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Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Protect comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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 Internet Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
Menlo Protect
Ranking in Internet Security
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (48th), Enterprise Browsers (6th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Internet Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 27.0%, down from 34.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Protect is 3.3%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Internet Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella27.0%
Menlo Protect3.3%
Other69.7%
Internet Security
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Sr. Technical Executive at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Has required extensive customization for non-technical users and still needs better simplification
Customization for basic users can be complex, as it is targeted toward only technical users. It would be beneficial if Cisco simplifies the customization process while still ensuring strong security to prevent unauthorized access. Simplifying the customization part could enhance Cisco Umbrella, but overall, it is a good solution for me.
reviewer1991553 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Decreased our security alerts without impacting employees' work
I can't say that there is one specific feature that is most valuable. It's the overall platform that is well-suited to our needs. It's something that is different from a lot of other products or platforms in the marketplace. It provides a single console for security policy and management. That is somewhat important because we used to have other products where you would have to log in to individual appliances, devices, or clusters. Having one spot to log in to or one area to go to for doing different tasks and viewing data sources, just makes it easier from a user perspective. Also, the fact that it's invisible to our end-users and doesn't affect their work is very important. Most companies don't want to have added friction or impact on their users. In addition, the combination of user-friendliness for admins, and security for the organization, works well. As a cloud-hosted solution, it provides ease of use.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I appreciate most about Cisco Umbrella is the dashboard and how easy it is to see the reporting, what is blocked and allowed, and it makes it very user-friendly."
"The initial setup is very easy and takes only a few minutes."
"The customer experience is very good, and the product improves security posture."
"The core business of Cisco Umbrella is non-malware. That's all it does: block the malware on the gateway."
"If anybody is looking for DNS and IP reputation for protection and blocking, then this is the right product."
"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."
"Umbrella has been a godsend for that."
"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."
"I can't say that there is one specific feature that is most valuable. It's the overall platform that is well-suited to our needs. It's something that is different from a lot of other products or platforms in the marketplace."
"Menlo Security RBI's best feature is its threat isolation engine."
"In addition, the combination of user-friendliness for admins, and security for the organization, works well."
"Menlo Security RBI has a very good record on stability."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution is costly. It doesn't come cheap. The licensing also comes with additional costs for extra services (such as sandboxing feature, L3/L4 firewall, etc...)."
"It could be improved by having a local data center and caching, which can provide protection support. I would like to be able to channel my intel and my network traffic to their clouds, and this feature is not available. Advanced protection or any malware file support, which might be required, is not available."
"They can maybe simplify the configuration. For example, sometimes, the proxy part is quite difficult, and that's why we didn't deploy that."
"The locks and management could be better. The product is fairly new, and it may take some time to get all the features up and running."
"If you wish to inspect all the traffic and it's integrated with Cisco AnyConnect, all the traffic basically goes through Cisco AnyConnect, which is not a good idea. That means you need to have more internet capacity as a data sampler, so in the case of a split tunnel, we cannot inspect the traffic that is being migrated through the local internet. I'm not sure whether there is a possibility wherein Cisco Umbrella can also inspect the traffic that is outside the AnyConnect tunnel."
"I think it's a very basic solution, and because of that, Cisco Umbrella would not be a suitable solution for large companies."
"We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella."
"Menlo Security RBI can be very costly."
"Menlo Security RBI could be more cloud-friendly, and its mobility could be improved."
"There are several features, such as supporting web technologies, that the company is working on implementing in the platform. There are a lot of backend web technologies in use on various websites, for example, two-way audio/video and WebGL, for which support may not be fully implemented in the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"Cisco has a model called ELA. With ELA, if you buy the solution you will have the complete security portfolio and you can pay it yearly or after three years, it depends on the contract."
"We did a good negotiation, and at the moment, its price is fine."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"Menlo Security RBI can be very costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise51
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
Menlo Security Email Security, Menlo Security Remote Browser Isolation
 

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
Macy's, HSBC, Bank of Hawaii
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Menlo Protect and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.