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Cisco Umbrella vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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 Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (5th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (2nd), Application Control (4th), ZTNA as a Service (1st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (1st), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.2%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 10.5%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform is 10.0%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella10.5%
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform10.0%
iboss2.2%
Other77.3%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

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
Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Sumit Bhanwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud-based platform simplifies device and data center management
I find it to be good. The solution is cloud-based with the latest inspection engines, which I find to be amazing. We are less dependent on data centers and device management, which reduces our efforts significantly. It improves our device management, data center management, and updating devices. We need fewer engineers for this management, and it reduces time and efforts for data center management, device upgrades, and IT support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"The DNS data exfiltration and the blocking of DNS tunneling are the most effective features for threat prevention in our company."
"Cisco Talos threat intelligence significantly influences my company's ability to act against emerging threats, giving us the chance to patch our side or take precautions when zero-day vulnerabilities emerge."
"Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules."
"It is a good cloud-based solution for DNS security."
"The implementation is pretty easy."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the Web Filtering and the APT."
"The customer service and technical support of Cisco Umbrella are great."
"We run a real lean networking team, and cloud deployments are super easy."
"The solution is cloud-based with the latest inspection engines, which I find to be amazing."
"It has been helpful in maintaining our infrastructure. The granular level control it offers allows us to set application policies per application for each user."
"Zscaler Cloud DLP provides you with basic DLP features that you get out of the box such as keywords, regular expressions, and data identifiers, for example, your social security numbers, and credit card numbers, with everything built into the product, so you can directly use those features within the policies. You don't need to create it from scratch, and to me, this is the biggest benefit of Zscaler Cloud DLP. You have a lot of templates to choose from in the solution, rather than having to create templates from scratch or reinvent templates."
"I like its ease of use. It has a single pane of glass for the ZIA and ZPA pieces. It is very manageable. It is also very easy to deploy for secure access, and it gives half-decent coverage for visibility in terms of what the users use and what data is being proxied through the access gateway."
"The ZPA is a unique feature which offers VPN along with all the additional security needed."
"It is straightforward to set up."
"Yes, it is very stable. I have never seen it go down, not once."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the CASB solutions, which is protecting their Office 365."
 

Cons

"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."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"Its pricing could be better."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"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."
"Cisco Umbrella should add some more documentation on proxies."
"The pricing could always be a little bit better."
"The firewall capabilities could be better. Cisco is starting to introduce some layer 7 capabilities now, but there's still some room to grow. They should continue with the development of Umbrella so that it is a full-blown cloud-managed firewall solution."
"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."
"Data reporting could be improved."
"If the virtual appliances could also gather traffic bandwidth reports, that would be great."
"Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better."
"Zscaler Private Access's reporting is poor. We should have more insight into the reports regarding what is blocked and allowed."
"More on-prem infrastructure is required when Zscaler Private Access is to be implemented as a single point of entry."
"Another area of improvement is implementation through non-client connectors. The solution can be implemented in two ways. One uses the back file; the other one uses client connectors. So the client connector is pretty fast, but when it comes to non-client connectors and procedures, it's kind of delayed and slow."
"You won't find anything that can help you with the configuration part and other areas related to the product if you search for proper or exact details of Zscaler Cloud DLP online in very easy language."
"The solution's granularity should be improved because it has limited granular options to control, visible, allow, block, delay, and receive."
"While Zscaler supports client-initiated connections, it does not support server-initiated connections. This is a feature that Zscaler may consider adding in the future."
"They should work on a replica account. There could be alerts and replica files sent to the DLP team during data collection."
"Zscaler CASB should include integrations with other SaaS applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"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."
"Pricing depends on the automation requirements of the organization."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"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 could be lower."
"Zscaler SASE software is quite expensive compared to other solutions"
"Zscaler Private Access can be an expensive solution, depending on the license type you will purchase."
"It's an affordable solution"
"The price is competitive."
"The solution has increased prices this year."
"It has been relatively reasonable for what it does. Some of the additional license costs based on the advanced next-generation firewall functions are quite high, and they should have certain features ready and available as a baseline rather than having to purchase additional licenses for it. Overall, the cost seems reasonable."
"It is an auto-renewal subscription service."
"Zscaler DLP solution is expensive, with a fixed pricing structure that is billed annually and monthly. There are no additional costs for licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business48
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise41
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
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...
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...
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 the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What do you like most about Zscaler SASE?
The most valuable features of Zscaler Private Access are reliability, scalability, and availability.
What needs improvement with Zscaler SASE?
The solution needs to improve a lot of aspects.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
Zscaler SASE, Zscaler DLP, Zscaler CASB, Zscaler CSPM, Zscaler Browser Isolation, Zscaler Posture Control
 

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
Siemens, AutoNation, GE, NOV
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.