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Cisco Umbrella vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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 (2nd)
EfficientIP DNS Guardian
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
10th
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 May 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 18.1%, down from 25.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of EfficientIP DNS Guardian is 4.1%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella18.1%
EfficientIP DNS Guardian4.1%
Other77.8%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

BB
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Ensures comprehensive protection with seamless threat logging and efficient policy management
My favorite feature of Cisco Umbrella is probably just the DNS and the fact that when a security threat happens, all of that gets logged in their Umbrella portal, and it's very easy to find who's been accessing the site and how many people have accessed it, so that we can go to them and make sure they're not compromised. The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast. The fact that there's a virtual database that has all that information is great on our portal.
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."
"This is a very good solution and my clients are impressed with it."
"Cisco Umbrella is a very good product as of now as there is no competition."
"For me, it's important that I get a connection to my corporate network in a secure and fast way. This product just runs in the background and doesn't need any attention. For me, as a user, it's perfect."
"I highly recommend SMBs and enterprises use it to enhance their network security with minimal cost through the OpenDNS cloud solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its reliability."
"It's very stable, reliable and does its job."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is DNS security."
"You can run a DNS server directly from EfficientIP to help mitigate all DNS attacks from various sources. This is a very good feature."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"This product is very stable."
 

Cons

"I would like to see integration with SecurNX in the future."
"The locks and management could be better. The product is fairly new, and it may take some time to get all the features up and running."
"It's somewhat pricey for us, however, it's an awesome solution."
"The solution's technical support is not very good."
"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."
"In my experience with Umbrella support, sometimes the response times take a bit more time than we would like; sometimes, if you go through email, it can take quite a while to get a response."
"Basically, it is not fully mature, which means it's not yet ready to replace the WSA, however, over a period of time, it could to a certain extent."
"The product can be pretty expensive."
"EfficientIP DNS Guardian's deployment documentation is very hard to find. The tech support's response is slow."
"EfficientIP DNS Guardian has a certain default behavior that didn't meet our company's requirements."
"The problem with this vendor is that they are too focused on revenue and sales numbers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"The pricing was marvelous."
"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"As an educational partner, we get better licensing structures. We are very happy with that. It has been very nice that Cisco has partnered with the educational sector to bring that."
"The pricing model is easier compared to some of the other solutions, and it is also competitive."
"The solution is subscription-based."
"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 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
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Non Profit
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.