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Cisco Umbrella vs TitanHQ WebTitan comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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)
7th
Ranking in Internet Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
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
113
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
TitanHQ WebTitan
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
25th
Ranking in Internet Security
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 18.2%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TitanHQ WebTitan is 1.4%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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
Sabbir Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Blocks threats before they reach the user's device
Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability. The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users. Additionally, strong winds can disrupt its functionality, and the opening and closing mechanism can be awkward in tight spaces.
Pusa Alexandru-Catalin - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides basic email protection features but needs improvement in learning capabilities
TitanHQ does a middle-of-the-road job like Bitdefender and SensorNet, and it has a learning feature, though it's not as advanced as previous technology. In the past, I used a far superior product with no false alarms and minimum spam. This tool learned quickly from my inbox, offering simple yet useful features, such as two links embedded in the email footer indicating whether the email was spam or not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"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."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Umbrella has helped my IT staff in two ways. First, our security team was able to get more insights into the users, their devices, and the sites they browse. Second, our system administration team was able to manage DNS resolutions in a way that is more accessible and less intrusive to our domain system."
"Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules."
"It analyzes the domain security helps us implement the securest policy."
"I was able to implement it myself. It was really easy to install. You could install it on a server locally if you want to. If you have the biggest site, you would do that, but for my site, it was just directing all the traffic out through the Cisco Umbrella DNS. It was really handy. When the owners of the company went overseas, I knew that they would be secure because even if they were not on the company network, they would still go through the Cisco Umbrella servers. It was a complete solution for protecting the company with outgoing data."
"I like the original functionality, which allows for providing secure DNS services."
"Stability-wise, it's good. I have never encountered any bugs."
"Some clients only want DNS security, while others want more of the advanced features that it has available."
"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."
"Not a whole lot of oversight is required after WebTitan is installed. I get email notifications and occasionally browse the reporting. This is pretty important because I don't have the bandwidth to actively monitor all this stuff 24/7. It is just not possible. Therefore, it is important that it doesn't require a lot of my time once it is deployed and working."
"It doesn't require installing an agent or software on individual workstations, which is very important for us. I don't have to go around every single machine and/or push updates out because of this product. The product improves on its own without having to go to workstations, which is an ideal thing because it doesn't tie up staff's time to upgrade the machines. I don't need to upgrade the software to make WebTitan work. I wish all products were that way."
"I would rate TitanHQ WebTitan as seven out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is web filtering, where we are able to blacklist and whitelist sites on the fly."
"The monitoring abilities of the product are the most valuable for us. As you deploy it, you can adapt it. As you monitor, if employees go to things that you don't like, or to things that you need to allow, the ability to monitor and see how much is necessary—where they're getting shot down or blocked—is helpful."
"The DNS proxy is also valuable. It has nothing to do with blocking websites, which we can do by sending all our DNS requests through WebTitan. However, the DNS proxy gives us more information about the machine sending the request. If you cross-reference that information with WADA, you can determine which user is making the request and create a user-specific policy or profile."
"The web filtering is the most valuable feature. The OTG client was the determining factor."
"It's extremely stable. I would say it's flawless. We did have some concerns that, if it did fail, all internet access would stop for our people because the proxy wouldn't be there. That concern has subsided over the years because it's proven that it doesn't really fail."
 

Cons

"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 reporting feature needs improvement."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Its pricing could be better."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"I would like to see more integrations with more products. Some of the integrations need to be simpler as well. For example, the integration with Cisco Secure Firewall could be simpler. It would be good to make reporting simpler. For those who don't use SecureX, it would be good to make Umbrella really simple to use upfront. It's not a difficult product, but it can be daunting for someone who isn't exposed to it because there are so many options."
"I would like to have more applications being recorded."
"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."
"The pricing is a bit high. Being outside of the USA, we have issues with the exchange rate."
"Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability. The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users."
"There is room for improvement in the dashboard. It could stand to be a bit more detailed. I would also like to be able to customize the dashboard to focus more on what is important for my company."
"Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."
"There are a couple of different pieces that have different portals. I know they're working on getting them all into one portal, but that's probably the biggest thing that needs improvement right now. It's not a single pane of glass yet."
"The technology employed by TitanHQ doesn't learn enough and is still on the basic side."
"I wasn't aware of WebTitan's Azure AD integration until now. The takeaway is that those types of enhancements should be broadcast from TitanHQ a little more openly than they are."
"For security, it's very restrictive. For us, it blocks a lot, even too much, so we have had to create exceptions. A new implementation takes a bit of time to train it up, to put in all the exclusions, but once you have that done, it's just a matter of adding things as they come up."
"There are some small bugs in the real-time login environment. There is a real-time login and you can see which URLs are blocked or allowed for every user. They should make sure this is resolved in future releases."
"I would like to have a live chat feature with their support. This is one of the things that I like that they haven't offered yet. If they have live support, then at least I can work with an engineer when I have a problem and not have to wait for the engineer to respond."
"We have spoken with TitanHQ in the last month about improvements in functionality because we have used other similar platforms and have a different view of things. We have some concerns about the search and the filters. We need to quickly search which users can or cannot access a particular site and why."
"On occasion, we whitelist a site and it still gets blocked. To get it working, we have to remove it and then re-add it a couple of times, until it finally takes hold."
"The Oauth1 protocol has a lot of issues with authentication and it made it very difficult to initially authenticate with the API."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"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 pricing was marvelous."
"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."
"You can request an evaluation license​."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"We pay an annual subscription for this. They have good pricing. They are not expensive compared to other solutions that we evaluated. I like the fact that it is just one price for the year. I don't have to worry too much about fluctuations."
"There are lots of products out there, and most of them are a lot more expensive. Overall, I'm very happy with SpamTitan. It has been a great solution for a very small library."
"The cost could be lower, though it is not currently prohibitive for larger companies."
"It's very aggressively priced, which is something that we definitely like."
"It's very reasonably priced. We don't have to go for a monthly plan or anything like that. There are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"WebTitan helps reduce costs associated with web filtering. In the event that somebody was compromised due to browsing the Internet, there will be at least one device offline. The time and energy spent cleaning that thing up and getting it back online, as well as having that user set up with some sort of a solution so they can continue working, makes it well worth the money. If a single device has been compromised, my time and the potential of having to buy additional hardware is worth at least a couple thousand dollars. Worst case scenario, if our entire organization or the majority of our organization got compromised, then it could get into the 50,000-plus for recovery. It depends on if it is a massive ransomware attack where it has pretty much crippled our entire business."
"The licensing, although I can't remember the exact cost, was very affordable. I want to say it was maybe $40 per license."
"The pricing of WebTitan is good. It's the right price. We paid more and more for Cisco Umbrella."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have a couple of thoughts for improvement, but usually when I address them with my rep, they put it into the featur...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We use it primarily for simpler filtering because we're a K12 entity.
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TitanHQ WebTitan?
The pricing of TitanHQ is more or less similar to other tools. I would be willing to pay more for a better service.
What needs improvement with TitanHQ WebTitan?
The technology employed by TitanHQ doesn't learn enough and is still on the basic side. I had previously used 'only m...
What is your primary use case for TitanHQ WebTitan?
I mainly use TitanHQ for email protection, specifically for no false alarms and minimal spam.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
WebTitan, WebTitan Web Filter
 

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
Clarks, Pepsi, Purple, Comcast, Virgin, McDonalds, Sprint, Adtran, Xirrus, Eir, ViaSat
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. TitanHQ WebTitan and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
852,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.