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Cisco Umbrella vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian 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
123
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
EfficientIP DNS Guardian
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 20.8%, down from 25.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of EfficientIP DNS Guardian is 4.9%, down from 5.1% 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 Umbrella20.8%
EfficientIP DNS Guardian4.9%
Other74.3%
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.
Stanislav Strijakov - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Architect at University of Sydney
Helps deal with DNS DoS attacks and corrupt DNS requests
I know my company does come across problems related to the product, sometimes related to a configuration issue or a bug. My company receives good support from EfficientIP DNS Guardian's team, who are responsible and passionate about the product. As far as I know, all of my company's challenges and issues have been successfully resolved. I can't think of any weaknesses or issues which I would like to highlight in a significant manner. EfficientIP DNS Guardian has a certain default behavior that didn't meet our company's requirements. After the consultation with EfficientIP DNS Guardian's IT support, a configuration changed the product's default behavior, which was undesirable for us, to a desirable behavior. Certain issues happen in every product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The DNS data exfiltration and the blocking of DNS tunneling are the most effective features for threat prevention in our company."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"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."
"It has excellent resilience in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity for my organization is very important because we are a banking organization. We need this security to protect the personal information of our clients. This is very important for our security."
"It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution."
"When we have laptops that leave the building, they could connect to public WiFi before they establish a VPN connection back into the company. For that duration or that period of time when they're not docked in the network or on a VPN, they effectively don't have that full layer of security that I provide inside the building. This tool stands in during that period of time, and we extend the security settings through their basic firewall or their cloud-based firewall at that time. So, we do content filtering and control access, but they also are looking at new domains, IP addresses, and bad requests. They're blocking them on my behalf when a laptop is not sitting behind our security appliances."
"It has the ability to quickly block new threats."
"Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers."
"You can run a DNS server directly from EfficientIP to help mitigate all DNS attacks from various sources. This is a very good feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is DNS security."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"Its price could be better."
"For us, as an MSP, the initial licensing changes were a roadblock, and they still could be a lot clearer. Specifically, it's an honor-based licensing system. We'd like it to be more specific to our traffic or our users so that we can make sure that the customer is paying for all their licensing."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"I would like to see a graphical representation of the entire network."
"I'm hoping for the conversion of Cisco ZTNA's features from Duo to Umbrella."
"There is room for improvement in the dashboard. It could stand to be a bit more detailed. I would also like to be able to customize the dashboard to focus more on what is important for my company."
"EfficientIP DNS Guardian has a certain default behavior that didn't meet our company's requirements."
"EfficientIP DNS Guardian's deployment documentation is very hard to find. The tech support's response is slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a subscription cost."
"When talking about Cisco solutions in general there pricing model is horrible. For example, you can sell a Meraki-based solution, but if the customer starts shopping around, someone is going to have access to the pricing at a level that you cannot compete because they do not have uniform pricing. Not everybody gets fair pricing. Unless you are one of the real major corporations selling the solution your ability to compete is impossible. Cisco will acknowledge the situation and assure you next time it will be in your favor but it never becomes favorable for you. Cisco is not very good in this regard. However, Umbrella is good."
"I think Cisco Umbrella is priced well. We have a mix of customers with different verticals such as education. We have clients in the commercial space as well. Umbrella is at a good price point for all of our customers."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"Cisco has a set price for a single license up to 100, but whenever we get over 100, we have to ask for a quote."
"Its value exceeds its pricing."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"It was a little bit expensive on a per seat basis, but the company I was running was only a midsize Australian company, and it was a reasonable budget per computer for that system. It started off being a free product, and then Cisco bought it, and it went to a reasonable price. I was using Cisco AMP as well. So, my per computer cost was reasonably high, but for a small company, it was within an acceptable level."
"The price of this product is very reasonable, especially considering that a company's reputation is priceless."
"I rate the product price as three to four on a scale of one to ten, where one is low cost, and ten is high price."
"The solution is subscription-based."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
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.
What do you like most about EfficientIP DNS Guardian?
It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for EfficientIP DNS Guardian?
I rate the product price as three to four on a scale of one to ten, where one is low cost, and ten is high price.
What needs improvement with EfficientIP DNS Guardian?
I know my company does come across problems related to the product, sometimes related to a configuration issue or a bug. My company receives good support from EfficientIP DNS Guardian's team, who a...
 

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 Umbrella vs. EfficientIP DNS Guardian and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.