No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.
Cisco Secure Access Logo

Cisco Secure Access pros and cons

Vendor: Cisco
4.2 out of 5
Badge Leader

Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.
Get the report

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Cisco Secure Access offers significant ROI through reduced incident response time and improved operational efficiency.
It provides robust security features, such as DNS security, Integrated Secure Web Control, and zero trust architecture, for enhanced protection against threats like phishing and ransomware.
Scalability and stability are highly regarded, with users praising its reliable connection capabilities and minimal downtime.
The authentication features and secure web gateway contribute to a comprehensive security posture, ensuring data protection and access control.
Cisco Secure Access has positively impacted organizations by allowing flexible, secure, and continuous access to applications and services, enhancing remote work efficiency.

CONS

Licensing is confusing with different options and unclear end-user support.
The cost is high, making it unaffordable for mid-size or smaller businesses.
The migration process from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access was difficult.
Customer support is slow, requiring frequent escalation to engineering.
Technical issues, such as software bugs and URL filtering problems, exist.
 

Cisco Secure Access Pros review quotes

Kartik Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at Redex IT Limited
Dec 16, 2025
From my experience, Cisco Secure Access is very stable and has not crashed.
JA
Head Of IT at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
It has not only been a better solution overall, but also been cost saving, which is unusual—too good to be true at one point, but it has delivered.
Brandon McPherson - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Service Delivery Engineer at Colossal, LLC
Mar 23, 2026
Cisco Secure Access has definitely helped our organization, cutting incident response time at least in half and giving us analytics that let us quickly identify devices and users so everything from headquarters contacting the base to the on-site tech removing a rogue device from the classroom network is much quicker.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Access. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
AT
Cyber Security Manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
The biggest return on investment from Cisco Secure Access, from my perspective, is the end usability from a client perspective.
Vasil Blagov - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Network at Duracell International, Inc.
Jun 9, 2025
The features of Cisco Secure Access that I most prefer are easy management or manageability, and overall security.
Bharath _Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Velocis Systems
Jan 9, 2026
The product is giving whatever you need from a customer point of view.
MS
Senior Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Feb 11, 2026
The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access is the VPN, which I find very easy to use.
Tejas Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Dec 29, 2025
The integrated capabilities of Cisco Secure Access deliver significant ROI through reduced mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR), with resource efficiency notably improved as fewer personnel are needed for triage and system management.
AF
Technical Product Owner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Feb 10, 2026
I consider the most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access to be that it merged everything into one dashboard, the Cisco Secure Access dashboard.
Wallace Serafim - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Jun 11, 2025
The feature of Cisco Secure Access I appreciate the most is the DNS functionality.
 

Cisco Secure Access Cons review quotes

Kartik Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at Redex IT Limited
Dec 16, 2025
However, the cost of Cisco's products and licensing is high, and mid-size or smaller businesses typically cannot afford Cisco Secure Access.
JA
Head Of IT at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
Cisco Secure Access is stable and reliable if certain features are not used. Initially, SSL decryption was enabled, where certificates are decrypted, and when that was turned on, the performance was very unpredictable, plummeting significantly.
Brandon McPherson - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Service Delivery Engineer at Colossal, LLC
Mar 23, 2026
We did run into an issue with URL filtering where it would not filter a site properly. It took months to resolve by Cisco, but that is the only hiccup I would say there has been.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Access. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
AT
Cyber Security Manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
To improve Cisco Secure Access, I believe there should be better clarity from Cisco regarding where organizations should focus their investments.
Vasil Blagov - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Network at Duracell International, Inc.
Jun 9, 2025
Cisco Secure Access can be improved with more integration; the more integrations, the better. There are always third-party products that you might have, such as Carbon Black.
Bharath _Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Velocis Systems
Jan 9, 2026
TAC engineers just exit the call once their shift timing ends.
MS
Senior Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Feb 11, 2026
When you have planned works in your data center, I think you need to carry out some post-checks to ensure we are not affected as users.
Tejas Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Dec 29, 2025
Cisco Secure Access may not seamlessly integrate into such settings, although it performs well in a Cisco-based environment.
AF
Technical Product Owner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Feb 10, 2026
I would describe my experience deploying Cisco Secure Access as working well, though we are hitting bugs.
Wallace Serafim - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Jun 11, 2025
The worst part was the migration from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access; we experienced some difficulties during that process.