We compared Cisco Umbrella and Cisco Web Security Appliance across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Cisco Umbrella is highly regarded for its seamless integration with existing infrastructure, extensive range of security features, and ability to centrally manage security. Cisco Web Security Appliance receives acclaim for its user-friendly interface, ability to handle increasing demands, and flexible policy customization options.
Room for Improvement: Cisco Umbrella could enhance security by adding a transferring proxy feature and improving its Linux agent for Linux-based companies. Cisco Web Security Appliance needs improvement in stability, user-friendliness, and navigation. Users want more filters, automation, and a built-in firewall-like feature.
Ease of Deployment: Cisco Umbrella's setup is simple and can be completed in around 30 minutes. The initial setup for Cisco Web Security Appliance is generally considered easy and can be implemented within a few days or up to a week, depending on complexity. Most customers find the setup process efficient and satisfactory.
Service and Support: Customers have praised Cisco Umbrella's support, describing it as excellent and superior to the customer service of other vendors. While the customer service for Cisco Web Security Appliance is considered good, some customers say there is room for improvement.
Pricing: The cost of Cisco Umbrella differs based on the specific needs and approach of the customer, with flexible pricing and transparent charges. It is seen as both reasonable and competitive by some, but a few perceive it as costly.
ROI: Cisco Umbrella has proven to be a valuable investment by addressing maintenance concerns, reducing expenses associated with hardware updates, and effectively thwarting threats. It offers enhanced visibility and aids in remediation efforts. Users said it is challenging to determine the precise ROI for Cisco Web Security Appliance is challenging due to bundled expenses, but some noted that the potential losses resulting from attacks could be massive.
Comparison Results: Users appreciate Cisco Umbrella for its easy setup, extensive security features, and ability to centrally manage security, while Web Security Appliance is valued for its simplicity and scalability. Cisco Umbrella could improve its Linux agent. Web Security Appliance users say the solution could be more stable and user-friendly. Both products are considered to be reasonably priced, but some users find Cisco Umbrella to be costly. Both products earned high marks for customer service and support. Both products demonstrate a positive ROI and provide good customer support, but Web Security Appliance users mentioned occasional delays.
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"We can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important."
"Helps block personal email accounts."
"I have found the malware protection feature valuable. It is helpful and deliverable and is able to protect my entire organization from getting compromised. It also prevents us from visiting any malicious sites which are not visible to the users."
"It makes it really easy to accomplish content filtering. We don't have to do a lot of customization. You just click the box for the content category and it's up to date."
"One of the most important features is the security posture check which Umbrella offers when a user accesses any website. That is one of the most unique features that it offers."
"I also think that the dashboard view is really helpful. Whenever sites get blocked, we get the details and the users who are connecting to them."
"I haven't needed to reboot the servers for years due to their excellent stability."
"They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. "
"The setup was very easy and straightforward."
"Since working with the tool, we have not found any threats in our organization."
"I would recommend this solution to others."
"The solution provides good web reputation and anti-malware protection."
"What we liked best about it was the ability to apply policy to either a user ID or an IP-based network."
"The most valuable feature is security."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Web Security Appliance is the provided anti-malware functionality and URL categorization. I can block access to malicious websites. 99 percent of the cases are related to a malicious website. If I cannot browse those malicious websites, then we are 99 percent protected."
"Great for assisting with connections to networks or apps."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"For us, as an MSP, the initial licensing changes were a roadblock, and they still could be a lot clearer. Specifically, it's an honor-based licensing system. We'd like it to be more specific to our traffic or our users so that we can make sure that the customer is paying for all their licensing."
"They can maybe simplify the configuration. For example, sometimes, the proxy part is quite difficult, and that's why we didn't deploy that."
"Support for multiple domains is important to us."
"If the security issues are taken care of it would be better."
"There are a couple of different pieces that have different portals. I know they're working on getting them all into one portal, but that's probably the biggest thing that needs improvement right now. It's not a single pane of glass yet."
"Some countries don't have a DNS server leading to a domain resolution IP, not at a local level."
"The firewall capabilities could be better. Cisco is starting to introduce some layer 7 capabilities now, but there's still some room to grow. They should continue with the development of Umbrella so that it is a full-blown cloud-managed firewall solution."
"Its DNS service does not support IPv6 query."
"Cisco lacks a GUI-based troubleshooting feature compared to products by other vendors."
"The solution needs to be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"The solution could improve the graphical user interface. It is not up to the regular standard of what we would expect from Cisco. Additionally, they need to improve the categorization when blocking in the settings. The CLI could have a better view than the graphical user interface but I did not investigate further."
"The one thing I don't like about Cisco is that they are very much fragmented in terms of providing the complete solution. They keep on breaking their different feature sets into different boxes."
"Technical support needs to be improved because they take a very long time and there is no communication or notification."
"The transparent proxy is quite difficult to enforce on smartphones and tablets."
"The support for this solution could be improved. We have experienced issues with their SMARTnet support system."
"The tool needs to improve cloud-based decryption."
Cisco Umbrella is ranked 1st in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 108 reviews while Cisco Web Security Appliance is ranked 10th in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 29 reviews. Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8, while Cisco Web Security Appliance is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Cisco Umbrella writes "Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Web Security Appliance writes "Ensures security for remote workers". Cisco Umbrella is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and Netskope , whereas Cisco Web Security Appliance is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Fortinet FortiProxy, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway and Skyhigh Security. See our Cisco Umbrella vs. Cisco Web Security Appliance report.
See our list of best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors.
We monitor all Secure Web Gateways (SWG) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.