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Cisco Umbrella vs NordLayer 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
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
NordLayer
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
28th
Ranking in Internet Security
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (15th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (23rd), ZTNA as a Service (20th), ZTNA (16th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (14th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 16.7%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NordLayer is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

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.
Christophe Derdeyn - PeerSpot reviewer
A convenient and easy tool with an incredibly high number of dialing points
The solution is convenient and easy. It has an incredibly high number of dialing points for pretty much every single country in the world. It has a few additional security features. It has a function that prevents unsecured access if my connection were to drop for any reason. It’s something I like. It has threat protection features. It can protect my web connection and files against malicious downloads and trackers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its reliability."
"The most valuable feature is the website protection capabilities because it prevents end-users from entering bad sites that potentially have malware or could be used for phishing."
"Using this solution has meant that we've needed to make fewer firewall changes."
"Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy."
"It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution."
"It's very stable, reliable and does its job."
"It has the ability to quickly block new threats."
"It analyzes the domain security helps us implement the securest policy."
"The solution is convenient and easy."
 

Cons

"Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella."
"Its price could be better."
"Security, overall, can always be improved."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"I am unsure if Cisco Umbrella offers a Windows option for running the server."
"I would like to have more applications being recorded."
"The tool is not perfectly stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We were using the free version, and we implemented the paid version about two months ago. I'm paying a fair price, but everything is negotiable with Cisco. One of the benefits that I got by having Cisco Umbrella is the licensing of the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"Cisco has a set price for a single license up to 100, but whenever we get over 100, we have to ask for a quote."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"The pricing model is easier compared to some of the other solutions, and it is also competitive."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
29%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Legal Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
No data available
 

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
Hostinger, Shutterstock, USMobile, Soundcloud, Calendly, whatagraph.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.