Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

Akamai and Cisco are both solutions in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category. Akamai is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.0, while Cisco is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.2. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Cisco Umbrella and Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise both enhance network security, with Cisco holding an advantage in pricing and support, while Akamai stands out for its extensive feature set.

Features: Cisco Umbrella emphasizes robust threat intelligence and DNS-layer security, providing reliable cloud-based protection. It ensures solid security essentials with a user-friendly interface. Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise offers advanced capabilities such as Zero Trust and comprehensive traffic analysis, adding value for complex environments with its broader functionality and detailed traffic insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Umbrella supports user-friendly deployment with intuitive configuration, facilitating quick setup and responsive customer support for swift problem resolution. Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise, on the other hand, involves a more complex deployment process that may require additional resources and time, complemented by competent customer support to handle challenges effectively.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Umbrella offers competitive pricing with minimal setup costs, providing immediate ROI through straightforward implementation. Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is positioned at a higher price point but justifies its cost with extensive security features, promising longer-term ROI. Cisco's affordability contrasts with Akamai's comprehensive offerings, catering to various budget levels and security requirements.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs. Cisco Umbrella Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs. Cisco Umbrella

December 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

Featured Reviews

reviewer2701851

Managing Director

Enhances web security with a single pane of glass and flexible deployment

I don't see any need for improvement; one of the really good things about iboss as a company is that they listen to customer feedback. I have suggested enhancements, and they are responsive, making changes for the better, and they do a lot of testing. To improve iboss, although we haven't used it, we considered the VPN solution that comes with the highest tier licensing, which includes DLP and various other add-ons. We prefer using another product which automatically logs you back onto your network when turning on your PC. With iboss, the connection is manual, which doesn't meet our needs. Additionally, sizing can be tricky because, although the initial recommendations may seem adequate, actual usage may require more gateways than anticipated.

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MeshwaShah

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.

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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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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."

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

"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."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."

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

"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."

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

"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."

More iboss pros

"Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is a product which has very good features and capabilities."

"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."

"We can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important."

"Cisco Umbrella is such a solution and can be implemented very fast and easy. All that we must do is redirect the DNS registers in their routers, or the active directory service of the enterprise that are going to use in Umbrella services. If you buy the service now, in two hours you are protected by the service because it's very fast to put in service."

"I have found the malware protection feature valuable. It is helpful and deliverable and is able to protect my entire organization from getting compromised. It also prevents us from visiting any malicious sites which are not visible to the users."

"Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules."

"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."

"They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. "

"We like Cisco Umbrella because of DNS security. It's one step ahead of whatever we are using for regular web filtering. In that way, it's more secure than other web filtering products."

"Cisco is a very efficient and on-point solution that controls the whole network and settings on one page. We can monitor the entire network."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

Cons

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

"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."

"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."

"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."

"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."

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."

More iboss cons

"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."

"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."

"Akamai SPS Threat Avert's pricing could be improved because it's a very expensive enterprise solution."

"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."

"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."

"The rule-making process for blocking sites or for blocking characteristics can use some simplification."

"The API is very Cisco orientated, which is absolutely fine if you're using Cisco Firepower and SecureX kind of products, but if you want to integrate with third parties, it is a bit tricky. There are some key API connectors for the more prevalent SIEM tools. I would really like to see in Cisco Umbrella the ability to create customized reports and then assign the rights to view these reports to people within a group. I should be able to create a customized report, which is viewable by anybody who has the rights. I should be able to create groups within Cisco Umbrella, and then assign reports to groups and have those reports split out automatically only to those groups. I can kind of do it by restricting my email list, but it is a half-complete way of doing it."

"I would like to see more integration between Cisco Umbrella and Cisco DNA Center."

"There are some situations where we would like to block things for specific user groups. I know that Umbrella does that, but it's not that easy.... when you want a specific task for specific rules and policies for user groups, you have to go three levels down in the menu, and it's hard to find where you do that task."

"The pricing could be improved."

"Some countries don't have a DNS server leading to a domain resolution IP, not at a local level."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"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."

"Provided the features Akamai SPS Threat Avert provides, it is bound to be expensive."

"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."

"I think it's worth the money."

"Its value exceeds its pricing."

"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 is quite good."

"Pricing and licensing of Cisco Umbrella is a bit confusing because you have to separate the DNS solution and the full-feature solution. Cisco in Portugal helped us understand which one was the right one for us."

"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."

"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

Marketing Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

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

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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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...

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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.

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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...

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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

Comparisons

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Twingate vs iboss

Compared 2% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise

Compared 17% of the time

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP DNS vs Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise

Compared 9% of the time

Palo Alto Networks DNS Security vs Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise

Compared 8% of the time

Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense vs Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise

Compared 7% of the time

More Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 9% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks DNS Security vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Umbrella Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

January 2026

Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise report

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Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella

January 2026

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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector, Akamai ETP, Akamai SPS Threat Avert

OpenDNS

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

Safely connect users & devices to the internet with a secure web gateway.

Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise (SIAE) enables security teams to proactively identify, block, and mitigate targeted threats such as malware, ransomware, phishing, and data exfiltration that exploit the Domain Name System (DNS). Powered by real-time intelligence from Akamai Cloud Security Intelligence and Akamai’s proven, globally distributed recursive DNS platform, Enterprise Threat Protector efficiently delivers security, control, and visibility to the enterprise while easily integrating with your existing network defenses.

Akamai

Cisco Umbrella provides fast-deploying DNS-layer security with powerful threat protection capabilities. Trusted by over 30,000 entities, it ranks highly in DNS security and effectively supports secure remote work environments.

Cisco Umbrella offers comprehensive DNS security, web filtering, and ease of use, enhancing network security through robust threat protection and malware prevention. It processes over 600 billion requests daily, making it a leader in its field. The seamless integration with existing infrastructures and cloud-based nature makes it suitable for remote and distributed work environments, ensuring consistent security throughout. Management is streamlined with a single-pane interface that simplifies administration, while in-depth reporting capabilities provide valuable insights for continuous monitoring.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS Security: Provides leading protection by managing DNS queries and blocking malicious sites.
Web Filtering: Offers granular control over web content to safeguard internet usage.
Ease of Integration: Fits well into existing infrastructures, simplifying deployment and use.
Intuitive Management: Single-pane management streamlines administration and enhances usability.
Cloud-Based Flexibility: Supports secure remote work environments.

What benefits can users expect from using Cisco Umbrella?

Superior Threat Protection: Reduces risk by effectively detecting and preventing cyber threats.
Consistent Security: Provides uniform protection across network environments.
Efficiency and Visibility: Leverages comprehensive reporting for better security insights.
Easy Deployment: Quick and straightforward setup with minimal disruption.

Cisco Umbrella is widely adopted in industries requiring advanced DNS-level security to counteract malware, phishing, and cyber threats. Its ability to monitor and protect remote and roaming employees makes it an attractive option for sectors highly dependent on cloud services. By managing DNS queries and blocking harmful sites, Cisco Umbrella enhances cybersecurity across networks, providing an added layer of protection for businesses worldwide.

Cisco

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

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs. Cisco Umbrella

December 2025

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