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Cisco Umbrella vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 30, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
109
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), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Umbrella is designed for Domain Name System (DNS) Security and holds a mindshare of 26.6%, down 29.0% compared to last year.
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), on the other hand, focuses on Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), holds 15.2% mindshare, down 16.3% since last year.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Rohan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 26, 2022
Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent
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. The single pane of glass management makes it very easy to manage your rollout. We get a lot of "single panes of glass" and, eventually, you need a pane of panes of glass. But it's always good to have a clear and graphical view, and Umbrella's is nice and easy to read. Definitely, of the panes of glass that we do have, it's one of the easiest to use. The single pane of glass is good to group users together and separate people out. Some people need different types of security. Some people are more vulnerable. Some have more highly valuable assets, like C-suite people. It's really good to be able to have end-users defined inside of that. You don't have to jump around. You don't have to figure out who's who. It's all done through one pane of glass. What most people don't realize is that it's running in the background, which is a really nice aspect when it comes to security. Often, when you deploy a security tool, it takes up CPU performance. Everything slows to a grind. But Umbrella is so simple and easy and it doesn't affect the end-user experience. It's the best of all worlds. It's nice when people realize that they're being protected when they go to the wrong site. I think people are happy that they're protected, but it's nice that they rarely notice it. It's generally easy to maintain network connectivity, but with Umbrella, the nice part is that whichever connectivity you're on, you're always secure. With Umbrella, as long as you're online, you're going to be protected.
Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 21, 2022
Reduces maintenance downtime and has a strong user community
Our primary use cases for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager are high availability for applications and SSL offload certificates F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager helps reduce our downtime for maintenance purposes. It also offers us ease of use for the deployment of certificates onto a central…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the protection against ransomware and phishing."
"By using Cisco Umbrella, you are sure of inspecting all the traffic. Whenever the user machine is connected to your network, it is inspected. That's the best thing. It means you are sure that nothing is being exported or imported without your choice. That is the best feature."
"Cisco's technical support is pretty good. When a solution is available, they will find it. On a scale from one to ten with ten being the best, I'd rate Cisco's technical support at nine."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"Web proxy adds an effective layer for security."
"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."
"It has improved our organization from a security posture perspective. We feel more confident now knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related. This is a very nice feature that provides peace of mind."
"You can manage and create policies based on a group of users. It can permit some URLs and block others."
"The detail that you have available when setting up iRules."
"The Local Traffic Manager (LTM) provides a simple low balance and SSL decryption, in addition to some TCP parameters, for incoming and outgoing traffic to redirect appropriate traffic patterns to appropriate servers."
"It is very intuitive, easy to deploy, and manage."
"iRule feature is useful."
"Secure and scalable traffic management solution for applications. Good for bigger environments."
"Users can see a remarkable performance difference from a qualitative sense."
"Along with load balancing, we perform a lot of packet inspections, URL rewriting, and SSL interceptions via iRule."
"It is stable."
 

Cons

"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."
"Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"The price could be better. The price is definitely a bit high, but we have to pay a premium for Cisco products."
"They need to improve analytics so they report on more of the specifics of user activity."
"Cisco Umbrella is difficult to manage and needs to include a dashboard. It needs to improve pricing as well."
"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."
"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 solution is scalable."
"LTM would be improved with the inclusion of signature-based blocking."
"The product is expensive."
"Internet and cloud support could be improved."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would expect more integration with different platforms and more integration with the backend systems. Additionally, in the next release, I would like a more secure version."
"Initial setup is tricky, if you do not understand the design of this product."
"If we decide to migrate to the cloud, I don't think that BIG-IP is a good solution and we probably won't use it."
"It would be good to have better traffic and better data. It would be nice to have more granularity to see packets in terms of the header details, the analytics, etc. It would be nice if that was also part of it and to have analytics added to the traffic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is easier compared to some of the other solutions, and it is also competitive."
"Its value exceeds its pricing."
"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."
"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 licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"Pricing depends on the automation requirements of the organization."
"Cisco uses subscription models for the pricing and there are three subscription plans."
"In my opinion, Cisco Umbrella now has a good price in the basic packages. When it comes to Cisco Umbrella SIG Essentials package and Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) Advantage package, it depends on whether the project has a good price or not"
"The cost is high for this product, so it's not suitable for small customers, e.g. those with small environments."
"It's fair, it's not too expensive. Maybe just a little high."
"Take a look at the modules that you are going to use. Look into the best bundles for them."
"Check other vendors like Cisco, Citrix or A10 Networks. There are plenty in the market with which you can achieve same thing."
"The price of the solution is sometimes expensive."
"F5 is expensive."
"It was probably a one-time purchase and then you have maintenance, but I don't have the details on that. We bought what they called the Best bundle at the time, which pretty much included all of the modules. There was probably no additional cost afterward."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
Price is an area of the tool where improvements are required. I want to see CDN capabilities in the product.
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
 

Learn More

 

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
Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: October 2024.
812,628 professionals have used our research since 2012.