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Cisco Umbrella vs OpenText Core DNS Protection​ 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 Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
OpenText Core DNS Protection​
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 17.0%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Core DNS Protection​ is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella17.0%
OpenText Core DNS Protection​1.9%
Other81.1%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

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.
James Selby - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Security Division at Virtual-IT
Offers reasonable pricing and solid scalability in the enterprise context
In my limited experience with Webroot, it has shown good scalability, particularly in the enterprise context. When it comes to Webroot DNS, I find it to be a nice solution but prefer a more comprehensive approach. I lean towards XDR vendors that can integrate DNS protection into a unified dashboard, especially as traditional anti-malware solutions like Webroot face challenges with evolving threat actors. Currently, I have around 60,000 Webroot users for anti-malware, but for DNS protection, it is a fraction—about one or two percent—since some clients opt for other solutions. Traditional anti-malware technology is becoming less effective against sophisticated threats.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In general, Umbrella is a competitive solution for small or large enterprise."
"Cisco Umbrella has definitely helped improve some aspects of our security posture, contributing to overall organizational security posture management."
"The weekly reportings are great. The investigation is super and the application management is equally great."
"Cisco Umbrella is specifically designed for DNS protection, with features including a user-friendly console and the easiest installation, and it offers very prominent threat feeding from different Talos sources, securing multiple platforms while helping protect from malware and unsafe sites and mitigating DNS attacks to ensure secure browsing for end users."
"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."
"Cisco Umbrella is the first layer of security that protects me while surfing the net, identifying untrusted websites to prevent access."
"I highly recommend SMBs and enterprises use it to enhance their network security with minimal cost through the OpenDNS cloud solution."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"The installation is easy and doesn't take long. The program speedy and doesn't crash. It doesn't consume computer hardware or software."
"Almost everyone who uses it is happy about the product. I don't get any types of complaints from my clients."
"When compared with other products, Webroot DNS Protection is the best to secure the end users."
"DNS protection is valuable."
"I would recommend Webroot; it is a very good solution and a solid solution that keeps our computers protected."
"Webroot excels in DNS protection, particularly in blocking malicious sites and phishing."
 

Cons

"I would like to see integration with SecurNX in the future."
"Cisco Umbrella could be improved by making the policies more granular, as in some cases, it's difficult to find the correct link to open a specific site securely."
"The reporting could be improved by way of the information that's displayed. For example, when you pull a report, it shows an internal employee going to many websites, but you can spin that right down by saying a lot of it is being cached."
"I don't think our workers like it all that much. It has actually made employee morale worse because we block a lot of stuff."
"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...)."
"Some countries don't have a DNS server leading to a domain resolution IP, not at a local level."
"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."
"They can maybe simplify the configuration. For example, sometimes, the proxy part is quite difficult, and that's why we didn't deploy that."
"Reporting is not done in real-time. Rather, it is done in 15-minute intervales. This is something that should be configurable by the admin."
"The reporting system needs improvement. They should make is that we can customize it so we can add, remove or change its interface but they use a template. The reports cannot be changed."
"It addresses a specific risk related to malicious sites but doesn't cover broader security aspects."
"It needs to be more secure for production environments, currently, it is reliable and secure but as per new internet attacks, it should be ready with a proactive approach to eliminate attack chances."
"It needs to be more secure for production environments."
"The price could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You get what you pay for."
"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."
"The price is quite good."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"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."
"Cisco Umbrella is not a cheap product. However, it's not a matter of the cost; it's more a matter of the value of security. It is easy to measure this value when you have a security incident. I think the price is a good trade-off for a product that can help you avoid security threats."
"The pricing was marvelous."
Information not available
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that the pricing is acceptable, but it is marginally a bit high. However, the services provided are much better, leading to a good retu...
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Also Known As

OpenDNS
SecureAnywhere DNS Protection
 

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
1. Cisco  2. Dell  3. HP  4. IBM  5. Microsoft  6. Oracle  7. Symantec  8. McAfee  9. Trend Micro  10. Palo Alto Networks  11. Fortinet  12. Check Point Software Technologies  13. Juniper Networks  14. F5 Networks  15. Citrix Systems  16. VMware  17. FireEye  18. Splunk  19. Proofpoint  20. Carbon Black  21. Barracuda Networks  22. SonicWall  23. WatchGuard Technologies  24. Sophos  25. Kaspersky Lab  26. Bitdefender  27. Avast  28. AVG Technologies  29. ESET  30. Malwarebytes  31. Webroot (the company itself)  32. OpenDNS (now part of Cisco)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. OpenText Core DNS Protection​ and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.