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Cisco Umbrella vs IBM Security Network IPS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
125
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 (3rd)
IBM Security Network IPS
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Umbrella and IBM Security Network IPS 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 17.5%, down 25.0% compared to last year.
IBM Security Network IPS, on the other hand, focuses on Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS), holds 1.9% mindshare, up 0.4% since last year.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella17.5%
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security9.1%
Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection7.3%
Other66.1%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security Network IPS1.9%
Darktrace10.3%
Fortinet FortiGate9.6%
Other78.2%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

BB
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Ensures comprehensive protection with seamless threat logging and efficient policy management
My favorite feature of Cisco Umbrella is probably just the DNS and the fact that when a security threat happens, all of that gets logged in their Umbrella portal, and it's very easy to find who's been accessing the site and how many people have accessed it, so that we can go to them and make sure they're not compromised. The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast. The fact that there's a virtual database that has all that information is great on our portal.
Jacob_Koithra - PeerSpot reviewer
Project & Program manager at Shell Grp
User-friendly and has a good blocking feature but is quite expensive
Defining the new security rules and policies sometimes becomes a challenge. Integration with other platforms becomes a challenge as well. I'd like to see more integration with other tools and technologies. XGS 7100 has an end of support for the 30th of December 2022. Many are losing support. All the products of the XGS, including XGS 3100, 4100, 5100, and 7100, support is ending in December 2022. We need to know what is the plan post that? Do we need to spend money on them? Will that be extended? There has been no communication on the website either. It's an expensive device.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 most valuable features of this solution are the Web Filtering and the APT."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to filter malware sites that could infect clients or allow them to download infected files."
"I have found the malware protection feature valuable; it is helpful and deliverable and is able to protect my entire organization from getting compromised, and it also prevents us from visiting any malicious sites which are not visible to the users."
"It blocks malicious DNS queries daily which is very beneficial."
"Cisco Umbrella is the first layer of security that protects me while surfing the net, identifying untrusted websites to prevent access."
"The insight into what our users are doing via Cisco Umbrella is valuable. Knowing that we're protecting our users as they leave our network is also valuable now because we've got more hybrid working."
"The solution is very good for helping workers feel safe, secured, supported, and included."
"Signature based analysis and preventing different types of network attacks."
"The blocking feature is great; it acts as an in-line blocker, and any malicious traffic that you see, or anything really, it can block the traffic."
"This is definitely a product that I recommend, especially for organizations that want a quick integration of data from the transaction systems, with a very low cost of operations."
"IPS has helped us in understanding more about the latest threats out there and made us realize that we need to be proactive when it comes to security rather than reactive."
"The initial setup is simple."
"The most valuable feature is its simplicity."
 

Cons

"Perhaps an option to be able to block only specific users would be a way to improve the free version of OpenDNS."
"Overall, I'm quite happy with Cisco products, but there could be one place where you can check what's going on. There could be one place where you get all the information about these products so that you don't need to look around. You get the status, information about what lately happened, and if there was anything on the machine in one single place."
"We have had issues because of functionality that it didn't support at the time, which is why it has not been fully deployed yet."
"It needs a better price point."
"I would like for them to continue building on IPS and IDS functionalities."
"The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence."
"In the next release, I would like to see the integration of VDI NSX with Cisco Umbrella."
"The product can be pretty expensive."
"The management server can be made more user friendly and also the database configuration could be made simpler."
"The configuration of this product is complex. It could be made more user friendly."
"In the future, I would like to see a hybrid option so that we can work both on-premises and in the cloud."
"I'd like to see more integration with other tools and technologies."
"In terms of scalability, I would say that it is a little on the poor side."
"It's an expensive device."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."
"It was a little bit expensive on a per seat basis, but the company I was running was only a midsize Australian company, and it was a reasonable budget per computer for that system. It started off being a free product, and then Cisco bought it, and it went to a reasonable price. I was using Cisco AMP as well. So, my per computer cost was reasonably high, but for a small company, it was within an acceptable level."
"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 pricing model is easier compared to some of the other solutions, and it is also competitive."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"The cost of operations is very low."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
7%
Performing Arts
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Media Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise52
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bundle with other Cisco purchases.
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Also Known As

OpenDNS
Security Network Intrusion Prevention System, IBM Security Network Protection, XGS, GX
 

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
Equifax, Christian Hospital Centre
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: May 2026.
899,204 professionals have used our research since 2012.