Cisco Umbrella vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian comparison

Cisco and EfficientIP are both solutions in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category. Cisco is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.2, while EfficientIP is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 20.5% mindshare in DS, compared to EfficientIP’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of EfficientIP users who would recommend it.

Cisco Umbrella

Read 123 Cisco Umbrella reviews

20,182 Views
6,458 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

EfficientIP DNS Guardian

Read 3 EfficientIP DNS Guardian reviews

1,276 Views
1,276 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Umbrella

EfficientIP DNS Guardian

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Cisco Umbrella and EfficientIP DNS Guardian compete in the network security category through DNS management solutions. Cisco Umbrella often has the upper hand with its wide range of features and user satisfaction in pricing and support, while EfficientIP DNS Guardian excels in advanced threat mitigation and IP management.

Features: Cisco Umbrella includes a comprehensive threat intelligence network, effective malware protection, and secure internet access via DNS-layer protection. EfficientIP DNS Guardian offers advanced threat mitigation capabilities, seamless DNS performance monitoring, and robust IP management tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Cisco Umbrella is known for its straightforward, cloud-based deployment model with minimal hardware requirements, integrated into existing infrastructures. Its customer service is often praised for being responsive. In contrast, EfficientIP DNS Guardian requires more on-premises setup, which can be complex but offers extensive customization options supported by a knowledgeable support team.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Umbrella tends to have a predictable pricing structure and good cost-benefit balance with notable ROI due to its ease of use. EfficientIP DNS Guardian might have higher initial setup costs, reflecting its advanced feature set but providing significant ROI through exceptional performance and management capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Umbrella vs. EfficientIP DNS Guardian Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. EfficientIP DNS Guardian

March 2026

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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

8th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 20.5%, down from 25.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of EfficientIP DNS Guardian is 4.9%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella	20.5%
EfficientIP DNS Guardian	4.9%
Other	74.6%

Domain Name System (DNS) Security

Featured Reviews

Bryan Bettencourt

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.

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Stanislav Strijakov

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers."

"The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple."

"The security and access control features."

"The agent that gets installed on the endpoints or on people's laptops and devices is a Cisco AnyConnect Umbrella module. It's one of the most impressive things because you are able to protect your users anywhere they are."

"The insight into what our users are doing via Cisco Umbrella is valuable. Knowing that we're protecting our users as they leave our network is also valuable now because we've got more hybrid working."

"Umbrella has helped my IT staff in two ways. First, our security team was able to get more insights into the users, their devices, and the sites they browse. Second, our system administration team was able to manage DNS resolutions in a way that is more accessible and less intrusive to our domain system."

"Threats never come close to your network with security at the DNS level."

"Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

"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."

"You can run a DNS server directly from EfficientIP to help mitigate all DNS attacks from various sources. This is a very good feature."

Cons

"It should have a real-time malware classification engine. It should check the malware on the website. It would be good if it had a real-time malware check for the websites because currently, it just compares the DNS queries of the blacklist. It should also have malware control over file execution and the types of files that the users are allowed to download."

"The major issue is that sometimes when you install the client, it shows you protected and displays that it is live with the backend servers and everything; however, in reality, it was not getting any feed from the main client and is just sending your traffic to open DNS, which sometimes causes an issue because the protection you have implemented can be breached by users."

"Cisco Umbrella is difficult to manage and needs to include a dashboard. It needs to improve pricing as well."

"We've noticed some issues with the SWG where, when I'm connected, it thinks I'm in Miami, Florida instead of Savannah, Georgia."

"I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market."

"It would be good to have more extensions to third-party products and a client for other device types."

"I don't have an answer for how Cisco Umbrella can be improved, as it has been some time since I've worked with it."

"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You get what you pay for if you break the solution up into tiers."

"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."

"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 licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."

"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."

"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."

"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."

"Cisco uses subscription models for the pricing and there are three subscription plans."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

"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

14%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	50
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	51

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...

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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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with EfficientIP DNS Guardian?

See all answers

Comparisons

Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 8% of the time

Palo Alto Networks DNS Security vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 7% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco Umbrella Competitors

Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian

Compared 56% of the time

Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian

Compared 13% of the time

F5 BIG-IP DNS vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian

Compared 9% of the time

BlueCat Edge vs EfficientIP DNS Guardian

Compared 9% of the time

More EfficientIP DNS Guardian Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella

March 2026

Download Cisco Umbrella product report

Buyer's Guide

Domain Name System (DNS) Security

March 2026

Download EfficientIP DNS Guardian product report

Also Known As

OpenDNS

No data available

Overview

Cisco Umbrella provides fast-deploying DNS-layer security with powerful threat protection capabilities. Trusted by over 30,000 entities, it ranks highly in DNS security and effectively supports secure remote work environments.

Cisco Umbrella offers comprehensive DNS security, web filtering, and ease of use, enhancing network security through robust threat protection and malware prevention. It processes over 600 billion requests daily, making it a leader in its field. The seamless integration with existing infrastructures and cloud-based nature makes it suitable for remote and distributed work environments, ensuring consistent security throughout. Management is streamlined with a single-pane interface that simplifies administration, while in-depth reporting capabilities provide valuable insights for continuous monitoring.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS Security: Provides leading protection by managing DNS queries and blocking malicious sites.
Web Filtering: Offers granular control over web content to safeguard internet usage.
Ease of Integration: Fits well into existing infrastructures, simplifying deployment and use.
Intuitive Management: Single-pane management streamlines administration and enhances usability.
Cloud-Based Flexibility: Supports secure remote work environments.

What benefits can users expect from using Cisco Umbrella?

Superior Threat Protection: Reduces risk by effectively detecting and preventing cyber threats.
Consistent Security: Provides uniform protection across network environments.
Efficiency and Visibility: Leverages comprehensive reporting for better security insights.
Easy Deployment: Quick and straightforward setup with minimal disruption.

Cisco Umbrella is widely adopted in industries requiring advanced DNS-level security to counteract malware, phishing, and cyber threats. Its ability to monitor and protect remote and roaming employees makes it an attractive option for sectors highly dependent on cloud services. By managing DNS queries and blocking harmful sites, Cisco Umbrella enhances cybersecurity across networks, providing an added layer of protection for businesses worldwide.

Cisco

DNS Guardian delivers built-in security to cache, recursive and authoritative DNS servers. It is the premier secure DNS appliance on the market offering complete and real-time DNS Transaction Inspection (DTI), enabling in-depth understanding of the context of client requests.

EfficientIP

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella vs. EfficientIP DNS Guardian

March 2026

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