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Cisco Umbrella vs EfficientIP DNS Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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 Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
EfficientIP DNS Firewall
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 21.6%, down from 25.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of EfficientIP DNS Firewall is 1.8%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella21.6%
EfficientIP DNS Firewall1.8%
Other76.6%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer1080873 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy to set up and use, and has a helpful network device inventory function
The vendor needs to do more to promote this product in certain regions, helping it to gain market share in territories where it is not widely adopted. The problem with this vendor is that they are too focused on revenue and sales numbers. If a partner is not able to generate the revenue that they're expecting, they put them on hold until they can generate interest and traction in their region for the products. It comes down to the management's mindset. They have a good product but they don't have much patience for a territory that is slow to adopt.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Cisco's support is better nowadays."
"Cisco Umbrella is a totally different solution. They are the first to come up with this idea of security. It's a totally new concept of security for everybody, for every time, real time, perfectionism."
"The initial setup is very easy and takes only a few minutes."
"It is a good cloud-based solution for DNS security."
"We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far."
"There is much differentiation within the licensing so if anyone wants DNS security from the DNS security log, we are there already, and if anyone wants to go to a secure internet gateway, that is also available. We can get the integrated cloud DLP license keys. That is a good benefit with Cisco Umbrella. You can get a complete solution in a single licensing."
"What we like most is security and how easy it is to integrate with other appliances."
"I like the DNS layer security."
"This product has an inventory function to help maintain a list of the equipment, which is quite good."
 

Cons

"It's a very new product, so it's quite immature at the moment. It can be more user friendly."
"I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market."
"We would like to see the enhancements made to the EDR, as we see features that are running endpoint management."
"I'm hoping for the conversion of Cisco ZTNA's features from Duo to Umbrella."
"I would like to see more integration between Cisco Umbrella and Cisco DNA Center."
"The reporting could be improved by way of the information that's displayed. For example, when you pull a report, it shows an internal employee going to many websites, but you can spin that right down by saying a lot of it is being cached."
"Sometimes there are some lags, and I have to refresh multiple times to access parts of the dashboards. Sometimes the dashboard pages crash and I'm not sure why, so that's one area for improvement."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"The vendor needs to do more to promote this product in certain regions, helping it to gain market share in territories where it is not widely adopted."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be lower."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"There is a subscription cost."
"Its value exceeds its pricing."
"You get what you pay for."
"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."
"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"The price of this product is very reasonable, especially considering that a company's reputation is priceless."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business49
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
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Also Known As

OpenDNS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
De Montfort University, STMicroelectronics, Leeds Beckett University
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.