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Cisco Umbrella vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) comparison

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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.9
iboss improved bandwidth and security, offered cost-effectiveness despite higher fees, but faced challenges with delayed Mac agent deployment.
Sentiment score
7.0
Cisco Umbrella delivers high ROI by saving time, enhancing security, and integrating smoothly, leading to increased productivity and satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager offers cost savings, quick ROI, and enhances security by ensuring crucial access and reducing costs.
With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies. So with respect to the security side, it strengthens measures.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I have seen a clear, measurable return on investment within the first twelve months of deploying iboss.
Cyber Security Specialist at Cyvogenix
Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%.
Manager at Cyvogenix
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using the solution is that it makes it a lot easier to delegate some of the tasks that were traditionally used, such as building policies on the firewalls and doing it through Cisco Umbrella.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Umbrella for me is the ease of use of the fact that we've deployed this with our Cisco VPN Secure Client, so every computer has the Umbrella module in it.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.9
iboss customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise but could improve communication, transparency, and 24/7 availability.
Sentiment score
7.8
Cisco Umbrella support is praised for quick resolutions, professional service, and effective technical guidance despite occasional delays.
Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP APM customer service receives mixed reviews, with some praising responsiveness and others citing delays and communication issues.
They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The quality of the support is fantastic.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We had promising discussions about resolving these issues, but no real action followed.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
If I don't need to go to support all the time, that means the product is working fine, so I'm very happy with them.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
Even if they respond, they don't update me with the process or what's going on.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Most of the technical support is managed in-house due to our extensive experience with F5 products.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
F5 technical support is responsive and helpful.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Iboss excels in scalable cloud-based solutions, offering quick adaptability and performance stability despite potential scaling costs.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella efficiently supports scalability for businesses of all sizes with seamless adaptation and minimal resource demand.
Sentiment score
7.3
F5 BIG-IP APM scales for diverse deployments, offering flexibility and effective tools, though hardware limitations might challenge scalability.
They are also able to meet on-demand requirements based on your contract with them, and can easily provide adequate resources and scalability.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
If I start seeing sluggishness or anything like that, I just reach out to my rep, and they connect with their dev team, typically resolving it the same day.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Network Engineer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
Senior Network Engineer at Boys Town
The product's flexibility and company culture contribute to resolving these challenges.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
I would rate the scalability of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) between seven and eight.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Iboss offers reliable performance, occasional minor downtime, and effective support, with most users rating its stability highly.
Sentiment score
8.2
Cisco Umbrella offers reliable, stable performance with excellent uptime, effective security features, and minimal disruptions for enterprise needs.
Sentiment score
7.9
F5 BIG-IP APM is praised for reliability, performance, and minimal bugs, with minor suggestions for log clarity improvement.
It's been pretty solid; I've never had an outage with them, and if I ever had, it's only been once out of the seven years.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We've experienced zero downtime.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device despite our ClearPass sending information to the iboss box.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
Cisco Umbrella Secure Access is pretty stable in my mind, and we have not seen many glitches that would have interrupted services at customer locations.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
On a scale from one to ten for stability, I would rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) a ten.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
Sometimes, the logs are not quite informational or easy to understand.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Iboss requires integration and connectivity improvements, along with enhanced security, reporting, deployment, pricing transparency, and better customer support.
Cisco Umbrella users seek better endpoint integration, simplified licensing, improved support, enhanced security features, and easier system compatibility.
F5 BIG-IP APM requires improvements in pricing, cloud integration, user interface, documentation, support, and additional features for enhanced performance.
It is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard.
Manager at Cyvogenix
We also had a problem with a transition when we upgraded from one appliance of theirs to another, but their engineer lost a good deal of our data.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
CTO at Next Technologies Ltd
If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
The main improvement needed for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is to integrate into the cloud-delivered services from F5.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
The ability to run the Anycast feature would be valuable, as the current solution only operates on-premises.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
 

Setup Cost

Iboss is praised for competitive pricing, transparency, and affordability compared to pricier competitors, appealing to budget-conscious enterprises.
Cisco Umbrella pricing varies in cost-effectiveness based on features, with flexible licensing and potential discounts for certain partners.
F5 BIG-IP APM is costly but valued for high performance, with unpredictable cloud pricing and additional fees for features.
It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern.
Managing Director
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
 

Valuable Features

Iboss offers seamless security management with cloud architecture, advanced threat protection, and efficient integration, enhancing operational efficiency.
Cisco Umbrella provides DNS security, integration, and user management, enhancing protection for hybrid work environments and remote users.
F5 BIG-IP APM offers secure remote access with SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and comprehensive integration and security features.
The solution's mental health function can detect if someone needs help.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
It's given us a lot more visibility into our computer assets that may be infected with viruses and also shows us people who have unusually large uploads or might be engaging in high-risk activities, such as searches or going to sites not categorized by their web crawler.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
iboss was the best solution for us because, no matter what domain you were in, everything is under a single pane of glass, which is exactly what we wanted.
Managing Director
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The best possible thing is that it is very easy to deploy, easy to configure, and very fast to get onboarded with a customer because this is a cloud-based service.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
APM is quite flexible for customers to use, providing secure remote access through various host-checking conditions for both machines and users.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
It provides robust security and offers integration with multi-factor authentication systems, which is crucial for an organization's security policy.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (11th), SSL VPN (7th), Remote Access (18th), Access Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 9.5%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella9.5%
iboss3.5%
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)1.4%
Other85.6%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
SS
Sr. Technical Executive at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Has required extensive customization for non-technical users and still needs better simplification
Customization for basic users can be complex, as it is targeted toward only technical users. It would be beneficial if Cisco simplifies the customization process while still ensuring strong security to prevent unauthorized access. Simplifying the customization part could enhance Cisco Umbrella, but overall, it is a good solution for me.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
Has provided reliable policy controls and secure web access for large enterprises
I consider Cloudflare when evaluating centralized access control features; Cloudflare utilizes multi-factor authentication and full API support, while F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) needs to enhance its API support. I recommend F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) for large companies such as Tüpraş and Ford. Tüpraş is one of the biggest companies in Turkey, along with other customers such as Tofaş, Euroko, Koç Holding, and more. For on-premises deployment, I would rate it a 10. For cloud deployment, I would rate it a seven. I primarily use it on-premises. I rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) eight out of ten.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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. Zs...
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-nat...
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 bu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability, akin to purchas...
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is not user-friendly and operates slowly. Additional features for architecture ...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
I am using F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) along with Bot Management, API Gateway, API Security, and F5 Cloud. ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
F5 Access Policy Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
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
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.