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Cisco Umbrella vs IBM NS1 Connect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 30, 2024

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
8.0
IBM NS1 Connect improved performance, reduced costs, and enhanced efficiency through automation, benefiting application uptime and customer experiences.
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.
 

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
9.1
IBM NS1 Connect offers exceptional customer support with expert guidance, responsiveness, and reliability, consistently exceeding customer expectations in DNS services.
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.
 

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
8.3
IBM NS1 Connect efficiently scales to meet traffic demands with automation, low error rates, and global operational reliability.
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
8.2
IBM NS1 Connect offers high stability and reliability, with minimal downtime and excellent performance even during high-demand situations.
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.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved integrations, security features, customization, licensing flexibility, interface ease, support, pricing, and deployment for Cisco Umbrella.
IBM NS1 Connect can improve by enhancing API, bulk changes, traffic management, DNS configurations, testing, and dashboard usability.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Umbrella pricing is flexible yet debated, with negotiable discounts and enterprise bundles but mixed views on cost transparency.
IBM NS1 Connect provides competitive, value-driven pricing, satisfying enterprises with fair costs for high request volumes and advanced features.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Umbrella offers robust DNS security, easy deployment, and integration, enhancing protection and visibility for hybrid work environments.
IBM NS1 Connect offers geo-load balancing, automation, and real-time telemetry with integration capabilities, enhancing performance and user experience.
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.
 

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), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
IBM NS1 Connect
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Umbrella and IBM NS1 Connect aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Umbrella is designed for Domain Name System (DNS) Security and holds a mindshare of 21.6%, down 27.5% compared to last year.
IBM NS1 Connect, on the other hand, focuses on Managed DNS, holds 1.2% mindshare, down 1.4% since last year.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
Managed DNS
 

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.
Michael Wills - PeerSpot reviewer
Balances cost and functionality, speeds up provisioning, and reduces the DNS maintenance work drastically
The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS. It is great as an API-first platform for DNS and application traffic management. It is very simple to use. It allows us to rapidly provision and deprovision things. We are all around happy with the solution. From a metrics standpoint, the solution that we came from had no metrics. So, it has been great. Their service team is excellent in taking the time to provide reports for both growth and strategic planning. It has been great.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
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.
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Also Known As

OpenDNS
NS1 Managed DNS, NS1
 

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
Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.