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Cisco Umbrella vs FortiSASE 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Umbrella enhances security and productivity, reduces costs, and simplifies network management, offering significant ROI and client satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.8
FortiSASE delivers cost-neutral operations, rapid training, and efficiency gains, significantly benefiting hybrid work environments and reducing troubleshooting time.
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using the solution is that it makes it a lot easier to delegate some of the tasks that were traditionally used, such as building policies on the firewalls and doing it through Cisco Umbrella.
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Umbrella for me is the ease of use of the fact that we've deployed this with our Cisco VPN Secure Client, so every computer has the Umbrella module in it.
With FortiCASB, we manage to save around 50% on our budget compared to other products.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella provides knowledgeable support, but users desire faster response times despite high satisfaction and effective resources.
Sentiment score
6.6
FortiSASE support experiences vary, with reports of both excellent assistance and issues with delays and response times.
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
If I don't need to go to support all the time, that means the product is working fine, so I'm very happy with them.
If there is a solution in the market, the people supporting it should be technical enough to resolve issues at their first level or second level, or at least at the third level.
The technical support from Fortinet is highly commendable
They improved their technical support assistance recently.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cisco Umbrella offers scalable, cloud-based cybersecurity, easily handling thousands of users and sites while adapting to organizational needs.
Sentiment score
7.0
FortiSASE is praised for scalability, ease of use, flexible licensing, and efficient cloud processing for businesses of all sizes.
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is praised for its stability, high uptime, minimal glitches, and seamless performance across platforms with high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.4
FortiSASE's stability is widely praised with high availability, but some users report occasional glitches and connectivity issues.
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
Cisco Umbrella Secure Access is pretty stable in my mind, and we have not seen many glitches that would have interrupted services at customer locations.
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
They maintain high availability using numerous data centers globally.
FortiSASE is not stable yet and is in the learning stage.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved integrations, security features, customization, licensing flexibility, interface ease, support, pricing, and deployment for Cisco Umbrella.
FortiSASE needs enhancements in security, integration, and user-friendliness, facing challenges in deployment, pricing, and technical issues.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
FortiSASE implementation is too complex where other products take two to three months or maximum four months to implement, FortiSASE took more than double that time.
While connectivity from outside to inside is okay, inside to outside is not.
Although FortiCASB performs well in many areas, I believe its security aspects could be enhanced further.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Umbrella pricing is flexible yet debated, with negotiable discounts and enterprise bundles but mixed views on cost transparency.
FortiSASE pricing has mixed reviews, offering discounts for education and varied affordability based on organization size and region.
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
FortiSASE is an expensive product and the cost is indeed high.
The pricing for FortiCASB is competitive and not expensive.
When combining everything for a full SASE solution, I notice the pricing becomes quite high.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Umbrella offers robust DNS security, easy deployment, and integration, enhancing protection and visibility for hybrid work environments.
FortiSASE offers centralized management, strong security, and cost savings with user-friendly features, making it globally appealing.
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
The best possible thing is that it is very easy to deploy, easy to configure, and very fast to get onboarded with a customer because this is a cloud-based service.
The important aspects are twofold. One is authorization, and the second is access control.
FortiCASB is user-friendly and integrates well with other Forti-products, providing enhanced management capabilities.
In FortiSASE, these features are bundled, and since they are tightly integrated with the firewall, SD-WAN works without additional payment.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
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), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
FortiSASE
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Umbrella is designed for Domain Name System (DNS) Security and holds a mindshare of 21.3%, down 27.2% compared to last year.
FortiSASE, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), holds 7.0% mindshare, up 4.8% since last year.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

Featured Reviews

Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures internet navigation safety and boosts productivity
The features of Cisco Umbrella I prefer most are DNS protection and traffic redirect. With Cisco Talos's threat intelligence, we reduce the impact of malware traffic in our network, and we currently see the behavior of equipment and choose the correct sites. Cisco Talos has helped us reduce the impact of malware traffic. We can see the behavior and choose the correct sites. We're currently testing secure access with Umbrella in order to secure access to core applications. It's a product that the user doesn't even know is there, even though it is protecting them. It's not hard on the equipment. And, for us, it centralizes everything, which improves productivity. With the Experience Insights feature of Cisco Secure Access, we've seen impacts on the management of user connectivity by allowing us to deliver safe connectivity. We are testing the Secure Access product with Cisco Umbrella to improve our connectivity with our users in order to secure access to the corporate applications. Cisco Umbrella is in the cloud, which is nice.
Yusuke Murasato - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient access control and authorization with easy configurations
The important aspects are twofold. One is authorization, and the second is access control. FortiSASE can operate in a cloud environment with client certificates for authorizations and access control using features like PostureCheck. The service assesses device security, checking updates on antivirus software and confirming Windows OS specifications. I can use it anywhere I want as long as I have an Internet connection. It's very easy to configure the environment.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction 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 do you like most about FortiSASE ?
The integration with the company's existing security infrastructure enhanced our security posture since it was a straightforward process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiSASE ?
I have not fully explored the costs yet, but when dealing solely with firewalls and switches, I find Fortinet's pricing to be competitive. However, when combining everything for a full SASE solutio...
What needs improvement with FortiSASE ?
For other solutions such as FortiAnalyzer and FortiSIEM, integration is easy, but it's not straightforward due to license complexity. As FortiSASE is new in the market in India, if you want to use ...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. FortiSASE and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.