Cisco OpenDNS vs Cloudflare comparison

Read 78 Cloudflare reviews

37,802 Views
1,134 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cisco OpenDNS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco OpenDNS and Cloudflare based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco OpenDNS vs. Cloudflare Report (Updated: December 2025).

Cisco OpenDNS vs. Cloudflare

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

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

Cisco OpenDNS

Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security

11th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cloudflare

Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco OpenDNS is 2.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 4.4%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Domain Name System (DNS) Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	4.4%
Cisco OpenDNS	2.9%
Other	92.7%

Domain Name System (DNS) Security

Featured Reviews

reviewer1678521

Lead - Global IT Networks at a recruiting/HR firm with 10,001+ employees

A stable solution that can be used for upgrades, vulnerability remediation, configuration, and standardization

I am using the latest version of Cisco OpenDNS. Users should prioritize the challenges that they have before implementing the solution. They need to be very clear about what they are looking for. Those parameters need to be defined, success criteria need to be checked, and then they can proceed with the solution that meets the requirements. Overall, I rate Cisco OpenDNS a nine out of ten.

Read full review

M.A. Faisal

General Manager at bKash Limited

Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility

From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The platform is highly stable."

"We use Cisco OpenDNS for upgrades, vulnerability remediation, configuration, and standardization."

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

"Cloudflare's DNS services deliver the best performance in terms of speed and reliability."

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."

"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."

"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."

"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."

More Cloudflare pros

Cons

"The platform's DNS database area needs improvement."

"The solution’s dashboard could be improved."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region."

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."

More Cloudflare cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."

"The product is expensive yet cost-effective. I rate the pricing an eight out of ten."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"We are using the free version."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user68487

Security Expert with 51-200 employees

Nov 6, 2013

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Retailer

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	26

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco OpenDNS?

We use Cisco OpenDNS for upgrades, vulnerability remediation, configuration, and standardization.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco OpenDNS?

We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution.

What needs improvement with Cisco OpenDNS?

The solution’s dashboard could be improved. I would like to see anything with best practices pre-config templates automated to address the zero-day threats.

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

Cisco Umbrella vs Cisco OpenDNS

Comparisons

Compared 42% of the time

Akamai Edge DNS vs Cisco OpenDNS

Compared 11% of the time

Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense vs Cisco OpenDNS

Compared 10% of the time

SafeDNS vs Cisco OpenDNS

Compared 9% of the time

BlueCat Edge vs Cisco OpenDNS

Compared 8% of the time

More Cisco OpenDNS Competitors

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Product Reports

Domain Name System (DNS) Security

January 2026

Download Cisco OpenDNS product report

Download Cloudflare product report

January 2026

Also Known As

No data available

Cloudflare DNS

Overview

Cisco OpenDNS is a network security solution that enhances online security and protects against threats. It effectively blocks malicious websites and prevents malware infections. Easy to implement and manage, it is suitable for organizations of all sizes. OpenDNS provides content filtering and enforces acceptable use policies, ensuring a safe and productive online environment. Its robust security measures, efficient web filtering capabilities, and seamless integration with existing systems make it a valuable tool for comprehensive protection against online threats.

Cisco

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Sample Customers

1. Netflix 2. IBM 3. Deloitte 4. Airbnb 5. Pinterest 6. Box 7. LinkedIn 8. Adobe 9. Spotify 10. Uber 11. Twitter 12. Cisco Systems (the parent company) 13. The New York Times 14. Verizon 15. Coca-Cola 16. General Electric 17. Microsoft 18. Facebook 19. Apple 20. Amazon 21. Google 22. Intel 23. Oracle 24. AT&T 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Salesforce 27. Cisco Webex 28. Cisco Umbrella 29. Cisco Talos 30. Cisco AMP for Endpoints 31. Cisco AnyConnect 32. Cisco Stealthwatch

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.