Cisco Umbrella vs Cloudflare DNS comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Cisco Logo
45,477 views|34,181 comparisons
Cloudflare Logo
37,598 views|26,077 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Umbrella and Cloudflare DNS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Zscaler, TitanHQ and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG).
To learn more, read our detailed Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Report (Updated: March 2023).
686,748 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"If it didn't have a single pane of glass, we would not be using it. The single pane of glass gives you a one-stop shop. It's like going to Home Depot. You find all your stuff there. You can see all your threats and your endpoints. It's a very important feature and makes things very simple.""I like that it integrates with the infrastructure. I also like the kind of data and intelligence that's built-in. It helps create innovative reports for security.""I was able to implement it myself. It was really easy to install. You could install it on a server locally if you want to. If you have the biggest site, you would do that, but for my site, it was just directing all the traffic out through the Cisco Umbrella DNS. It was really handy. When the owners of the company went overseas, I knew that they would be secure because even if they were not on the company network, they would still go through the Cisco Umbrella servers. It was a complete solution for protecting the company with outgoing data.""It has excellent resilience in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity for my organization is very important because we are a banking organization. We need this security to protect the personal information of our clients. This is very important for our security.""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.""We can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important.""I think recently with many people working from home, Cisco Umbrella has been very useful. For example, we can manage the device and the network when the employee is not working on the local host. Cisco Umbrella is very valuable for this kind of infrastructure.""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."

More Cisco Umbrella Pros →

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving.""Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick.""The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy.""The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

More Cloudflare DNS Pros →

Cons
"It would be good to have more extensions to third-party products and a client for other device types.""In my experience with Umbrella support, sometimes the response times take a bit more time than we would like... sometimes, if you go through email, it can take quite a while to get a response.""I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market.""The price could be better. The price is definitely a bit high, but we have to pay a premium for Cisco products.""I'd like to see this solution more closely integrate with other products Cisco has in its portfolio.""The main issue that we have is with the final steps or the full integration and getting rid of Zscaler. The company still has to fall back to Zscaler when something in Umbrella is not working as expected, such as when we enable SSL inspection. When something is not working 100%, the company is falling back to Zscaler.""The only thing I can think of is that I'd like to see a little more flexibility in policy creation. The way that policy is currently structured is like a "first hit succeeds" kind of policy. It would be nice if it were more hierarchical.""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."

More Cisco Umbrella Cons →

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API.""It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market.""There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature.""The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

More Cloudflare DNS Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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."
  • "Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
  • "When talking about Cisco solutions in general there pricing model is horrible. For example, you can sell a Meraki-based solution, but if the customer starts shopping around, someone is going to have access to the pricing at a level that you cannot compete because they do not have uniform pricing. Not everybody gets fair pricing. Unless you are one of the real major corporations selling the solution your ability to compete is impossible. Cisco will acknowledge the situation and assure you next time it will be in your favor but it never becomes favorable for you. Cisco is not very good in this regard. However, Umbrella is good."
  • "The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
  • "In the region I'm from, that of EMAR, Europe, the Middle East, Eastern Asia and Africa, our organizations do not have many liquid cash assets, so the price could be better."
  • "The price depends on the use case, and it's a bit linear. But it depends on the customer's strategy and how Cisco plans to optimize the costs."
  • "We were using the free version, and we implemented the paid version about two months ago. I'm paying a fair price, but everything is negotiable with Cisco. One of the benefits that I got by having Cisco Umbrella is the licensing of the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client."
  • "There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
  • More Cisco Umbrella Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
  • "When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
  • "The price of the solution is expensive."
  • More Cloudflare DNS Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
    686,748 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: 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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far.
    Top Answer:Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving.
    Top Answer:When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable.
    Ranking
    Views
    45,477
    Comparisons
    34,181
    Reviews
    35
    Average Words per Review
    862
    Rating
    8.8
    2nd
    out of 23 in Managed DNS
    Views
    37,598
    Comparisons
    26,077
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    402
    Rating
    9.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    OpenDNS
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cisco Umbrella offers flexible, cloud-delivered security according to users’ requirements Cisco Umbrella includes secure web gateway, firewall, and cloud access security broker (CASB) functionality all delivered from a single cloud security service. Cisco Umbrella’s protection is extended to devices, remote users, and distributed locations anywhere. As company employees work from many locations and devices, Cisco Umbrella is the easiest way to effectively protect users everywhere in minutes.

    Cisco Umbrella uses machine learning to search for, identify, and even predict malicious domains. By learning from internet activity patterns, this DNS-layer security solution can automatically identify attacker infrastructure being staged for the next threat. These domains are then proactively blocked, protecting networks from potential compromise. Cisco Umbrella analyzes terabytes of data in real time across all markets, geographies, and protocols.

    Cisco Umbrella works with leading IT companies to integrate its security enforcement and intelligence. Built with a bidirectional API, Cisco Umbrella makes it easy to extend protection from on-premises security appliances to cloud controlled devices and sites.

    Cisco Umbrella is suitable for small businesses without dedicated security professionals, as well as for multinational enterprises with complex environments.

    Why use Cisco Umbrella?

    • Simplify security management: Cisco Umbrella is the fastest and easiest way to protect all users within minutes and reduces the number of infections and alerts sent from other security products by stopping threats at the earliest point. With no hardware to install and no software to manually update, ongoing management is simple

    • Reliable reporting: Cisco Umbrella reports show activity for each device or network in the system. Users gain a more complete picture of the security risks facing their organization and can take action to remedy them.

    • Manage and control cloud apps: Umbrella provides visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services in use across the enterprise. Users can uncover new services being used, see who is using them, identify potential risk, and block specific applications easily.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Cisco Umbrella stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of the major ones are its DNS-based protection, ability to protect users no matter where they are located, stability, and high performance.

    Daniel B., a network specialist at Syswind Kft, writes, “We primarily use the solution as cloud security for our branches. It protects us from direct internet outbreaks. It makes for good flexibility. The solution is very easy to manage. We found the initial setup, for example, to be quite simple. Efficient protection on the DNS level and even higher. The sandboxing feature analyses and handles the complicated security risks.”

    Victor M., SOC & Security Services Director at BEST, notes, “It provides security for the remote workers and it helps to improve enterprise security in a very easy way. We mainly enjoy web software protection capabilities. It prevents the end-users from getting into bad sites or sites that potentially could have malware or could be phishing. It helps end-users avoid the wrong sites. The solution works very smoothly. The user interface is good.”

    Powering over 38% of managed DNS domains, Cloudflare runs one of the largest authoritative DNS networks in the world. With an average of a few milliseconds query speed, we have the fastest performance of any managed DNS provider. DNS updates happen within seconds, making DNS propagation delays a thing of the past.

    Offer
    Learn more about Cisco Umbrella
    Learn more about Cloudflare DNS
    Sample Customers
    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
    GoDaddy, Nasdaq, Zendesk, DigitalOcean, OK Cupid, Cisco, Udacity, LogMeIn, Library of Congress
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Educational Organization8%
    Healthcare Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Comms Service Provider23%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government7%
    Media Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise64%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
    March 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Zscaler, TitanHQ and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: March 2023.
    686,748 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco Umbrella is ranked 1st in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 39 reviews while Cloudflare DNS is ranked 2nd in Managed DNS with 4 reviews. Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8, while Cloudflare DNS is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Umbrella writes "We can see all of our locations in one place and only have to make changes once for all our locations". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cloudflare DNS writes "Offer good protection, user-friendly, reliable, and easy to manage". Cisco Umbrella is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, Fortinet FortiGate SWG and Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, whereas Cloudflare DNS is most compared with Quad9, Google Cloud DNS, Azure DNS, Hurricane Electric Free DNS and Amazon Route 53.

    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.