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Cisco Umbrella vs NordLayer comparison

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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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
5th
Ranking in Internet Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
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 (1st)
NordLayer
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
27th
Ranking in Internet Security
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (13th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (21st), ZTNA as a Service (19th), ZTNA (15th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (14th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 17.4%, down from 20.8% 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) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella17.4%
iboss2.2%
NordLayer0.5%
Other79.9%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

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
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

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"The core business of Cisco Umbrella is non-malware. That's all it does: block the malware on the gateway."
"It analyzes the domain security helps us implement the securest policy."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to filter malware sites that could infect clients or allow them to download infected files."
"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."
"Overall, it is a very good solution. It is a simple solution and very easy to set up."
"I would describe the experience deploying Cisco Umbrella overall as super easy. It was awesome. It was lovely to deploy it."
"One of the most important features is the security posture check which Umbrella offers when a user accesses any website. That is one of the most unique features that it offers."
"We use Cisco Umbrella for DNS filtering and as a secure gateway."
"The solution is convenient and easy."
 

Cons

"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"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."
"Hopefully, it works with the Canvas and starts feeding results into the AI canvas. That would be excellent."
"With any Cisco product, it's the licensing side of things that needs improvement."
"The firewall capabilities could be better. Cisco is starting to introduce some layer 7 capabilities now, but there's still some room to grow. They should continue with the development of Umbrella so that it is a full-blown cloud-managed firewall solution."
"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."
"If the virtual appliances could also gather traffic bandwidth reports, that would be great."
"It needs better integration with external threat feeds to improve scoring."
"It's easier for us to have support features with companies who are Cisco representatives, but sometimes, it's hard for us to get the help we need without having to use our contacts within Cisco."
"It has happened in the past that Cisco Umbrella has denied us access to secure websites."
"The tool is not perfectly stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The price should be slightly lower than the current price because if you look at the whole solution, it is simply a threat intelligence solution to block blacklisted things. The price should be lower looking at the features provided by the solution. The price isn't too high either, but it could be lower."
"I think Cisco Umbrella is priced well. We have a mix of customers with different verticals such as education. We have clients in the commercial space as well. Umbrella is at a good price point for all of our customers."
"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."
"There is a subscription cost."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
28%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Legal Firm
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business48
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
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 ol...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...
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 do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
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, Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: August 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.