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Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Akamai Secure Internet Acc...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
23rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Domain Name System (DNS) Security (10th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
MS
Senior Analyst at Deloitte
Have successfully routed high-volume application traffic through secure channels and maintain compliance across client environments
CDN capability is what I appreciate about Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise. It protects applications that are internet-facing or public-facing. Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is a product which has very good features and capabilities. I have worked on Radware also, but Radware has some limited capabilities. Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise has positively impacted my organization. We have around 62 applications within our firm which are now routing traffic through Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise. It has fewer false positives, which is something we haven't encountered yet. I assess the impact of Akamai's real-time threat filtering as 10 out of 10, and I am satisfied with this feature.
SS
Sr. Technical Executive at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Has required extensive customization for non-technical users and still needs better simplification
Customization for basic users can be complex, as it is targeted toward only technical users. It would be beneficial if Cisco simplifies the customization process while still ensuring strong security to prevent unauthorized access. Simplifying the customization part could enhance Cisco Umbrella, but overall, it is a good solution for me.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"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."
"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."
"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"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 threat intelligence feature is particularly valuable when used with another product of Akamai, as their researchers continuously update this threat feed database, making it an effective tool for defending against and blocking bad actors, public malicious IPs, harmful hashes, and malicious URLs."
"The best feature of Akamai SPS Threat Avert is that it's very user-friendly compared to other technologies."
"Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is a product which has very good features and capabilities."
"Cisco's Umbrella client product is superb, it worked so well for us and was easy to deploy."
"The various powerful query options are the most valuable features of this product to me."
"I would describe the experience deploying Cisco Umbrella overall as super easy. It was awesome. It was lovely to deploy it."
"In general, Umbrella is a competitive solution for small or large enterprise."
"If you buy the service now, in two hours you are protected by the service because it's very fast to put in service."
"We've found it to be stable and good for our customers."
"It analyzes the domain security helps us implement the securest policy."
"Web proxy adds an effective layer for security."
 

Cons

"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"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."
"Its pricing could be better."
"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."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"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."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"From a financial standpoint, I do not believe Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is cost-effective when compared to other solutions available in the industry."
"Akamai SPS Threat Avert's pricing could be improved because it's a very expensive enterprise solution."
"Their support response time needs improvement. They take on average one week to respond, which is not satisfactory given how critical applications are to the organization."
"Improvements could be made with the user interface, it could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella."
"Overall, I'm quite happy with Cisco products, but there could be one place where you can check what's going on. There could be one place where you get all the information about these products so that you don't need to look around. You get the status, information about what lately happened, and if there was anything on the machine in one single place."
"Lower costs including licensing, support, and renewals would be beneficial."
"Perhaps an option to be able to block only specific users would be a way to improve the free version of OpenDNS."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market."
"In my experience with Umbrella support, sometimes the response times take a bit more time than we would like... sometimes, if you go through email, it can take quite a while to get a response."
 

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 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."
"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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"Provided the features Akamai SPS Threat Avert provides, it is bound to be expensive."
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"​The pricing is fair."
"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"Its value exceeds its pricing."
"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."
"We were using the free version, and we implemented the paid version about two months ago. I'm paying a fair price, but everything is negotiable with Cisco. One of the benefits that I got by having Cisco Umbrella is the licensing of the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client."
"The pricing was marvelous."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Non Profit
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
What needs improvement with Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Since Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is not being used in our campus environment, as our users do not route...
What is your primary use case for Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is designed to protect users' access to the internet.
What advice do you have for others considering Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Our organization does not utilize the internet access feature of Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise because our...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bu...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector, Akamai ETP, Akamai SPS Threat Avert
OpenDNS
 

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.
MCNC, Educational Testing Service
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.