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Cisco Umbrella vs iboss 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Ranking in Internet Security
1st
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
2nd
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
iboss
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Ranking in Internet Security
3rd
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
7th
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 10.0%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iboss is 1.7%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco is a very efficient and on-point solution that controls the whole network and settings on one page. We can monitor the entire network."
"Helps block personal email accounts."
"The initial setup is very easy and takes only a few minutes."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Cisco's support is better nowadays."
"It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS."
"It has helped reduce my unit's security events."
"Meraki features and cloud-based functionality are advanced and easy to manage centrally."
"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."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
 

Cons

"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."
"We've noticed some issues with the SWG where, when I'm connected, it thinks I'm in Miami, Florida instead of Savannah, Georgia."
"In the next release, I would like to see the integration of VDI NSX with Cisco Umbrella."
"If we're trying to deploy it to a Mac through Meraki, it's impossible. The method of deployment for a Mac, and the features available in Meraki, are not compatible at all."
"The pricing could be improved."
"There are cheaper solutions in the market"
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"The integration with Cisco could be better."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"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."
"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."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"Its price for us is quite expensive because it's a subscription, and we just use it for the DNS log. So, for us, it's quite expensive."
"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 price depends on the use case, and it's a bit linear. But it depends on the customer's strategy and how Cisco plans to optimize the costs."
"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"Cisco solutions are generally perceived to be rather expensive. We have constant internal discussions as to whether we should offer lower-priced security solutions from some of the competitors."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"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."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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 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 ExxonMobil. While iboss performed well, some competitors offered simpler implementati...
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 old proxies to cloud proxies, and we did POCs with different giants at that time. ...
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
iBoss Cloud Platform
 

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
More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. iboss and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.