Cisco now offers OpenDNS Umbrella Web Filtering. Cisco acquired OpenDNS in August 2015, and rebranded the product as Cisco Umbrella.
N/A
Zscaler Internet Access
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Zscaler Internet Access™ (ZIA) is a secure web gateway (SWG), delivering cloud native cyberthreat protection and zero trust access to the internet and SaaS apps.
I have used several different solutions over the years. The Cisco Umbrella solution is by far a way better solution than anything I have used. IT is easy to easy with basic implementations vs. others. Cisco Umbrella is more accurate than other solutions (though not as deeper …
Different products in different spaces. The Z3 was more of a VPN endpoint so that users didn't have to worry about a client. If they are at home, they are on their corporate network and able to access resources. Cisco Umbrella can be used then to serve corporate DNS across the …
Cisco Umbrella did what we needed it to do far more than the other apps that we tried out. For mobile work on MacBook and iPads, Cisco Umbrella was the best option for our district. The cost was lower as well and did not lower the level of security we received because of lower …
We evaluated a lot of products. The good part is that we didn't go outside. So Ineos grew by acquisition and therefore we inherited a lot of products there. So we looked at the Netskope and Fortinet because they were within our sphere of product portfolios that we had in the …
Price and integration to Meraki MX, plus ability to protect endpoints with roaming module. Umbrella also came with DLP and evolved to Cisco Secure Connect (special offering for Meraki)
Better integration with other Cisco portfolio of products. We have an enterprise subscription and Cisco Umbrella dns was already included as part of the offering. Also we are looking into integration with sd-wan in sites where it is hard to provide full spectrum of services that …
Auto SIG Tunnels is a feature that helps in provisioning tunnels automatically using Cisco Umbrella APIs and so this is one win for choosing Cisco Umbrella over others. With Cisco SD-WAN Viptela, the Cisco Umbrella stacks up well because its the same vendor so less …
Barracuda has some additional feature sets in its physical Web Security Gateway hardware, however Umbrella has been more reliable for what we are doing in our environment.
Netskope was good however did not have all the features Zscaler had. Zscaler provides the same type of protection as Netskope but more. We also found the netskope agent used a lot of resoures on devices. ZCC was very light-weight and did not consume a lot of resources on laptops.
Palo support has been a large enough negative experience on multiple occasions that we have been looking to move away from the platform and Zscaler Internet Access looks to be a suitable replacement
Zscaler Internet Access is most akin to ZPA - we bought both at the same time to handle all traffic internally and externally. In terms of quality - I would make the statement that Zscaler Internet Access is a simpler product but that's also cause there are no App Connectors …
Zscaler Internet Access has significantly more configurability and capability in the platform, and can scale much better with large organizations. It is also much more affordable for our environment and gives us greater flexibility to grow into the Zscaler Platform.
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are broad-spectrum internet security solutions. Zscaler Internet Access unifies multiple security functions, such as web filters, firewalls, and file sandboxing into a single cloud-based product. Cisco Umbrella used to be limited to DNS-level inspection but has recently expanded its feature set to be similar to Zscaler.
On TrustRadius, both products are used heavily by enterprise-level organizations, likely due to the attractiveness of single-product security solutions for large businesses with complex security needs.
Features
Although both Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access provide similar levels of protection, they each have a few standout benefits.
Administrators using Zscaler Internet Access appreciate that the platform is relatively simple to implement and keep updated. Its cloud-based abstraction also allows users to do away with complicated local security configurations. End-users generally report minimal delays to web access. The product’s SSO capability helps keep users safe without having to log in to the service repeatedly.
Cisco Umbrella’s users appreciate that the service is lightweight, easy to implement, and comes with useful policy configurations out-of-the-box. It provides detailed statistics to help administrators understand user behavior and threat patterns, and adjust their policy appropriately. Cisco Umbrella’s DNS-level filtering is fast and responsive; users report it acts almost invisibly. It also integrates well with other web security products, especially those offered by Cisco.
Limitations
Both solutions provide web security and filtering for their customers, but each also has limitations to consider before purchasing.
Many users find Cisco Umbrella’s statistics and reporting feature to be dense and difficult to parse. Some users wish for quality-of-life improvements, such as the ability to create policy rules (e.g. blacklisting a website) directly from reports. Although the service can integrate with MS Active Directory, many administrators found the integration process difficult, a problem that was compounded by a lack of sufficient training and FAQ material.
On the other hand, reviewers on TrustRadius report that Zscaler Internet Access can be frustrating to work with in general. Administrators often comment on the poor user design when trying to use the management dashboard. The web blocking options may be too inflexible for some companies. This requires administrators to abandon the platform’s category and behavior-based blacklist capability and resort purely to whitelisting approved websites. Although Zscaler Internet Access provides detailed logging, the tools to filter those logs can be troublesome to use. The report generation options also don’t provide enough customization options for some users.
Pricing
Both Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access use a tiered, subscription-based pricing structure and do not disclose pricing information on their website. Quotes are available from the vendor upon request.
Cisco Umbrella’s feature set changes significantly between its three tiers. The DNS Security Essentials tier offers primarily DNS-based filtering and security. The DNS Security Advantage tier adds features like SSL decryption and threat intelligence tools. The Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) Essentials tier adds the complete set of security features, including file sandboxing, cloud access security broker (CASB), and firewall capabilities. Complete pricing information is available via a quote from Cisco.
Zscaler Internet Access also offers three tiered plans. The Professional Edition offers security features such as web filtering, malware protection, and file sandboxing. The Business Edition adds features like SSL inspection, bandwidth control, and cloud data loss prevention. The Transformation Edition adds extra sandboxing features, more firewall options, and CASB functionality. Complete pricing information is available via a quote from Zscaler.
Features
Cisco Umbrella
Zscaler Internet Access
Identity Management
Comparison of Identity Management features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Umbrella
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
5.0
Ratings
56% below category average
Multi-Factor Authentication
00 Ratings
5.00 Ratings
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Umbrella
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
10.0
Ratings
6% above category average
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
00 Ratings
10.00 Ratings
Threat Intelligence
Comparison of Threat Intelligence features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Umbrella
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
9.5
Ratings
7% above category average
Network Analytics
00 Ratings
9.70 Ratings
Threat Recognition
00 Ratings
9.40 Ratings
Vulnerability Classification
00 Ratings
9.40 Ratings
Automated Alerts and Reporting
00 Ratings
9.40 Ratings
Threat Analysis
00 Ratings
9.70 Ratings
Threat Intelligence Reporting
00 Ratings
9.70 Ratings
Automated Threat Identification
00 Ratings
9.10 Ratings
Zero Trust Security
Comparison of Zero Trust Security features of Product A and Product B
It is good for whole network protection, and individual PCs with the client. Provide good reporting on where your network is going on the net. One thing I would like is a longer history with the logs 14 and 30 days are too short some times.
Zscaler Internet Access has extremely powerful category selection and it is very easy to create your own destinations for inspection and policy exceptions (SSL exception specifically). It is also very affordable and just as powerful (if not more) than some of the other solutions I have used in the past to achieve internet security.
Managing the overall security policies is quite seamless in Cisco Umbrella. it is quite easy to set up and implement web filtering rules and other necessary configurations without any hassle.
The reporting features like 'activity search' provides greater visibility of our user's internet activity within our organization. We can identify security related risks quickly and take decisions to mitigate them.
The deployment and integration of Cisco Umbrella with other vendors product is quite appreciable. We other non cisco security devices which Cisco Umbrella was integrated with without any major issues.
We can easily track down any user that goes to the internet through the activity search feature.
The depth that Cloud App control policies can go into. Being able to control individual actions within an application, more than just all or nothing access.
The UX/UI design makes it really easy to navigate the portal.
Understanding how cloud app/url control policy gets evaluated and creating/editing existing policy is extremely straightforward.
There's always room for improvement in all products for sure. On the umbrella part, I would say that the room for improvement is on the data loss prevention part. So it sits on the PCs, it sees a lot of the traffic that goes on, it knows what files are on the PCs, but it's actually not stopping some of the intellectual property or personal identifiable information from going out. So we are able to block users from accessing applications and websites or even IP addresses, but we're not able to go a bit more granular, more on the data loss side. So that's a gap that I have in the product.
First off I never give anything a "10" unless it's perfect. LOL - I grade on the curve. I think OpenDNS/Umbrella is a very good product. I think that fact that Cisco absorbed them is one of the proofs of that. I have used the product back when it was free for companies our size. I have not always appreciated the cost - but in the post pandemic cyber chaos, I believe the cost benefit ratio is still very high. I have honestly not looked at other products because Umbrella continues to work to my satisfaction. I consider Umbrella to be one of the key layers in my cyber security strategy.
While Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) delivers critical value in cloud security and RBI compliance, I rate renewal likelihood 7/10 due to evolving needs versus platform limitations. Below is my rationale:
The product was easy to install and get running. To maintain the product is also a simple matter of maintaining lists of wanted and unwanted domains or URLs. The basic and advanced security features all do what they are intended to do with no known erroneous outcomes
The application is easy to install and configure on all Windows devices. To troubleshoot any internet issue, we can easily collect all the relevant logs from Zscaler and check the exact issue. The only problem is with the uninstall, as a dedicated crew needs to provide the password.
Cisco umbrella services in the cloud are always available. However, the weakness is the VM installed in the data center that are the first resolvers. If the VMs become unavailable for any reason or the vSphere goes down, then all DNS is affected
our experience with cisco products has always been awesome and same is the case with cisco umbrella .Under umbrella cisco provides flexible and scalable software solution to use across different dept and sites . These softwares are very user friendly ,pages load quickly as these applications are designed for minimum latency and reports are also provided quickely
Whilst the support is good once you get through to them, it's email only and the response is slow. This is a issue, because its a core system that needs to work. We have had issues in the past where several of our companies have gone down due to Umbrella and support is nowhere to be seen. It is very difficult to know whether Umbrella is having service issues, since they do not regularly update customers on the status of their services, such as is seen by providers such as Microsoft (status.umbrella.com just seems to show up all of the time, I'm not sure it's even updated)
Zscaler's ZIA support is quick and knowledgable. They respond within 1-2 hours of you submitting your ticket. They are very thorough and are typically ready to jump on a live troubleshooting session. Our ZIA platform and how we use is it unique so at times tickets can be open for weeks but we alway get quality support compared to other unrelated product support in our enterprise
Quite easy to understand training modules prepared by knowledgeable trainers. Training modules have included all the desired features of these softwares and the content delivery is very good from the respective module trainers and it explains in details the features and apart from that further training material support is also provided if needed.
At the time we were forced to move from Cloud Web Security to Cisco Umbrella, Cisco Umbrella was far from being a direct replacement. It was frustrating and difficult to migrate due to the lack of functionality. This has since been addressed, however we now have legacy rulesets that were built as bandaids that cannot be removed. Hopefully the migration to Secure Access will address this.
Different products in different spaces. The Z3 was more of a VPN endpoint so that users didn't have to worry about a client. If they are at home, they are on their corporate network and able to access resources. Cisco Umbrella can be used then to serve corporate DNS across the VPN tunnel to the Z3 device and extend the capabilities of Cisco Umbrella.
Zscaler Internet Access is most akin to ZPA - we bought both at the same time to handle all traffic internally and externally. In terms of quality - I would make the statement that Zscaler Internet Access is a simpler product but that's also cause there are no App Connectors involved in that process.
Cisco umbrella provides fleaxible and scalable software solutions which are easy deploy across multiple departments and sites wherever needed and this softwares are very easy to use and provides the best interface along with cisco support for other devices apart from cisco infrastructure but still there is scope for improvement on the inclusion of latest features
It's too early for us to say now. We started with Cisco Umbrella with the migration and during the migration we choose all the specific access. Now we are going to Cisco Secure Access in our simulations there will be much of cost savings because we don't need the on-premise data center anymore for the ASARs and for the local firewalls and the people, they are managing that on-premise. So we estimate there will be a lot of cost savings, but currently it's not on the paper yet. So we have to wait what the experience is with it, but we are optimistic.
Has allowed us to remove other products that were suboptimal
Saved us money overall by stacking it with other Zscaler products
Created a more secure work environment for our users through intelligent internet policies that are not needlessly restrictive while still maintaining security best practices
