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Cisco Umbrella vs Palo Alto Networks DNS Security comparison

 

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
123
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Palo Alto Networks DNS Secu...
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 20.5%, down from 25.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is 8.1%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella20.5%
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security8.1%
Other71.4%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

BB
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Ensures comprehensive protection with seamless threat logging and efficient policy management
My favorite feature of Cisco Umbrella is probably just the DNS and the fact that when a security threat happens, all of that gets logged in their Umbrella portal, and it's very easy to find who's been accessing the site and how many people have accessed it, so that we can go to them and make sure they're not compromised. The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast. The fact that there's a virtual database that has all that information is great on our portal.
Andres Briceño - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Coordinator at Pronaca
Comprehensive security protects networks effectively while support excels
The main feature of the Palo Alto Networks DNS Security protects our network from external attacks, malware, and data theft. I use the DNS Security's real-time threat intelligence, as it's a feature that works in real-time in the firewalls. Because we configured this real-time help feature in our firewalls, this feature works during internal navigation to the internet. If we have a virus or malware in our network, the firewall detects this threat and protects our network. DNS Security protects us against threats, malware, and malicious domains or malicious navigation to the internet. The threat analytics has helped us because it works together with the SOC analytics and the platform manager, so this has affected our approach to zero-day vulnerabilities and threat updates. The reporting and analytics tools help provide insights into trends and threat vectors. We configured a dashboard where we can see all threat preventions and DNS Securities. If the SOC analytics detect threats or anomalies in the dashboard, we work quickly to prevent these threats.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues; productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues, and we have happy customers."
"I would recommend Cisco Umbrella to other interested companies; it's a very flexible and secure application — it's very good."
"Umbrella is the best product available as of now."
"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."
"Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do."
"One of the great advantages of Umbrella DNS is that it's really simple to deploy. It's easy to install, the users do not notice that it's there, and it doesn't interfere with your work. The simplicity and transparency are great advantages of Cisco Umbrella."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"Umbrella, being one pane for managing, being all-encompassing, allows us to quickly go in, make a change, and it applies to either every location, if we want it to, or we can have policies in place that only apply to certain users or certain computers."
"The most valuable features of DNS Security include its ability to protect against command and control traffic, anonymizers, newly registered domains, and DNS tunneling."
"I think it's easy to manage Palo Alto Networks DNS Security compared to other firewalls, and the feature set is really good."
"DNS security is required to filter out the DNS traffic, any DNS-based attacks, DNS DDoS attacks, and DNS amplification attacks."
"The support team has good knowledge about the solution."
"The stability is excellent and the product is very mature."
"When comparing other cloud-based DNS security solutions to this one I have found the main beneficial feature in this solution we do not need to change our architecture."
"The stability is excellent and the product is very mature."
"The main feature of the Palo Alto Networks DNS Security protects our network from external attacks, malware, and data theft."
 

Cons

"The pricing changes too fast. We get the license and we need to relicense it because they already made changes to it. We always need to be on top of the licenses because they're always changing."
"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 prices need to go lower. The price of technology is just crazy."
"I don't have an answer for how Cisco Umbrella can be improved, as it has been some time since I've worked with it."
"If the virtual appliances could also gather traffic bandwidth reports, that would be great."
"The solution's technical support is not very good."
"The product can be pretty expensive."
"The pricing is a bit high. Being outside of the USA, we have issues with the exchange rate."
"There should be an on-premise version of this solution."
"The solution’s scalability could be improved."
"Palo Alto should explore agentless approaches to integrate DNS Security more easily and efficiently."
"The installation is more complex because the solution has another approach to security."
"Every vendor that sells DNS or firewalls needs to be able to protect against DNS look-up attacks and DNS naming hacks. This is true of Palo Alto as well as others."
"Sometimes, it blocks legitimate traffic for custom applications, requiring manual intervention."
"The number of hotfixes indicates that there are many bugs in the new releases. Comparing a few years earlier, a release contained much fewer hotfixes."
"We would like to have cloud-based management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing depends on the automation requirements of the organization."
"It needs a better price point."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."
"It has a reasonable price. It is certainly not as expensive as it used to be. It is in line with other offerings on the market. There are a number of different flavors of Umbrella. They could bring Umbrella SIG down a bit because its price is a little bit high for what it does, but I also understand why its price is high."
"The product is expensive. My company makes payments on a quarterly basis towards the solution's costs."
"The product is expensive compared to Fortinet."
"There is an annual license for the solution and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as two."
"The solution's pricing is equal to Cisco AMP or Cisco Umbrella."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is an expensive product. I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten points are expensive."
"There aren't many vendors offering DNS security solutions, but generally, Palo Alto subscriptions tend to be more expensive than other security vendors."
report
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885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

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.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
DNS Security protects us against threats, malware, and malicious domains or malicious navigation to the internet, which is where it can be improved the best. Palo Alto helps us with support, so I d...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
I can describe my use cases for Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, which is used for protecting our network. I use this product, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, with Palo Alto firewalls.
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.