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Cisco Umbrella vs F5 BIG-IP DNS 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Cisco Umbrella improves security, reduces costs, and boosts productivity with easy deployment and effective cloud-based threat prevention.
Sentiment score
8.6
F5 BIG-IP DNS provides significant ROI by reducing downtime, increasing availability, and enhancing performance, improving user experience and trust.
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
F5 BIG-IP DNS provides a strong return on investment by minimizing downtime, improving application availability, preventing outages, and ensuring reliable service.
Associate Consultant at HCLSoftware
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Umbrella's customer service is praised for expertise and professionalism, though some experience delays, particularly with email support.
Sentiment score
7.5
F5 BIG-IP DNS delivers strong customer support and technical expertise, though response speed and cloud challenges may affect satisfaction.
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
Regarding technical support from the vendor, I would rate it as good, even above average.
Solutions Architect at Mideast Communication Systems-MCS
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Umbrella adapts seamlessly to user growth, offering scalable, cloud-based security with efficient centralized management and flexible licensing options.
Sentiment score
9.1
F5 BIG-IP DNS is praised for scalability and managing vast DNS traffic across various infrastructures, including government use.
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
The core idea of F5 BIG-IP DNS is scalability, enabling organizations to handle massive DNS traffic and distribute application requests across multiple infrastructures.
Associate Consultant at HCLSoftware
I find it easy to scale F5 BIG-IP DNS as you can cluster them, so there are no limitations.
Solutions Architect at Mideast Communication Systems-MCS
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is renowned for its exceptional stability, delivering near-100% uptime and reliable performance with minimal connectivity issues.
Sentiment score
9.0
F5 BIG-IP DNS is renowned for its stability and reliability, outperforming competitors with no crashes or performance issues.
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.
I consider the performance and stability of F5 BIG-IP DNS to be very stable unless there is incorrect sizing.
Solutions Architect at Mideast Communication Systems-MCS
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Umbrella faces criticism for high pricing, complex integration, support delays, and usability issues, needing streamlined features and documentation.
F5 BIG-IP DNS requires interface, pricing, and documentation enhancements, better security, improved integration, and faster support response.
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
F5 BIG-IP DNS is not the best for DNS denial of service because they handle it as part of BIG-IP features, mainly used for GSLB, while other vendors provide complete DDI solutions, including DHCP, DNS, and IP address management, along with specialized DNS security, offering much more than just GSLB and basic recursive DNS security.
Solutions Architect at Mideast Communication Systems-MCS
The user interface could be more modern and simplified.
Associate Consultant at HCLSoftware
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Umbrella is deemed costly but valued for security, though license complexity and cost competitiveness could improve.
F5 BIG-IP DNS offers valuable features but is costly, requiring either perpetual or subscription licenses, with mixed user reviews.
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
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was good.
Associate Consultant at HCLSoftware
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Umbrella enhances network security with DNS protection, easy management, remote integration, and proactive threat detection for organizations.
F5 BIG-IP DNS provides security, scalability, and performance enhancements with features like GTM, GSLB, DNS monitoring, and easy integration.
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
The best feature of F5 BIG-IP DNS is global server load balancing. It intelligently directs user DNS requests to the most optimal data center based on server health and geographical location, and it enhances performance.
Associate Consultant at HCLSoftware
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
F5 BIG-IP DNS
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 16.9%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP DNS is 3.3%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella16.9%
F5 BIG-IP DNS3.3%
Other79.8%
Domain Name System (DNS) 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.
RR
Associate Consultant at HCLSoftware
Global load balancing has ensured continuous availability and optimized user response times
While F5 BIG-IP DNS is a very powerful solution, some improvements could enhance the overall experience. For example, the user interface could be more modern and simplified. The reporting and analytics features can be improved. Simplified deployment for cloud-native environments could be improved. Overall, F5 BIG-IP DNS is a robust and reliable solution for global traffic management and application availability. With its advanced traffic steering capability, we are definitely getting great benefits from that. However, the user interface is the major thing I think can be improved. The cost also can be reduced. Those are the two or three points that need to be improved. There is some scope for improvement, including the user interface and pricing. That is why I gave it a nine.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
 

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?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bundle with other Cisco purchases.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP DNS?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was good. We got great support from the F5 sales team. They helped us to deploy it in our organization.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP DNS?
While F5 BIG-IP DNS is a very powerful solution, some improvements could enhance the overall experience. For example, the user interface could be more modern and simplified. The reporting and analy...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP DNS?
My main use case for F5 BIG-IP DNS is creating an active-active setup. With two data centers, if I want to make them active-standby or active-active, my major use case is to redirect traffic from o...
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
F5 BIG-IP DNS, F5 DNS Delivery
 

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
Ricacorp Properties, Bangladesh Post Office, Shawbrook Bank, Shinsegae Internet Duty Free
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. F5 BIG-IP DNS and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.