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Cisco Umbrella vs Quad9 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Internet Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Quad9
Ranking in Internet Security
6th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Internet Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 28.2%, down from 33.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quad9 is 4.2%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Internet Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella28.2%
Quad94.2%
Other67.6%
Internet Security
 

Featured Reviews

KamranJameel - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Secure browsing has protected users from DNS threats and improves malware defense
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. The primary thing that Cisco Umbrella lacked most of the time is their client. Previously, they had a separate Cisco client. Now they have merged everything into the Cisco Secure Endpoint client—one client for everything, for Cisco Endpoint, for Cisco AnyConnect, and for Cisco Umbrella, which they did probably in 2025.
Louis Geoffroy - PeerSpot reviewer
President at IDEBUG
It's easy to use and set up, but I've faced performance problems
I have experience with Quad9 and most other filtering solutions. Quad9 was working well initially, but it started slowing, so I switched to OpenDNS. I recently checked Tom's Hardware, an IT review site, and read a review of seven DNS filters. Open DNS was ranked the fastest, and Quad9 was second. Google was on there too, but they said it didn't filter enough.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Threats never come close to your network with security at the DNS level​."
"It makes it really easy to accomplish content filtering. We don't have to do a lot of customization. You just click the box for the content category and it's up to date."
"We use Cisco Umbrella for web security and it's very good."
"We use it to provide cloud-based security services for our customers."
"It has the ability to quickly block new threats."
"The integration features within, for example, the Cisco VPN product and the Umbrella module are valuable."
"ROI benefits both the reseller and the client in Managed Services because of its proactive approach to network security."
"The solution is extremely stable. It has excellent performance."
"The most valuable feature of Quad9 is that it is a free solution."
"Setting up Quad9 is straightforward if you know what you're doing, and it's easy to use overall."
 

Cons

"If the virtual appliances could also gather traffic bandwidth reports, that would be great."
"I would like to see DLP integration in the next release of this solution."
"In the way we are using the solution it would be good for us if they would do some simplification of the analytics. They need to improve this feature so they have analytics to show the content of the user activity."
"It would be useful if they had a malware protection engine running inside their own VM."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Its DNS service does not support IPv6 query."
"Instead of creating a TAC case, it would be better if we could just call in and they could answer us immediately."
"I would like to see more integrations with more products. Some of the integrations need to be simpler as well. For example, the integration with Cisco Secure Firewall could be simpler. It would be good to make reporting simpler. For those who don't use SecureX, it would be good to make Umbrella really simple to use upfront. It's not a difficult product, but it can be daunting for someone who isn't exposed to it because there are so many options."
"It used to work fine for all the devices, but it started to slow and become non-responsive. I would have to reload the page two or three times before all the pages loaded. With OpenDNS, I only need to load the page once."
"Quad9 could improve by having more free features, such as custom DNS filtering."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"Pricing and licensing of Cisco Umbrella is a bit confusing because you have to separate the DNS solution and the full-feature solution. Cisco in Portugal helped us understand which one was the right one for us."
"You can request an evaluation license​."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"You get what you pay for."
"In my opinion, Cisco Umbrella now has a good price in the basic packages. When it comes to Cisco Umbrella SIG Essentials package and Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) Advantage package, it depends on whether the project has a good price or not"
"There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package."
"It has a reasonable price. It is certainly not as expensive as it used to be. It is in line with other offerings on the market. There are a number of different flavors of Umbrella. They could bring Umbrella SIG down a bit because its price is a little bit high for what it does, but I also understand why its price is high."
"The price of Quad9 is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
27%
Computer Software Company
8%
Hospitality Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise31
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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that the pricing is acceptable, but it is marginally a bit high. However, the services provided are much better, leading to a good retu...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...
 

Comparisons

 

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
CISCO, Netlab, proofpoint
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Quad9 and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.