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Amazon Route 53 vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
2.7
Amazon Route 53 offers significant ROI through time savings and security, despite some users noting higher costs.
Sentiment score
7.0
Cisco Umbrella delivers high ROI by saving time, enhancing security, and integrating smoothly, leading to increased productivity and satisfaction.
The main factors are time-saving and security, even if the cost is slightly higher.
Technical Owner at Harman International
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using the solution is that it makes it a lot easier to delegate some of the tasks that were traditionally used, such as building policies on the firewalls and doing it through Cisco Umbrella.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Umbrella for me is the ease of use of the fact that we've deployed this with our Cisco VPN Secure Client, so every computer has the Umbrella module in it.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Amazon Route 53's customer service is highly praised, though basic plan users encounter delays compared to premium plans.
Sentiment score
7.8
Cisco Umbrella support is praised for quick resolutions, professional service, and effective technical guidance despite occasional delays.
Amazon services are very stable, and there are few problems.
Cloud Specialist at TCL Tech
Amazon's customer support is very good with a quick response time.
AWS Cloud Architect at WHY Global Services
I would rate the technical support of Amazon Route 53 at nine on a scale of ten.
Dev Ops Engineer at Paydoh
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
If I don't need to go to support all the time, that means the product is working fine, so I'm very happy with them.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Amazon Route 53 offers scalability, AWS integration, easy management, and high ratings, with some concern over higher costs.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella efficiently supports scalability for businesses of all sizes with seamless adaptation and minimal resource demand.
We haven't faced any scalability issues, thanks to its integration with AWS services.
AWS and DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I find Amazon Route 53 scalable, with functionalities such as multi-region, multi-ACs, and multi-domains, making it a suitable choice for high availability through load balancers.
Dev Ops Engineer at Paydoh
The scalability is maintained by AKS, and Route 53's scalability part is primarily involved with load balancing.
Software Engineer - Backend at InfinID • FullTime
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Network Engineer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
Senior Network Engineer at Boys Town
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Amazon Route 53 is highly stable, consistently performing with rare issues, thanks to scalability, monitoring, and secure internet access.
Sentiment score
8.2
Cisco Umbrella offers reliable, stable performance with excellent uptime, effective security features, and minimal disruptions for enterprise needs.
We use auto-scaling groups to manage load.
AWS and DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The solution is stable.
Technical Owner at Harman International
I have not experienced any outages or downtime.
Software Engineer - Backend at InfinID • FullTime
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
Cisco Umbrella Secure Access is pretty stable in my mind, and we have not seen many glitches that would have interrupted services at customer locations.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Route 53 could improve request handling, customization, security, analytics, and usability, while simplifying pricing for better user experience.
Cisco Umbrella users seek better endpoint integration, simplified licensing, improved support, enhanced security features, and easier system compatibility.
There could be improvements in the configuration process, particularly in the options provided during setup, such as subdomain configurations and certificate management.
AWS and DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
They need to ensure that the threats reported on are actual threats.
Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Even though AWS is available at multiple regions, but within a region, if they can expand their availability domains, that would further give the comfort to the customer because the services will be delivered as nearer to the customer as possible.
General Manager at Vodafone Idea Ltd.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
CTO at Next Technologies Ltd
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Route 53's pricing is volume-based and pay-per-use, offering scalability and reliability, though it can be costly.
Cisco Umbrella pricing varies in cost-effectiveness based on features, with flexible licensing and potential discounts for certain partners.
They are not cheap.
General Manager at Vodafone Idea Ltd.
Route 53 is more expensive.
Cloud Specialist at TCL Tech
The pricing of Route 53 is slightly higher compared to other services, however, it is justified by its high availability and reliability.
AWS and DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Route 53 provides scalable DNS management, fast resolution, versatile routing, and integrates seamlessly with AWS services for diverse deployments.
Cisco Umbrella provides DNS security, integration, and user management, enhancing protection for hybrid work environments and remote users.
I find Amazon Route 53 valuable for its ability to manage DNS records and efficiently route traffic with features like failover routing and geolocation routing.
.Net Developer at Freelance
They do not alert on non-actionable items, making their alerts reliable and focused on concerns that matter.
Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Keeping everything within AWS, including the DNS resolver in a single VPC and protected, significantly improves security and compliance, and everything is logged into CloudTrail and monitored via CloudWatch.
Dev Ops Engineer at Paydoh
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The best possible thing is that it is very easy to deploy, easy to configure, and very fast to get onboarded with a customer because this is a cloud-based service.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Route 53
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (2nd)
Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Amazon Route 53 and Cisco Umbrella aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Amazon Route 53 is designed for Managed DNS and holds a mindshare of 13.0%, up 6.4% compared to last year.
Cisco Umbrella, on the other hand, focuses on Domain Name System (DNS) Security, holds 17.1% mindshare, down 23.7% since last year.
Managed DNS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Route 5313.0%
Cloudflare24.7%
Quad922.8%
Other39.5%
Managed DNS
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella17.1%
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security9.8%
Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection6.2%
Other66.9%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

Mahadev Metre - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at Paydoh
Centralized DNS management has improved secure routing, monitoring, and compliance for our domains
The most valuable features of Amazon Route 53 that I have found include hosted zones, which allow us to configure domains for different hosted zones, a crucial aspect for sectors such as banking and finance that require DC and DR for data disaster recovery, as well as the ability to add alias records, such as A and CNAME records. This enables us to manage subdomains easily, such as us-sub.com under the main domain us.com, which is generated and trusted by ACM. Additionally, Amazon Route 53 includes a useful DNS firewall feature. The integration of Amazon Route 53 with AWS services optimizes our infrastructure management, as today's architecture is migrated to serverless. Keeping everything within AWS, including the DNS resolver in a single VPC and protected, significantly improves security and compliance, and everything is logged into CloudTrail and monitored via CloudWatch.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

Azure DNS or Amazon Route 53?
Azure DNS is a hosting service of DNS domains. It has excellent operating time and performance, resulting in fast resolution. We like the ability to view everything in the Azure portal - this makes...
What needs improvement with Amazon Route 53?
There is always a scope for improvement when it comes to price. Even though AWS is available at multiple regions, but within a region, if they can expand their availability domains, that would furt...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Route 53?
We are not using AWS for ourselves, but we create solutions on AWS products for our customers. Majorly it is EC2, RDS, and in certain cases, we also do Kubernetes and then storage solutions, networ...
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. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security functi...
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-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
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 bundle with other Cisco purchases.
 

Also Known As

Route 53
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hess, Expedia, Kelloggs, Philips, HyperTrack
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 Cloudflare, Amazon Web Services (AWS), BlueCat and others in Managed DNS. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.