Cisco Umbrella vs. Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Umbrella
Score 8.8 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
Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
The majority of attacks and exposure to malicious content occurs during the normal course of web browsing activities, which requires the ability to allow safe, secure web access for all users. URL Filtering with PAN-DB automatically prevents attacks that leverage the web as an attack vector, including phishing links in emails, phishing sites, HTTP-based command and control, malicious sites and pages that carry exploit kits.N/A
Pricing
Cisco UmbrellaPalo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco UmbrellaPalo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
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 UmbrellaPalo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Considered Both Products
Cisco Umbrella
Chose Cisco Umbrella
I really like it for this price point.
Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Chose Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
The granularity of using Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering is pretty straightforward and easy to configure. Support from Palo's technical assistance center is phenomenal, and I have never had to wait when contacting them for support. One of the best support teams in …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Cisco UmbrellaPalo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Small Businesses

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Medium-sized Companies

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Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Zscaler Internet Access
Zscaler Internet Access
Score 8.9 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cisco UmbrellaPalo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(106 ratings)
9.5
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(15 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.7
(63 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.3
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.3
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco UmbrellaPalo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
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.
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Palo Alto Networks
Because of it's complexity, Palo may not be well suited for a small organization that may not have dedicated networking staff. But for a mid to large-sized enterprise, Palo shines.
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Pros
Cisco
  • So for example, we had the problem in the past. We are connecting users to our own managed data centers. We had seven locations around the world, put them with Cisco, any connect to our on-prem data center and let them out to the internet. So that's causing some high latency bad experiences with teams and so on. And with Umbrella we can directly connect the user to the cloud and to the internet so the users have a good experience with speed with latency and it's much better than back hauling the traffic to their own company and then processing them there.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • Threat Detection and Prevention (Malwares, Un-Authorized Access)
  • Out of the box patterns for threat detection
  • Built in and Updated identification patterns
  • Unified Dashboard/Alerting on anomaly
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Cons
Cisco
  • The smart search feature in Cisco Umbrella is great addition for sure which helps us to identify malicious domain just by searching the URL and there is scoring system of Cisco Umbrella which mark the URL in low, medium and high risk. Sometimes Cisco Umbrella mark well known and good domain as malicious whether sometimes they mark malicious sites/domain as low risk. So, it's something that they should focus on, I think.
  • The live activity search is great for checking internet activities, but the filtering options could be improved. It would be helpful if we could filter by multiple parameters at once like combining username, destination IP and time range.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • Steep learning curve
  • The top-down URL filtering match can sometimes be tricky and requires some expertise in setting up the desired policy
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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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Palo Alto Networks
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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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
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
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
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
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
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)
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Palo Alto Networks
Palo support is excellent, and I have never had to wait when contacting them for support. One of the best support teams in the business, in my opinion.
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Online Training
Cisco
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.
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Palo Alto Networks
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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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
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.
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Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering is the best solution to work with Palo Alto Firewalls and Panorama as an orchestrator. We choose Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering as it could reach the success criteria during the PoC.
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Scalability
Cisco
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
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • So it's always very hard to calculate return on investment, especially on security and especially in a physical product. So it's not like I'm going to be selling a lot more plastic or a lot more aviation fuel because I implemented Cisco Umbrella. What I know is that definitely, the return on investment is on the ability of the business to continue to run and give the assurance that our users are safe.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • Palo has been an excellent investment for us.
  • Having robust URL filtering built into the same device as the firewall saves the cost of a separate appliance and improves performance.
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