Cisco Umbrella vs Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker comparison

Cisco and Proofpoint are both solutions in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category. Cisco is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.2, while Proofpoint is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.0. Cisco holds a 11.9% mindshare in CASB, compared to Proofpoint’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Proofpoint users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker and Cisco Umbrella are competing security solutions in cloud security and internet access protection. Cisco Umbrella has an advantage with its robust features despite its higher cost.

Features: Proofpoint focuses on advanced data protection, threat detection, and email security. It integrates well with various cloud applications. Cisco Umbrella provides DNS-layer security, a broad integration suite, and a comprehensive security feature set, making it a more feature-rich option.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Proofpoint offers a straightforward deployment with strong customer service, integrating seamlessly with existing systems. Cisco Umbrella has a streamlined deployment process with extensive documentation and responsive support, offering faster implementation.

Pricing and ROI: Proofpoint offers competitive pricing with a favorable ROI for its targeted features and security coverage, suitable for specific security needs. Cisco Umbrella's higher price is justified by its comprehensive protection and features, providing a stronger ROI in environments needing holistic solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Umbrella vs. Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker

September 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 11.9%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella	11.9%
iboss	2.1%
Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker	0.8%
Other	85.2%

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford

Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water

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

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Emilio Montoya

CTO at PROA

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.

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Kamal Kumar Verma

Lead Consultant at Genpact - Headstrong

Stable product with essential document tracking features

In my organization, we worked with around ten to fifteen different technologies, including Bitglass, and CASB was not among our top priorities. While CASB might benefit some organizations, it was optional for our specific setup, considering the other security measures and technologies we had in place. I found no particularly valuable features regarding CASB resolutions. There are other tools available that can achieve the same functionalities and perform similar tasks. For example, I can accomplish tasks like encryption or secure data movement from our office to the internet using alternative services like Zero Trust solutions. Because of this, our organization considered removing it from our system due to its limited benefits compared to other products.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."

"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."

"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."

"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."

"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."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

More iboss pros

"I think recently with many people working from home, Cisco Umbrella has been very useful. For example, we can manage the device and the network when the employee is not working on the local host. Cisco Umbrella is very valuable for this kind of infrastructure."

"The solution is extremely stable. It has excellent performance."

"The feature that we find most valuable is to be able to filter out those web requests that you don't want."

"The customer service and technical support of Cisco Umbrella are great."

"I like that it integrates with the infrastructure. I also like the kind of data and intelligence that's built-in. It helps create innovative reports for security."

"Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process."

"One valuable feature is definitely its simplicity in terms of deployment. It is very easy to integrate it into the environment without any heavy lifting. Users didn't notice that we implemented it. You can start with a very low monitoring mode and start observing what Cisco Umbrella sees."

"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."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."

"The product is stable."

"The quarantine feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"From stability and availability standpoints, it is pretty good."

Cons

"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."

"The dashboards for local use could be better."

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."

"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."

"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."

"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."

More iboss cons

"If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it... Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well."

"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."

"I think it's a very basic solution, and because of that, Cisco Umbrella would not be a suitable solution for large companies."

"The main issue that we have is with the final steps or the full integration and getting rid of Zscaler. The company still has to fall back to Zscaler when something in Umbrella is not working as expected, such as when we enable SSL inspection. When something is not working 100%, the company is falling back to Zscaler."

"I would like to have more applications being recorded."

"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."

"If I want to see which users access a website, I need an Active Directory registered on Umbrella's cloud."

"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."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

"They are priced significantly higher and less cost-effective than alternative options."

"I think some of the hiccups that we had were with the number of domains that we had and how that had to be implemented in Proofpoint."

"Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker should be cheaper."

"The TLS encryption needs to be improved. It's not state of the art."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"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."

"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."

"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."

"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."

"Cisco solutions are generally perceived to be rather expensive. We have constant internal discussions as to whether we should offer lower-priced security solutions from some of the competitors."

"Its price for us is quite expensive because it's a subscription, and we just use it for the DNS log. So, for us, it's quite expensive."

"As an educational partner, we get better licensing structures. We are very happy with that. It has been very nice that Cisco has partnered with the educational sector to bring that."

"The price could be lower."

"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

"We had an enterprise contract with them for about 32,000 users at that point, which has now grown."

"The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	49
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	51

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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?

Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.

See all answers

What do you like most about Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker?

The tool's most valuable feature is reporting. It helps us understand what's going on in our environment.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker?

Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker should be cheaper.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker?

I rate Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker a seven out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 14% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudflare One vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 7% of the time

Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Umbrella Competitors

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker

Compared 51% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker

Compared 29% of the time

Forcepoint CASB vs Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker

Compared 21% of the time

More Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

October 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella

October 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

October 2025

Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker report

Download Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

OpenDNS

FireLayers, PCASB

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

Cisco Umbrella delivers rapid DNS security with over 30,000 customers, providing outstanding threat protection and handling more than 600 billion requests daily. It's recognized for high threat efficacy in the SSE domain and integrates elements like SWG, ZTNA, CASB, and more.

Cisco Umbrella is renowned for its effective DNS-layer security against ransomware and phishing. It offers flexible content filtering and integrates seamlessly with existing networks while providing single-pane-of-glass management for centralized monitoring. Its robust threat intelligence and customizable policies are central to its appeal. Users highlight room for improvement in areas like WHOIS data inclusion, malware enhancement, and reporting analytics. Integration with other threat feeds and better client support are requested for more comprehensive coverage.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS-Layer Security: Blocks malicious domains, preventing ransomware attacks.
Web Content Filtering: Allows users to manage lists for strict content control.
Seamless Integration: Blends with systems like Active Directory and Meraki.
Remote Protection: Keeps remote users safe across different locations.
Single-Pane Management: Facilitates effective monitoring and reporting.

What should users expect in reviews about Cisco Umbrella?

Threat Intelligence: Provides comprehensive malware and attack data.
Customizable Policies: Enables tailored security measures for users.
Integration Options: Works with diverse systems for holistic security.
Ease of Use: Offers a straightforward experience for administrators.
Remote Worker Security: Ensures protection outside traditional networks.

Industries implement Cisco Umbrella primarily for DNS-level security, web filtering, and protecting remote employees. It strengthens cybersecurity frameworks by blocking malware and avoiding access to harmful sites. The tool is widely integrated with Active Directory and Cisco Meraki, providing consistent internet security for employees.

Cisco

Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker is a comprehensive solution that enables organizations to secure their cloud applications and data. Its primary use case is to provide visibility and control over cloud applications, detect and prevent unauthorized access, and ensure compliance. The most valuable functionality is its ability to integrate with multiple cloud applications, deliver deep visibility, and enforce policies in real-time. This helps organizations to minimize risks, protect sensitive data and maintain compliance with regulations.

Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker Benefits:

Easy to deploy and manage
Provides granular control over app usage and data access
Offers real-time threat detection and response
Integrates with other security solutions
Provides detailed reports and analytics

Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker Features:

Real-time threat detection and response
Granular visibility
Control over cloud applications
Customizable policies and rules
Integration with leading cloud providers and security tools

Proofpoint

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

Emerging Technologies, HP, CSA, Perion

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. Proofpoint Cloud App Security Broker

September 2025

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