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Cisco Umbrella vs McAfee Web Protection [EOL] vs Zscaler Internet Access comparison

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Featured Reviews

KamranJameel - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Secure browsing has protected users from DNS threats and improves malware defense
The major issue is that sometimes when you install the client, it shows you protected and displays that it is live with the backend servers and everything. However, in reality, it was not getting any feed from the main client and is just sending your traffic to open DNS, which sometimes causes an issue because the protection you have implemented can be breached by users. The primary thing that Cisco Umbrella lacked most of the time is their client. Previously, they had a separate Cisco client. Now they have merged everything into the Cisco Secure Endpoint client—one client for everything, for Cisco Endpoint, for Cisco AnyConnect, and for Cisco Umbrella, which they did probably in 2025.
VivekGupta7 - PeerSpot reviewer
DGM at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Secure, reasonably priced, and performs well
We used cloud services for testing purposes. We used Amazon cloud services. Depending on the solution, there are a variety of options. There are several options such as Endpoint, WAF, NAC, and SIEM are currently available. A variety of solutions are implemented. It was a third-party implementation by Inspira. McAfee also provides an endpoint solution. McAfee's DLP is also present. Previously, we had used Trend Micro and Symantec. There is a method we had to upgrade our systems, a solution was required, and it had to match the three, four solutions from one company that were going to be cheaper, and there is a bidding process, whoever comes first, based on quality and cost, wins the competition. The requirements were speed, quality, and cost. Because Symantec was about to be renewed, our renewal would be more expensive.
VikasTiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at Anthology
Cloud security has transformed remote access and now supports zero trust for all users
The best features Zscaler Internet Access offers are Secure Web Gateway, URL filtering, SSL inspections, and policy-based access control. I find myself relying on Secure Web Gateway, URL filtering, SSL inspection, and policy-based access control the most because these are the main and top-most features I use regularly. Zscaler Internet Access has all of these types of features for securing all internet access and web inspections, allowing me to control all traffic through these features. Zscaler Internet Access features include a Secure Web Gateway for URL filtering, file type control, and inline SSL inspections. The second feature is a cloud firewall with Layer 3 to Layer 7 filtering control and stateful inspections. No hardware inspection or hardware firewall is required. I can also perform segmentations by users, location, and application. There is a cloud CASB solution available as well. Additionally, there is an advanced threat protection feature with signature-based behavioral detections, inline IPS, and zero-day threat protections. The cloud sandboxing solution scans unknown files and provides machine learning-based verdicts to prevent zero-day malware delivery in my environment. There is also a DNS security feature that provides DNS tunneling detections, malicious domain controls, and faster threat containment at the DNS layer. The data protection feature includes inline DLP and CASB-style cloud app control, data sovereignty enforcement, and browser isolation, which executes risky sites in isolated cloud browsers and prevents endpoint compromises. Zscaler Internet Access has positively impacted my organization by reducing the dependency on on-premises hardware and improving security posture, enabling faster user onboarding, and providing better performance for remote users. It has resulted in a drop in security incidents related to web threats and improved visibility into user activity. An area for improvement includes fine-grained troubleshooting tools, better policy simulations, and optimizations around initial configuration complexity.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"My favorite feature is the command and control callback blocking."
"The implementation is pretty easy."
"By delivering security from the cloud, it will save money and provide more effective security."
"The security and access control features."
"The core business of Cisco Umbrella is non-malware. That's all it does: block the malware on the gateway."
"Umbrella is probably one of the best tools out there in all the security landscape."
"It makes it really easy to accomplish content filtering. We don't have to do a lot of customization. You just click the box for the content category and it's up to date."
"The solution is not too expensive. It's affordable."
"The most valuable features of McAfee Web Protection are the reporter, and you have the option to have an agent installed in the notebooks or on the mobiles. You are able to have the same policies inside and outside of your organization which is a benefit."
"Provides good accessibility and handles any overload very well."
"The product is quite an effective firewall."
"It's a solution that permits making a granular configuration and it is easier to deploy the same configuration on a lot of devices using the central console. It is the master of the product."
"The most valuable is the blocking of blacklisted sites, a URL that is, either by intelligence or by McAfee, detected as a malicious site."
"I would recommend the solution to others; it works well for me and it is affordable."
"It has dependable anti-malware and intrusion prevention features all-in-one package."
"I like the granularity of the control of all the traffic, including SSL inspection. I also like the fact that the user interface is intuitive. The latencies with Zscaler are minimal compared to those of any other competitor. Other competitors do not really have the global scale that Zscaler has and cannot promise low latencies."
"The solution replaces multiple vendor technologies with one which makes it worth the cost."
"The solution is stable."
"The policies are very intuitive and easy to configure, with very little possibility of messing things up."
"The solution offers a distributed organization to master and to control all of the endpoints."
"This solution helps you establish a secure connection from your laptop to the closest Zscaler point of presence, so you have protection anywhere in the world."
"Zscaler, on the other hand, is more stable and also more secure."
"Zscaler has helped protect our employees wherever they are working, by delivering safe web access."
 

Cons

"There are cheaper solutions in the market."
"We faced an issue regarding virtual appliances (VAs) during deployment. They could improve the quality and management of the virtual appliances offered right now. You can't see much because it is a Linux machine, and they have customized it. You don't have any route access to the machine, only seeing limited things in it. When we opened a ticket, they didn't know much about VAs themselves. So, that is where it is lacking right now. I know this will improve in the long run."
"We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella."
"Its on-prem rollout is quite challenging. It needs better coordination with the Internet Service Provider. It is a cloud-based solution, and any endpoint that connects to it has to go through all the gateway ISPs, but some of the ISPs block HTTPS-based DNS. That's where the challenge occurs with Umbrella."
"I think there is some room for improvement with regard to the Windows client."
"In the way we are using the solution it would be good for us if they would do some simplification of the analytics. They need to improve this feature so they have analytics to show the content of the user activity."
"It had the ability to do a lot of app control. So, every single app that went through that portal was registered, but there is a general issue with the whole app control. As soon as you add a mobile phone to your network, all of the apps get registered through the system, and you can approve, reject, or just let them go through. When I looked at it, it was impossible to manage app control. There was just so much data. I didn't apply that service because I just didn't have the time to manage it. It would be good if there was a way to categorize applications."
"The pricing is a bit high."
"The solution is stable unless there are dynamic components. If you have remote users then there are a lot of issues in terms of the replication that happens within the hybrid solution."
"The True Key version for mobile phones should be improved. The password manager is not as seamless as on the desktop. Once implemented, on the desktop, when you go to the site, it automatically fills and connects you, whereas, on the mobile phone, it doesn't do that quite seamlessly. You need to open the True Key application and then select the password you want to use. It then opens in the browser. There are fewer steps in the desktop version as compared to the mobile version."
"The manufacturerers should have more transparancy about exactly what is getting filtered when you use the product and why."
"I'm not sure if the solution itself is cloud-based or not. If it isn't they really need to begin to develop that out a bit."
"We used a consultant to help us set it up. Unfortunately, he was not that good. They were out of McAfee people. He was a consultant and knew the product, but he was not a McAfee person. How they managed it and how they worked was not straightforward."
"The solution should be more proactive in regards to sending you updates."
"There is a real need to make sure all the updates and improvements are in order to keep the security at top performance to continue defeating threats that come daily."
"We need a better customer experience and more flexibility in the product."
"The response time and engagement model for technical support could be improved to handle complex outages more efficiently."
"They could provide more time for the onboarding the training of an IT person."
"The main issue with Zscaler Internet Access is proxy IP detection, which sometimes makes sites inaccessible."
"It needs better integration with other applications. It takes a fair amount of regular activity to apply the by-passes because it is very strict in its restrictions and frequently you have to go in and open things up to allow the workforce to work."
"Zscaler Internet Access's troubleshooting is very limited, and their textbook logs need to be more informative."
"Zscaler Internet Access can improve by adding traffic filtering based on the DNS."
"There are a few features that are not compatible with the Azure cloud."
"There are some performance issues when we add on additional controls."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"When talking about Cisco solutions in general there pricing model is horrible. For example, you can sell a Meraki-based solution, but if the customer starts shopping around, someone is going to have access to the pricing at a level that you cannot compete because they do not have uniform pricing. Not everybody gets fair pricing. Unless you are one of the real major corporations selling the solution your ability to compete is impossible. Cisco will acknowledge the situation and assure you next time it will be in your favor but it never becomes favorable for you. Cisco is not very good in this regard. However, Umbrella is good."
"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."
"You get what you pay for if you break the solution up into tiers."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"$150 Canadian per year."
"The license number would be approximately $35,000."
"In McAfee Web Protection you have the ability to install any appliance you want with the same license. If you need an appliance on-premise, you can install it with the same license because the license is for users, not for appliances. If you need one more, you can install it and you don't have problems with the license or need to change your environment."
"The pricing is cheaper than some of the other options that are available."
"It is not very expensive. It costs 100 Canadian Dollars per year per license. I buy one-year or two-year protection. The license covers my PC, laptops, and telephone. The cost is per user but for multiple devices. It has just the standard licensing fees. There are some options for extended protection. For example, if I wanted to have a VPN, there will be an extra cost. So, there are upgradable features, but I'm very happy with what it is giving me with the basic plan. It gives me the basic privacy protection that I need."
"The price is competitive. It's not cheap and it's not expensive."
"We pay around 6,500 INR per user per year, which is very expensive. I would rate Zscaler's pricing one out of five."
"It is a few pounds per user per month."
"Because it's a cloud solution, we pay on a yearly basis. It is affordable and includes tech support and all features."
"Licenses are available on a per-host basis. Some features like sandboxing require an additional fee, but most standard features are included in the license."
"Zscaler is an expensive solution, but it's worth the price. Their services are unmatched by competitors. Some may come with half the features that Zscaler can offer and be much cheaper. However, they do not have the global coverage that Zscaler has, and they will not provide the same low latencies and the same speeds that Zscaler can."
"There are multiple bundles: enterprise, business, and transformation. Transformation includes all the features, but recently I've seen a few more line items that are additional costs. Overall, it's expensive."
"Roughly, we might spend $70,000 a month on the solution. We don't pay for anything beyond the standard licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise39
 

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. 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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that the pricing is acceptable, but it is marginally a ...
Do you recommend McAfee Web Protection?
I highly recommend McAfee Web Protection. In my opinion, it is a comprehensive web protection platform with a great f...
Which is better, Zscaler internet access or Netsckope CASB?
We researched Netskope but ultimately chose Zscaler. Netskope is a cloud access security broker that helps identify ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Internet Access?
We have not purchased Zscaler Internet Access through the AWS Marketplace; the licensing process was handled separate...
What needs improvement with Zscaler Internet Access?
Regarding improvements in Zscaler Internet Access, the admin console can sometimes be slow, particularly when navigat...
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
McAfee Web Gateway, McAfee SaaS Web Protection
ZIA
 

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
Sicredi
Ulster-Greene ARC, BanRegio, HDFC, Ralcorp Holdings Inc., British American Tobacco, Med America Billing Services Inc., Lanco Group, Aquafil, Telefonica, Swisscom, Brigade Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Zscaler, iboss and others in Internet Security. Updated: September 2026.
918,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.