Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Umbrella vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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 Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
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), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
EfficientIP DNS Guardian
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 21.6%, down from 27.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of EfficientIP DNS Guardian is 6.6%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

Sabbir Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Blocks threats before they reach the user's device
Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability. The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users. Additionally, strong winds can disrupt its functionality, and the opening and closing mechanism can be awkward in tight spaces.
Stanislav Strijakov - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps deal with DNS DoS attacks and corrupt DNS requests
I know my company does come across problems related to the product, sometimes related to a configuration issue or a bug. My company receives good support from EfficientIP DNS Guardian's team, who are responsible and passionate about the product. As far as I know, all of my company's challenges and issues have been successfully resolved. I can't think of any weaknesses or issues which I would like to highlight in a significant manner. EfficientIP DNS Guardian has a certain default behavior that didn't meet our company's requirements. After the consultation with EfficientIP DNS Guardian's IT support, a configuration changed the product's default behavior, which was undesirable for us, to a desirable behavior. Certain issues happen in every product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Some clients only want DNS security, while others want more of the advanced features that it has available."
"The customer service and technical support of Cisco Umbrella are great."
"The security and access control features."
"​They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. ​​"
"Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."
"For us and for customers, it's the ease of integration with Meraki. It's just a couple of clicks. That allows us to deploy very fast, and it doesn't change the way a customer uses his service. It's just more secure."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to block users from reaching places that they should not even try to reach has been a boon."
"The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple."
"You can run a DNS server directly from EfficientIP to help mitigate all DNS attacks from various sources. This is a very good feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is DNS security."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"From my perspective, I would Cisco Umbrella to give more exposure to my sales engineers. I know I can call them whenever I have an issue, however, more frequent meetings would be awesome."
"It is a value for money product for sure. However, it does not have that kind of awareness plus brand within the customer, as they are influenced more by brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to have more applications being recorded."
"The channel of support needs improvement. It is not under normal Cisco support, and I cannot simply call for support."
"The prices need to go lower. The price of technology is just crazy."
"EfficientIP DNS Guardian has a certain default behavior that didn't meet our company's requirements."
"EfficientIP DNS Guardian's deployment documentation is very hard to find. The tech support's response is slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"​The pricing is fair."
"Licensing fees are paid 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."
"In terms of licensing, we're not able to be extremely clear with the customer because it's based on their reporting. It's not based on the actual traffic. If they say they have 50 users but they have 80, we'll just buy for 50 users. That's something where we'd like to have more flexibility."
"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."
"You can request an evaluation license​."
"The price of this product is very reasonable, especially considering that a company's reputation is priceless."
"I rate the product price as three to four on a scale of one to ten, where one is low cost, and ten is high price."
"The solution is subscription-based."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about EfficientIP DNS Guardian?
It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for EfficientIP DNS Guardian?
I rate the product price as three to four on a scale of one to ten, where one is low cost, and ten is high price.
What needs improvement with EfficientIP DNS Guardian?
I know my company does come across problems related to the product, sometimes related to a configuration issue or a bug. My company receives good support from EfficientIP DNS Guardian's team, who a...
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
De Montfort University, STMicroelectronics, Leeds Beckett University
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. EfficientIP DNS Guardian and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.