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Cisco Umbrella vs Palo Alto Networks DNS Security 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)
Palo Alto Networks DNS Secu...
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
16
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 Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is 7.5%, down from 10.7% 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%
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security7.5%
Other70.9%
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.
Partha Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Network Tech Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Protects against threats by quickly identifying insider risks and compromised devices
Palo Alto should explore agentless approaches to integrate DNS Security more easily and efficiently. The existing system sometimes presents challenges with backbone routing, impacting productivity. An agentless approach could be more lightweight and user-friendly. Additionally, there is a need for improvement in the pricing model for support and license renewals.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization."
"It offers good visibility for the Administrator. The administrator has full visibility of what is blocked or has the knowledge of where users go when they are surfing the internet."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is very important. We have a very small team. We can't spend a lot of time going from product to product to product to either investigate or set up policy. We need to have one place that we can go to and set everything up."
"We've found it to be stable and good for our customers."
"Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do."
"Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."
"By using Cisco Umbrella, you are sure of inspecting all the traffic. Whenever the user machine is connected to your network, it is inspected. That's the best thing. It means you are sure that nothing is being exported or imported without your choice. That is the best feature."
"The solution is very easy to manage. We found the initial setup, for example, to be quite simple."
"The main feature of the Palo Alto Networks DNS Security protects our network from external attacks, malware, and data theft."
"I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten."
"The product is easy to install."
"When comparing other cloud-based DNS security solutions to this one I have found the main beneficial feature in this solution to be we do not need to change our architecture."
"DNS sinkhole is a valuable feature."
"We now have insight into our DNS requests and we can actively see how many thousands of malicious requests have gotten knocked down in the last day or week that we didn't have before. There's more insight for both security and more insight."
"The most valuable features of DNS Security include its ability to protect against command and control traffic, anonymizers, newly registered domains, and DNS tunneling."
"So, in general, it's very stable because the process to deliver new features and new releases in not so long...I rate the scalability a nine out of ten."
 

Cons

"There are cheaper solutions in the market"
"It would be better if there was a little bit of flexibility for organizations that don't have SD One in their environment. Because of the complexity of the environment, it's not easy to actually turn on the feature of the secure internet gateway for our users. We have not been able to explore that option yet."
"The solution could be faster as the process is very slow."
"Lower costs including licensing, support, and renewals would be beneficial."
"It had the ability to do a lot of app control. So, every single app that went through that portal was registered, but there is a general issue with the whole app control. As soon as you add a mobile phone to your network, all of the apps get registered through the system, and you can approve, reject, or just let them go through. When I looked at it, it was impossible to manage app control. There was just so much data. I didn't apply that service because I just didn't have the time to manage it. It would be good if there was a way to categorize applications."
"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."
"We've noticed some issues with the SWG where, when I'm connected, it thinks I'm in Miami, Florida instead of Savannah, Georgia."
"The solution's technical support is not very good."
"I have found customer service to be quite problematic. The support is often outsourced, leading to delayed response times."
"I'm not really sure what needs improvement. The only hiccup I've really seen is a couple of the DNS requests get flagged as the Sophos traffic instead of DNS traffic, but that's more of their app detection in the DNS Security. I haven't really seen any issues with the DNS security."
"Sometimes, it blocks legitimate traffic for custom applications, requiring manual intervention."
"Palo Alto should explore agentless approaches to integrate DNS Security more easily and efficiently."
"The solution’s scalability could be improved."
"The scalability can be improved."
"The solution can capture more market if made more cost-competitive than Infoblox or Cisco Umbrella."
"The product should provide email protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco uses subscription models for the pricing and there are three subscription plans."
"Pricing depends on the automation requirements of the organization."
"I think it's worth the money."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"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 price could be lower."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"The product is expensive compared to Fortinet."
"Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is an expensive product. I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten points are expensive."
"There aren't many vendors offering DNS security solutions, but generally, Palo Alto subscriptions tend to be more expensive than other security vendors."
"The product is expensive. My company makes payments on a quarterly basis towards the solution's costs."
"The solution's pricing is equal to Cisco AMP or Cisco Umbrella."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as two."
"There is an annual license for the solution and I am satisfied with the pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business49
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

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 needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
DNS Security protects us against threats, malware, and malicious domains or malicious navigation to the internet, which is where it can be improved the best. Palo Alto helps us with support, so I d...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
I can describe my use cases for Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, which is used for protecting our network. I use this product, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, with Palo Alto firewalls.
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.