Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Umbrella vs Palo Alto Networks DNS Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 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 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 (1st)
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 February 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 20.8%, down from 25.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is 7.6%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella20.8%
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security7.6%
Other71.6%
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

"The most valuable features are the dashboard, visibility, and reporting capabilities. Our customers can see how much Umbrella is protecting their organization. If you don't know what you've got, you can't protect it. With Umbrella, you get the visibility and see the protection that it's providing. We can get PDF reports on a weekly basis of any malware activities and any denial of service or command-and-control-type activities."
"The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by allowing us to do protective DNS instead of URL filtering, which lets us avoid having to backhaul traffic and run it through a firewall in a data center."
"It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Cisco's support is better nowadays."
"The most valuable features for us include tenant lock, content filtering, and DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated."
"It analyzes the domain security helps us implement the securest policy."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to detect if a URL has malware or is vulnerable."
"It has improved our organization from a security posture perspective. We feel more confident now knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related. This is a very nice feature that provides peace of mind."
"The most valuable features of the solution are DNSSEC and the domain generation algorithm."
"I think it's easy to manage Palo Alto Networks DNS Security compared to other firewalls, and the feature set is really good."
"The main feature of the Palo Alto Networks DNS Security protects our network from external attacks, malware, and data theft."
"We now have insight into our DNS requests and we can actively see how many thousands of malicious requests have gotten knocked down in the last day or week that we didn't have before. There's more insight for both security and more insight."
"The most valuable features of DNS Security include its ability to protect against command and control traffic, anonymizers, newly registered domains, and DNS tunneling."
"The product is easy to install."
"The stability is excellent and the product is very mature."
"DNS sinkhole is a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see the integration of VDI NSX with Cisco Umbrella."
"It is a value for money product for sure. However, it does not have that kind of awareness plus brand within the customer, as they are influenced more by brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"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."
"They should provide more integrations and bring things together so that there is a more standard feel to their platform. We also use Cisco ISE, and it has a very different feel from Cisco Umbrella."
"The product can be pretty expensive."
"Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers."
"Its price could be better."
"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 product should provide email protection."
"The scalability can be improved."
"I have found customer service to be quite problematic. The support is often outsourced, leading to delayed response times."
"We would like to have cloud-based management."
"The pricing of the Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is very high."
"With Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, sometimes the DNS clients don't work well, and they get disconnected, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"In my opinion, Cisco Umbrella now has a good price in the basic packages. When it comes to Cisco Umbrella SIG Essentials package and Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) Advantage package, it depends on whether the project has a good price or not"
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"The pricing model is easier compared to some of the other solutions, and it is also competitive."
"The licensing and pricing structure of Cisco Umbrella is in line with standard systems on the market, and we have no specific requirements in this area. Overall, we have found it to be an acceptable pricing model for our organization."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as two."
"The product is expensive compared to Fortinet."
"There aren't many vendors offering DNS security solutions, but generally, Palo Alto subscriptions tend to be more expensive than other security vendors."
"There is an annual license for the solution and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"The product is expensive. My company makes payments on a quarterly basis towards the solution's costs."
"The solution's pricing is equal to Cisco AMP or Cisco Umbrella."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
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 do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
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: February 2026.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.