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Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (10th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
Check Point Harmony SASE (f...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (15th), Anti-Malware Tools (6th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (7th), ZTNA as a Service (4th), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 17.3%, down from 20.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Nasseer Qureshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers seamless and secure remote access while enhancing security posture
Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) offers strong features, but there are areas that could be improved. One area for improvement is integration with third-party identity providers. It works with standard SAML and SSO, but we would prefer deeper integrations with solutions such as Ping for more advanced identity-based policies. Additionally, a mobile-specific client or lightweight agent would be helpful for securing access from smartphones, especially in BYOD environments. We would appreciate more granular reporting and analytics, including better drill-down capabilities to investigate specific users or app activity. The logs are comprehensive, but filtering them can sometimes feel messy. The user interface on the management portal could be more intuitive, especially when managing multiple sites or remote offices. Some of the policy configuration steps are nested and could be streamlined.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"Using the preboot VPN option, we can reset a user who is working remotely that has forgotten their Windows login credentials."
"The characteristics that I have liked the most are the ease of implementation and administration."
"I find it very easy to implement and deploy in the organization."
"Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) strikes a great balance between security, usability, and scalability, especially for distributed and hybrid environments."
"Protection against threats like ransomware is very effective."
"The best key features of Harmony are stabilization, private access, and Internet access."
"What I like about Harmony Connect is that every packet through the network is screened and filtered so that only clean packets can enter the PC. This is useful for a variety of security reasons because you no longer need to worry about things like DDoS attacks."
"Check Point provides high-quality technical support. The support was pretty quick."
"The most valuable features for us include tenant lock, content filtering, and DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated."
"It has helped reduce my unit's security events."
"I would describe the experience deploying Cisco Umbrella overall as super easy. It was awesome. It was lovely to deploy it."
"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its reliability."
"Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"The agent that gets installed on the endpoints or on people's laptops and devices is a Cisco AnyConnect Umbrella module. It's one of the most impressive things because you are able to protect your users anywhere they are."
 

Cons

"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"I'd love to learn more about all of the features. Maybe a monthly spotlight of features or having a banner that explains more ways certain features could be used would be helpful."
"Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) can be improved in several areas. I encounter many bugs that prevent me from seeing daily, monthly, and weekly data utilization, and despite updating to the latest firmware, I still experience issues."
"There are a few areas where the solution could be improved. For instance, we sometimes encounter connectivity issues, which can be problematic. Recently, I experienced a connectivity issue while trying to move to Azure. Connectivity issues can be quite frustrating."
"The platform's pricing can be an issue for smaller companies, as the cost may be higher than for larger organizations."
"My customers want more remote functionality. They need another routing option after they connect to the enterprise intranet. For example, let's say a user tries to connect to a remote branch office and headquarters through Harmony Connect. They need a local breakout after connecting to the headquarters, especially in China. They need to put local breakout in the Chinese internet. The current version cannot do something like this."
"If Harmony SASE supported bidirectional traffic and the UDP protocol, it would be better."
"I would suggest adding more networking and security features that allow more customization within their platform."
"Zero Trust Network Access can be a security breach if not used correctly."
"The integration with other solutions is a little complex. If you want to integrate with something like ArcSight or LogRhythm or Splunk, you need to do a lot of configuration. There are no easy ways to implement it."
"I would like to see more integration between Cisco Umbrella and Cisco DNA Center."
"I would like to see a graphical representation of the entire network."
"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"The product can be pretty expensive."
"It has happened in the past that Cisco Umbrella has denied us access to secure websites."
"It's somewhat pricey for us, however, it's an awesome solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"I consider the product to be a medium-priced solution. There are no additional costs attached to the tool."
"Regarding pricing, I can say that the more the number of users, the less they have to pay."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"Overall I am very happy with the solution’s flexibility and pricing."
"The pricing of Check Point is relatively high when compared to other competitors like Palo Alto and Fortinet. While Palo Alto may be on the higher side in terms of cost, Check Point's pricing is similar to that of Fortinet. In some cases, Check Point offers better value for the features it provides. We initially considered other options but ultimately decided to purchase hardware that came with three years of iOS. This approach eliminated the need for any additional costs associated with Check Point. I would rate it 10 out of 10."
"The product is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Perimeter 81 charges separately for gateways and VPN connectivity, but compared to Azure, it seemed more reasonable."
"The solution is priced appropriately considering its uses. For an essential license, a user pays only 30 USD per month. For an enterprise version, the prices can be negotiated with the company."
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."
"Cisco uses subscription models for the pricing and there are three subscription plans."
"Pricing and licensing of Cisco Umbrella is a bit confusing because you have to separate the DNS solution and the full-feature solution. Cisco in Portugal helped us understand which one was the right one for us."
"The pricing was marvelous."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"Licensing with Cisco can be a little complex, but I think it's comparable with that of other similar products. It's always hard to put a price on security, but the price is fair for the value it provides."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
20%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...
What do you like most about Perimeter 81?
Even after restarting, it tries to quickly reestablish connection which is very helpful.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Perimeter 81?
It's essential to consider the organization's specific requirements and budget. Here are some general recommendations...
What needs improvement with Perimeter 81?
In terms of improvement, Perimeter 81 could enhance its reporting and analytics capabilities to provide more detailed...
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. Zs...
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-nat...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Check Point Quantum SASE
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Aqua Security, Cognito, Multipoint, Kustomer, Postman, Meredith
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
862,289 professionals have used our research since 2012.