality, which allows for providing secure DNS services."
"Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy."
 

Cons

"They could put in more third-party [integrations]... also more playbooks, out-of-the-box, for automation [would be helpful]."
"The automation and orchestration could be simpler. It could be that all the other parts are that easy to use so that these stick out as a negative, but that's the trickiest part for us. The workflows within the orchestration are just a bit more difficult."
"what's missing right now is the multi-tenant capability."
"The front-end work controls the new algorithm and the firewall rules. The search feature of these rules could be improved."
"If they could make the Cisco Umbrella piece a little bit more advanced or easier to manage, that would help. We use it for filtering and when you compare it to a normal content filter, it lacks some functionality."
"I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. It's a great idea if it worked consistently, but it has to be way more mature than when I used it."
"Remediation stuff could be integrated into the product's automation."
"I would like it to integrate with another solution, e.g., DNA. I would like it to connect to that solution, but not the security aspect."
"It could be improved by having a local data center and caching, which can provide protection support."
"If we're trying to deploy it to a Mac through Meraki, it's impossible. The method of deployment for a Mac, and the features available in Meraki, are not compatible at all."
"I would like the product to offer more security features, such as IPS, IDS, DDoS prevention, etc."
"We faced an issue regarding virtual appliances (VAs) during deployment. They could improve the quality and management of the virtual appliances offered right now. You can't see much because it is a Linux machine, and they have customized it. You don't have any route access to the machine, only seeing limited things in it. When we opened a ticket, they didn't know much about VAs themselves. So, that is where it is lacking right now. I know this will improve in the long run."
"Its DNS service does not support IPv6 query."
"We have had issues because of functionality that it didn't support at the time, which is why it has not been fully deployed yet."
"Something on our end that might make it better is alerting going to our ticketing system. It's not something that we have discussed, but that would be a proactive option for us to provide a learning experience for the staff."
"Lower costs including licensing, support, and renewals would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco SecureX is more expensive than Trend Micro. However, considering the integration capabilities with other solutions and the quality of technical support, I believe there's justification for the price difference."
"The pricing is the best part of this solution. It is free if you buy Umbrella or Duo Security. It is also a good solution."
"For the value you get, the pricing of the solution is excellent."
"It comes free with all Cisco products. So, it is a good price."
"You can spend less money for another solution, but if you really want to have a good solution you have to pay. We are happy that we are getting such a good solution for what we are spending."
"It would be nice if they had a different pricing model. Most of our budget for projects goes towards Cisco."
"The product is absolutely free to any customer. As such, the only thing one must keep in mind is that as long as he already has one Cisco security product, irregardless of what that product is, SecureX is available for free."
"The pricing is competitive, especially for education institutions. Licensing can be a little bit difficult to navigate, especially with resellers with Cisco, but for us it has been pretty easy."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"As an educational partner, we get better licensing structures. We are very happy with that. It has been very nice that Cisco has partnered with the educational sector to bring that."
"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"The price should be slightly lower than the current price because if you look at the whole solution, it is simply a threat intelligence solution to block blacklisted things. The price should be lower looking at the features provided by the solution. The price isn't too high either, but it could be lower."
"The price could be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
22%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

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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. 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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that the pricing is acceptable, but it is marginally a bit high. However, the services provided are much better, leading to a good retu...
 

Also Known As

Kenna.AppSec, Kenna.VI
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NHS, Rackspace, UNC Pembroke, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Missing Piece
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 and others in Cisco Security Portfolio. Updated: October 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.