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Barracuda SecureEdge vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
iboss improves ROI with enhanced remote security, saving time and reducing support needs, offering 70-80% efficiency gains.
Sentiment score
7.5
Barracuda SecureEdge delivers ROI by reducing costs, streamlining management, and enhancing security with easy setup and centralized controls.
Sentiment score
7.1
Cisco Umbrella improves security, reduces costs, and boosts productivity with easy deployment and effective cloud-based threat prevention.
With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies. So with respect to the security side, it strengthens measures.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%.
Manager at Cyvogenix
I have seen some cost effectiveness from iboss; it has reduced certain support requirements, making it a more hands-off solution.
Managing Director
Considering the security features and centralized management capability it provides, we feel it offers good value for the investment.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
It has enhanced visibility into user activity and helped enforce consistent security policies across different locations.
Senior Technical Support Executive at digital track
I estimate that routing network administration and policy management activities require roughly 30 to 40% less effort than before, allowing our team to focus on higher priority projects rather than day-to-day maintenance.
Network engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
I have seen a return on investment, specifically in terms of time saved and needing fewer employees.
SVP IT at AS IT Consulting Pvt. Ltd.
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using the solution is that it makes it a lot easier to delegate some of the tasks that were traditionally used, such as building policies on the firewalls and doing it through Cisco Umbrella.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Iboss customer service is fast and knowledgeable, though some desire better transparency and 24/7 availability. Scores range high.
Sentiment score
6.7
Barracuda SecureEdge's customer service is efficient, knowledgeable, and responsive, consistently resolving user queries quickly with high satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Umbrella's customer service is praised for expertise and professionalism, though some experience delays, particularly with email support.
They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The quality of the support is fantastic.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We had promising discussions about resolving these issues, but no real action followed.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
The support team for Barracuda SecureEdge is responsive, knowledgeable, and helpful when troubleshooting issues.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
The engineers have been able to provide useful guidance during troubleshooting and implementation activities.
Network engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
The ticketing system is very efficient, and they provide support promptly.
OT Cybersecurity Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
If I don't need to go to support all the time, that means the product is working fine, so I'm very happy with them.
Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Iboss scales efficiently, handling heavy traffic and large deployments, with swift resource adjustments and reliable performance for expanding organizations.
Sentiment score
6.7
Barracuda SecureEdge offers scalable, cloud-based management, enabling effortless expansion and administration for growing companies with minimal effort.
Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Umbrella adapts seamlessly to user growth, offering scalable, cloud-based security with efficient centralized management and flexible licensing options.
They are also able to meet on-demand requirements based on your contract with them, and can easily provide adequate resources and scalability.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
If I start seeing sluggishness or anything like that, I just reach out to my rep, and they connect with their dev team, typically resolving it the same day.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
The centralized management platform makes it easy to manage growth without significantly increasing administrative effort.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
The centralized cloud management makes it easy to support additional users, locations and security requirements.
Network engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
Barracuda SecureEdge has good scalability because it is a cloud-based solution.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Network Engineer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
Senior Network Engineer at Boys Town
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Iboss is highly stable, with minimal downtime, though occasional issues occur with cloud migration and system performance.
Sentiment score
8.4
Barracuda SecureEdge is stable and reliable, performing consistently for security management and remote access without major issues.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is renowned for its exceptional stability, delivering near-100% uptime and reliable performance with minimal connectivity issues.
It's been pretty solid; I've never had an outage with them, and if I ever had, it's only been once out of the seven years.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We've experienced zero downtime.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device despite our ClearPass sending information to the iboss box.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
The platform has provided consistent performance for both security management and remote connectivity.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
It has improved consistent performance for security connectivity and remote access.
Network engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
Cisco Umbrella Secure Access is pretty stable in my mind, and we have not seen many glitches that would have interrupted services at customer locations.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
 

Room For Improvement

iboss needs better integration, scalability, security, and support, with upgrades in performance, automation, dashboards, and access control.
Barracuda SecureEdge needs upgrades in reporting, integration, interface, and security features for enhanced enterprise functionality and efficiency.
Cisco Umbrella faces criticism for high pricing, complex integration, support delays, and usability issues, needing streamlined features and documentation.
It is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard.
Manager at Cyvogenix
We also had a problem with a transition when we upgraded from one appliance of theirs to another, but their engineer lost a good deal of our data.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
If Barracuda's security team could provide some use cases on how to secure the remote access of contractors and remote users who are facilitating utilities like energy sectors and water treatment plants, it would give a very good edge to Barracuda's security team.
OT Cybersecurity Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
Compared to leading SASE vendors, Barracuda SecureEdge is still evolving and lacks some advanced features and integration depth that may require evaluating for large and global enterprises.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
One area where I believe the product could be enhanced is in reporting and analytics, with more customizable dashboards and deeper insight for security and performance monitoring.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
CTO at Next Technologies Ltd
 

Setup Cost

Iboss offers competitive, transparent pricing with comprehensive features, fitting security budgets better than pricier competitors like Broadcom and ZScaler.
Cisco Umbrella is deemed costly but valued for security, though license complexity and cost competitiveness could improve.
It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern.
Managing Director
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Barracuda SecureEdge has been good, as our director dealt with it, and we received a good package with our current system because we were also using Barracuda cloud backup.
Infrastructure & Support Senior Specialist at a retailer with 51-200 employees
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is acceptable.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Iboss enhances security with Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access, improving efficiency and supporting remote users.
Barracuda SecureEdge provides integrated security features enhancing operational efficiency and connectivity with intuitive management and advanced threat detection.
Cisco Umbrella enhances network security with DNS protection, easy management, remote integration, and proactive threat detection for organizations.
The solution's mental health function can detect if someone needs help.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
It's given us a lot more visibility into our computer assets that may be infected with viruses and also shows us people who have unusually large uploads or might be engaging in high-risk activities, such as searches or going to sites not categorized by their web crawler.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
iboss was the best solution for us because, no matter what domain you were in, everything is under a single pane of glass, which is exactly what we wanted.
Managing Director
The best features that Barracuda SecureEdge offers, in my experience, start with a Secure Web Gateway for internet traffic protection, Zero Trust Network Access, SD-WAN integration, Firewall as a Service, centralized policy and management, remote user security, work-from-home capabilities, branch connectivities plus cloud security, and application-level access control.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It simplified policy management, reduced the time spent on administration and gave us better visibility across all locations.
Network engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
The best features Barracuda SecureEdge offers are its centralized cloud-based management, secure remote access capabilities, and ease of deployment.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
Manager Cyber Security Department at Mana
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
Network Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The best possible thing is that it is very easy to deploy, easy to configure, and very fast to get onboarded with a customer because this is a cloud-based service.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Barracuda SecureEdge
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA as a Service (14th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (12th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 4.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda SecureEdge is 1.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 6.0%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella6.0%
iboss4.5%
Barracuda SecureEdge1.8%
Other87.7%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
Esther Sultaana - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Consultant Storage at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Centralized security has protected global cloud access and now simplifies rapid office onboarding
I cannot think of anything off the top of my head for improving Barracuda SecureEdge; it just needs some fine-tuning. In my experience working with it, it has features that deal with cyber threats and unintentional cyber threats with the sandboxing to prevent users from possibly clicking on suspicious links, and single pane management gives you your centralized dashboard to manage security rules and review threats while tracking network performance on a global scale. The only small improvement I can think of for Barracuda SecureEdge is if it were free, but that is more of a joke. I really do appreciate the product, and at the moment, I cannot think of anything that I have a complaint about. I cannot think of any improvements needed for Barracuda SecureEdge; the upgrades or rather additions they made were really solid, showing they are on top of it, which further impresses me about Barracuda, as they address emerging needs in the cyber world effectively.
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.
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917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Retailer
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by emphasizing the modular function even more during sales presentations and demonstr...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
iboss is primarily used for content filtering within school districts and public K-12 school districts, and it can al...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda SecureEdge?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Barracuda SecureEdge has been good, as our director dea...
What needs improvement with Barracuda SecureEdge?
Barracuda SecureEdge provides us what we need for the company. If I had to suggest one area for improvement related t...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda SecureEdge?
Our main use case for Barracuda SecureEdge is to eliminate the traditional VPN connection for those people working re...
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. Zs...
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-nat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bu...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Barracuda CloudGen Access
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
Information Not Available
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda SecureEdge vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.