Cisco Umbrella vs. FortiGuard Web Filtering Service

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Umbrella
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Cisco now offers OpenDNS Umbrella Web Filtering. Cisco acquired OpenDNS in August 2015, and rebranded the product as Cisco Umbrella.N/A
FortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Fortinet headquartered in Sunnyvale, California offers the FortiGuard Web Filtering Service, a web content filter.N/A
Pricing
Cisco UmbrellaFortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco UmbrellaFortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco UmbrellaFortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Considered Both Products
Cisco Umbrella
Chose Cisco Umbrella
We did not evaluate any other products as Cisco Umbrella was perfect and already part of the Cisco eco system, so things like native API integration made it a easy decision.
FortiGuard Web Filtering Service

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Cisco UmbrellaFortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

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Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco UmbrellaFortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(82 ratings)
8.7
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(62 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.1
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco UmbrellaFortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Well suited to networks that include Active directory, as you can hook it into the directory to allow you to target specific users and computers. Not particularly well suited to personal users due to the price point, and also not well suited to organisations with disorganised IT, since the system can be bypassed simply by changing the DNS server of the device. You need a dedicated IT department to ensure these sorts of settings are locked down
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Fortinet
FortiGuard Web Filtering Service is well-suited for an organisation that is able to funnel all its Internet connectivity through one device, i.e., the office environment - or perhaps where WFH workers are using a remote desktop or VPN. It allows management/IT to minimise risk by blocking websites that may be harmful, as well as websites that may enable data leakage, or even are websites that people ought not to be visiting in the workplace.
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Pros
Cisco
  • Cisco Umbrella protects our devices and users from malicious sites of all kinds.
  • Cisco Umbrella allows us to add additional web site types we may want to block for specific users.
  • Cisco Umbrella keeps the list of sites blocked current by utilizing data from their entire security platform.
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Fortinet
  • FortiGuard Web Filtering Service effectively protects websites. There is no need to install the root certificate on all PCs inside the network.
  • The database signature updates every hour, so we don't need to spend time updating the website to blacklist or whitelist.
  • It can protect very well. Whereas, some traditional proxies can not do that. For example, others can not block Youtube or Facebook.
  • It can also protect the search keyword, like in Youtube or other social media, Google, etc.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Umbrella Virtual Appliances have been buggy in resolving local domain hosts.
  • Integration between other Cisco and Meraki products is complicated.
  • Reporting is not always accurate; for example, if you configure a Meraki access point to use an Umbrella Virtual Appliance, you lose device reporting. All reporting shows up under the AP's IP.
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Fortinet
  • Some websites are classified as Meaningless content, especially links used in emails to unsubscribe from lists. Luckily FortiGuard Web Filtering Service is responsive about reclassifying those quickly.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
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.
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Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
Better features and easy to manage system with great customer support and overall usability is great as it works for hybrid environment with ease as it is having features for on prem users as wells as cloud users with great customer support and great team of trained engineers to support our opeartions.
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Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
Cisco Umbrella's availability was great, they got back to me in less than an hour to get my problem solved.
We needed to get our Meraki AP's hooked up to Cisco Umbrella to monitor that specific traffic and they got back to me promptly, they guided me and explained every question I had.
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Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
We have not had a chance to use Cisco support frequently, but when we needed to troubleshoot some issues that we were having with the agent installation, the support was very responsive and the solution that they offered worked. The only reason I give it one less point is that the turnaround time for non-critical issues is very long.
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Fortinet
Took a little longer for support to get our problem solved, but when the upper tier tech support was involved, we got excellent customer support.
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Online Training
Cisco
Quite easy to understand training modules prepared by knowledgeable trainers.
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Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cisco
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.
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Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
We used a product before this called iPrism by EdgeWave and also briefly tried Barracuda Web Security in the cloud. We were having such a large influx of service desk calls about proxy-based layer 7 web filters that we wanted to step back and pick something more at the DNS level, to protect our employees but not hover over their social media use, etc. Cisco will also employ a layer 7 proxy if a site is suspicious, which does require us to push a certificate out should we want that feature. For most policies we have it enabled.
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Fortinet
We selected FortiGuard Web Filtering because it came in the service bundle with our FortiGate unit. After testing the service for a couple of months, we disabled the web filtering that was running on our client machines and have not looked back. It's been easy to manage, effective, and fast. There isn't much more you can ask for from a filtering solution.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Positive ROI when the service keeps users from going to malicious websites.
  • We had it deployed while users were internal and external with the AnyConnect Umbrella module so our protection was both on and off the corporate network.
  • Great product. Has paid for itself two time over.
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Fortinet
  • We can be confident staff cannot inadvertantly or deliberately access websites that contain porn, or other non-safe for work content
  • We can be confident staff cannot inadvertantly or deliberately access harmful and malicious websites
  • We can be confident data leakage is minimised
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ScreenShots