Cisco Umbrella Alternatives & Competitors

Cisco Umbrella DNS is a popular solution for web content filtering. However, alternatives are as popular and should be explored to ensure that you have the best option for your business. WebTitan, for example, is the number one Cisco Umbrella alternative in the market for both business and managed service providers (MSPs). Both web filters work at the DNS layer, deploying advanced AI-driven threat protection. 

Over the last 48 months, many Cisco Umbrella customers and MSPs have switched to WebTitan web filter from TitanHQ. Cisco Umbrella pricing and support levels have been core reasons for the switch.  

Should You Switch From Cisco Umbrella or OpenDNS?

Making the decision to switch from Cisco Umbrella (OpenDNS was incorporated into Umbrella in 1025) to alternatives is a critical business decision. The reasons to move to an alternative DNS filter should be based on business needs and typically include:

• Cost of the DNS filtering service
• Ease of use and flexibility of the DNS filter
• Support levels and reliability
• Access to product experts before and after sales
• Customer testimonials
• Scalability and granularity
• Future-proofed technology and roadmap

Who Are Cisco Umbrella's Competitors?

With Cisco recently announcing the end of support for the Umbrella Roaming Client, many Cisco Umbrella customers are actively seeking alternative DNS filters. Once the roaming client is deprecated, no new device registrations for Roaming Clients will be supported, and software maintenance and support for the client will stop. Alternative web filter solutions to Cisco Umbrella are available from security solution vendors and others. DNS filter vendors include Cloudflare and SafeDNS. WebTitan is a well-known and trusted alternative to Cisco Umbrella.

Competitors For Businesses and Enterprises

Competitors to Cisco Umbrella for businesses and enterprises can be found through online research. Some well-known competitors include WebTitan, DNSFilter, and ZScaler. Netskope and Cloudflare.

Competitors For Homes and Small Businesses

Homes and small businesses (SMBs) can benefit from DNS filters, but the cost can be off-putting when choosing an enterprise web filter, such as Cisco Umbrella. However, several vendors offer cost-effective DNS filters for small numbers of users. Examples of competitors to Cisco Umbrella for homes and small businesses include NordLayer and Control D. WebTitan is competitively priced and offers enterprise features at SMB pricing.

Feature Comparison: WebTitan vs Cisco Umbrella

WebTitan Web filter BEATS Cisco Umbrella in 6 Key Success Rating Factors

Cisco Umbrella is a cloud-based DNS filter that Cisco is upgrading to Cisco Secure Access. This is a large, enterprise-focused solution with multiple functions and is part of a broader SASE (secure access service edge) solution from Cisco. The solution can be costly for smaller companies.

Webtitan is a cloud-based DNS filter designed for SMBs and delivered by an MSP. WebTitan utilizes machine learning to stay ahead of the threat landscape. Webtitan is affordable and simple to deploy and configure.

WebTitan Web Filter provides leading-edge AI-driven threat intelligence, including:

• Real-time URL threat protection powered by 650 million end users and growing.
• Our real-time Database contains 3 million malicious URLs, phishing sites, and IP addresses.
• Every single day, we identify 100,000 NEW malicious threats and URLs.  
• Real-Time Categorization and Malicious Detection for Domains, Full-Path URLs, and IPs
• Crowd-sourced coverage and protection powered by over ​650​ million end users 
• Industry-leading ​99.9% Coverage​ and over ​99% Accuracy​ of ActiveWeb URLs & IPs 
• 100%​ coverage of the Top 1 Million most visited websites (ActiveWeb) 
• Highly granular categories, which include malicious, objectionable, and topic-based groups 
• 10​ ​Malicious​ categories, including Botnet, Phishing/Fraud, Malware Distribution Point, Command and Control, Cryptocurrency Mining, Ad Fraud, and more. 
• Malicious URLs are revisited daily to determine if they are still infected, abandoned, or cleaned. This ensures that our malicious database stays as “fresh” and accurate as possible. 
• Support for over ​200 ​languages.
• Real-time continuous updates​ provide up-to-the-minute protection against newly identified malicious sources.

Slashdot is a comparison platform that uses independent customer reviews of products. A recent comparison between Cisco Umbrella and WebTitan provides an at-a-glance view of the customer experience of each product:

I am liking it a lot better than Umbrella by Cisco, which we were previously using. Pros: The simple interface is the best feature. When Cisco bought OpenDNS, they revamped the UI to make it look "modern", but they also made it a lot slower to use and find the info you need. With WebTitan, I am finding that I can log in, quickly look for blocked users, check their individual traffic, and get out in less than 5 minutes. With Umbrella (formerly known as OpenDNS), I just wasn't even bothering to look at traffic because the experience was frustrating. Now with WebTitan, I am finding that I am using it daily again because it is quick and easy to use and doesn't make me feel like I am fighting with the UI.

Todd Russell Director of IT, Saint Joseph Seminary College, Covington, Louisiana

Here's an excellent new case study detailing Saint Joseph Seminary College's move from Cisco Umbrella to WebTitan for improved usability, reporting & costs.
You can view the full case study here.

Also, here's a new case study about a UK-based MSP called Network Needs, migrating from
OpenDNS, Cisco Umbrella, to WebTitan 

WebTitan is easy to use and manage

Cisco Umbrella is priced for large enterprises. Notably, WebTitan has:

• No minimum purchase
• No DNS request limits
• No extra support costs
• No unanswered support calls.
• No add-on costs for roaming clients. 

There are no tiers or costly minimums, just a solid product and great service. As a business, we will grow and shrink with you.

MSP Customer Quote:

Comprehensive protection at a reasonable price. I really love the amount of options you have in protecting your network. There seems to be an almost endless granularity in filtering. My clients have realized the potential of DNS Filtering services. The reporting has gotten more comprehensive. Our recurring revenue has increased because of this.

Capterra MSP

Data Compliance - Where exactly is your data?

Data governance and regulations require that data be in specified geographic locations. WebTitan can guarantee that your data stays in your region. WebTitan Cloud is regionalised, so ALL data is guaranteed to stay within the same region (US/EU/ANZ, etc.)

Our private clouds are either in your data centre or in AWS, depending on your needs.

The following companies trust WebTitan for their web security needs, and many have switched from Cisco Umbrella:

Twice as much custom reporting with WebTitan as with Cisco Umbrella

WebTitan offers twice as many custom reports as Cisco Umbrella. Custom reports allow for flexible reporting based on an organization's specific requirements. When Active Directory integration is in place, WebTitan provides an additional 10 reports and the ability to add filters to the pre-canned reports.

WebTitan reporting is renowned for its speed and real-time functionality. All reporting is available via our extensive API. 

Customer Quote:
“Ensuring our network and users are secure is vital, and Umbrella’s frustrating interface was making this task more difficult than it needed to be. We were unhappy with the overly complex Umbrella user interface for a long time, and were jeopardizing security because of this complexity. WebTitan’s many features prompted us to explore the solution. It didn’t take long to realize that WebTitan was the best alternative for an efficient, cost-effective, and easy-to-use filtering solution to replace Cisco Umbrella”.
Todd Russell, Director of IT, Saint Joseph Seminary College, Covington, Louisiana

Google Safe Search

WebTitan enables safe search for Google and Bing with just a single click. When SafeSearch is on, it helps block explicit images, videos, and dangerous websites from being listed in Google Search results. This is an integral part of web filtering. Content in images and videos is also blocked during a search.

WebTitan Extensive API Calls

WebTitan uses a comprehensive set of APIs to facilitate simple integration for users. WebTitan Cloud allows deep integration, making 'Cloud to Cloud' integration straightforward. Our backend expertise connects to your front end to provide a single-pane-of-glass view.

Benefits of an API driven architecture:

• Easy - Backend functionality is separated from the front-end, allowing for easy back-end integration.
• Scalability - You can add more clients as you wish; all call the same API.
• Time-savings - You save time by automating laborious tasks and increasing organizational efficiency.

MSP Customer Quote:

Webtitan review. The service is very intuitive and easy to use. I'm using it as an MSP provider, and the integration with the API is simple, well-documented, and supported. Makes it much easier to use and offer it to our customers. Offering domain filtering services to my customers, and not having to develop it as a service of our company, made it economically better.

Wasserman MSP, Australia

Email Alerts

WebTitan provides email alerts when a user visits a blocked page or domain. An administrative alert email is immediately sent to the admin account or another designated user.

Post-Sales Support from Open DNS/Cisco Umbrella

TitanHQ support is exceptional. We routinely receive great feedback (98% customer satisfaction) for our post-sales support. Hands-on contact with a qualified and experienced engineer, at all stages, is an important factor in this high rating. Customers we've migrated from OpenDNS and Cisco Umbrella see this as a key factor in moving to WebTitan.

MSP Customer Quote about Cisco Umbrella support:

We pay for it for all our clients. Support is very slow, days to get responses. Adding a blocked site should be easy. The Cisco dashboard is overly complicated for a basic proxy service. The switch to Cisco has come at a cost to the end users and tech people. Not happy.

Jonathan2766, IT service provider, Spiceworks.

Cisco Umbrella Sales. What do you actually need to do to sign up for this thing? We’ve signed up for a trial (last week)and are ready to go. Sent two requests to their sales team requesting someone to reach out so that we can convert to a paid subscription. Nothing!

"Cisco Umbrella
Good luck. It took me 8 months to get them to reply to me AFTER we signed our contract with them. Appalling account management."

Cisco AMP and Cisco Umbrella are officially the worst communication and support I have ever seen in my entire IT career. How can a company treat a customer THIS freaking poorly after asking for the amounts of money we have paid them? 
UPDATE: We have dropped Cisco for security. They reached out to us and said it would be another 48+ hours till they could get us licensing. So we are being refunded (THIS is a complex thing with this much money. "Refund" Does not give it justice, but for now, "Refund"). Our Partner went to a 2nd solution and is moving heaven and earth to get us techs who work with the new product. And yes, it was Cisco who dropped the ball here and not the partner. I don't know what else to say. It has been a nightmare. They are seriously the worst company I have ever dealt with in my life.
Literally never had a worse customer experience in any other way with any other business. They do not give a sxxt about their customers in the slightest."

Active Directory Integration

The WebTitan AzureAD Enterprise App is a built-in component of the DNS Proxy. It is responsible for synchronizing Azure AD Users & Groups to the TitanHQ DNSProxy. It regularly scans Azure sign-ins to find new sign-ins for Users. It pairs the user with the Virtual Machine's IP address that was signed in to, so that WebTitan Cloud can apply policies to those users.

Web Titan Cloud runs off a group ranking system. Based on customer feedback, our ranking system is much more user-friendly and easier to manage.

MSP Customer Quote
We looked at OpenDNS last year and ended up going with WebTitan.  I've been happy with it so far.  It is cloud-based, but make sure you install the VM appliance they offer for free to help it sync with your AD to show who is accessing the content.  The cost was a whole lot less than OpenDNS for the same functionality.
We switched from a Barracuda appliance that we had at each of our sites.  It's nice to show all of our locations from a single console with WebTitan now.
Chad1642, MSP, Spiceworks

Your Own Private Web Filtering Cloud versus OpenDNS Anycast

TitanHQ has been designed from the ground up to be MSP-focused. Features and product development are in line with the needs of an MSP; WebTitan web filter was built by MSPs for MSPs.  WebTitan can be deployed as a private cloud, with all your customers on it. With WebTitan, there are lots of customization options:

• Your own private dedicated cloud.
• The solution can be fully white labeled.
• Allows for extensive customization.
• Allows for deep integration with your interface.
• Unlimited capacity, from small MSPs sent to the Telco deployments.

The Cost of Free

What happens when a free service and a business service mix? Paying customers end up unwittingly subsidising the free service. 

WebTitan customers only ever pay for what they use.

Notably,

• WebTltan Pricing models are scalable for MSPs.
• Flexible Pricing options, APIs, IPs, per location.

Freshness of Threat Intelligence is much more important than size.

Bigger isn’t always better, especially in the world of malicious threat intelligence. WebTitan is a dynamic, lean, and fast DNS filtering platform, which is proving popular amongst legacy OpenDNS or Cisco Umbrella customers. A core reason for switching from legacy Cisco Umbrella and OpenDNS is the freshness of the threat intelligence from the WebTitan solution.

Agility is key to dynamic threat intelligence and the detection of malicious websites. The web comprises close to 2 billion sites and significantly more full-path URLs. It is also continuously evolving, with threat actors constantly changing tactics to evade detection. AI is used to drive this change. Automated domain creation and malware generation are among the ways AI is used to develop the threat landscape.

The continuous evolution of internet-based content places challenges on premium web filtering solutions. Each classification of inappropriate or malicious content must be continuously assessed for updates. Maintaining fresh threat insights is as important as finding the offending URL. This freshness is particularly important for malicious categories, which may “blink on and off” to fulfil a specific malicious purpose. Conventional web filters that rely on bloated databases can find this process unwieldy, slow, and inaccurate, leading to missed threats.

Trends to watch out for:

• AI is automating cyber threats through deepfakes and zero-day exploits. In a recent survey, 87% of organizations expect domain generation algorithms (DGAs) powered by AI to pose a threat.
• Each day, around 560,000 new malware threats are detected, and there are now over 1 billion active malware programs.
• 54% of websites use HTTPS to trick users into thinking the site is secure.

The fleeting lifespan of phishing URLs is driving an urgent need for accelerated phishing detection and protection. This is where you need a fast, lean solution rather than a traditional, bloated, super-sized database. AI-powered web filtering uses machine learning trained on a vast corpus of real threats. The algorithm is trained to identify signals of a malicious website. Dynamic threat detection ensures that even emerging and zero-day threats can be identified and prevented.

Coupled with the machine learning, regular revisits of malicious classifications:

• Ensure the malicious database accurately reflects current REAL TIME threats on the web.
• Prevent database bloating.

AI-powered and crowd-sourced systems that revisit and re-analyze at scale, and with high accuracy, ensure that the continually evolving threat landscape is matched with evolving threat detection.

"The entire experience with WebTitan has been terrific. From better reporting to a usable UI, we’ve gotten the visibility we need and have therefore been able to improve our security position. There is nothing to lose by contacting WebTitan and setting up a trial instance. I was able to do that very quickly over the phone and spend a little time in the interface to determine whether or not it could do what I wanted. That brief demo was all I needed to know that WebTitan would serve my needs much better than Umbrella, and I have been thrilled with the improvements to my workflow since switching over.”
Todd Russell, Director of IT, Saint Joseph Seminary College, Covington, Louisiana

Comparison: WebTitan vs OpenDNS

OpenDNS is marketed for home users and retired support for MSPs, so managed service providers need a cost-effective but effective way to secure enterprise businesses. WebTitan is built for MSPs and enterprises that require more advanced content filtering and DNS-based security. 

WebTitan DNS filter from TitanHQ is the main OpenDNS alternative and, from a pricing perspective, is a much better value with AI-driven threat intelligence and superb support.

If you’re an MSP or small-to-mid business looking for cost-effective, flexible, easy-to-manage DNS/web filtering with strong threat protection, scalable multi-tenant support, and good reporting, WebTitan is often the better fit.

If you’re a large enterprise requiring global infrastructure, advanced SSL inspection, or secure-internet-gateway features, and are less constrained by cost, OpenDNS / Cisco Umbrella may still be worth evaluating, especially if you already use broader Cisco/Cisco-Umbrella services.

For many SMBs or MSPs, WebTitan often delivers more “bang for the buck” and is easier to service than OpenDNS-derived solutions.

Moving from Cisco Umbrella DNS to WebTitan - the Case Studies:

1. Saint Joseph Seminary College's move from Cisco Umbrella to WebTitan for improved usability, reporting & costs. 
    
2. UK-based Managed Service Provider Network needs to migrate all its endpoints from OpenDNS Cisco Umbrella to WebTitan. 
    
3. FamilyGuard Wi-Fi solution provider selects WebTitan over Cisco Umbrella. 

More DNS Filtering Comparisons: 
Lightspeed: An Independent Comparison of WebTitan Web Filter and Lightspeed Web Filter for the Education Sector
Webroot DNS: WebTitan versus Cisco Umbrella versus Webroot DNS 

The Key WebTitan technical features to remember are:

WebTitan Technical Feature List

• A DNS security layer: Blocks malware, phishing, viruses, ransomware, and malicious sites at source.
• Brand protection: Advanced content control to ensure your brand is not impacted by attackers.

WebTitan Web Filtering Functions:

• URL filtering: Filters website URLs into 53 predefined categories in 200 languages. An additional eight customizable categories are also available.  
• Security Layer: Best-in-class malicious URL detection. SSL supported. HTTP and HTTPS are covered.
• AI-powered: A machine learning model trained using a vast threat corpus.
• Flexible Policies: Create Policies for an entire organization, from AD groups down to the user level.
• Active Directory / Azure AD integration: Active Directory groups can be used to enforce policies on individual groups.
• API Driven: Integrate and control Webtitan using its extensive APIs, roll your own UI, and auto-provision your customers from your existing systems. Integrate billing and monitoring systems.
• Reporting: Real-time reporting dashboard to the per DNS request level or high-level reports with customizable filters. Schedule customizable reports in multiple formats to be delivered via email. Drill down options with 55 predefined reports to choose from.
• Deployment options: Gateway/shared cloud/Private Cloud. WebTitan Cloud, a private cloud deployed for you on AWS with failover or hosted by you in your own data centre. We deploy servers globally tailored for you and your operations. The IP for DNS forwarding provided to you is yours and yours only.  Your data is in your geographic locations.
• Safe Search: One click enforcement of Google and Bing SafeSearch and YouTube restricted mode (this can be customised)
• Whitelist and Blocklist functionality: Per policy, white and block list functionality.
• On-the-Go roaming agent: WebTitan is perfect for BYOD environments where employees use multiple devices on and off-site. Covering windows and macOS. We also don’t charge extra for our agents.  
• IPv6 coverage: We have full IPv6 support and are future-proofed.
• Location types: Static IP, dynamic IP, Dynamic DNS, Roaming or Virtual Locations (EDNS) are all supported.
• Bypass keys: Each Cloud Key can be created for single or multiple users and is controlled by time or date. This key can override the blocked pages; each key activity is also individually reported on.
• Customisable block pages: Each customer can have their own specific block page to show their messaging and branding.
• White Labelling: Our GUI can be 100% White Labelled to your branding

Features:

• Market-leading web filter: Accuracy, coverage, and malicious website detection collated through real-time advanced analytics and detection from 550 million end users and 5 trillion web queries per month, covering 99.9% of the active web. Proprietary Al-based and machine learning categorization engines process millions of URLs daily
• Scalable: Solutions can handle any volume of usage with no latency.
• Real-time auto threat and category updating.
• Multitenant: Support multiple clients from one centralised platform. Each location has its own login and policy manager. Each account administrator can control the content accessed for multiple locations.
• Identity management: Identify individual users and report on their activity. Integrates with Active Directory or LDAP to enable per-user or per-group reporting for your organisation.
• Reliable support: Renowned for our top-class support team, both pre- and post-sales. This full support comes at no extra cost!  
• Full path detection: One of the critical features Web Titan provides is deep analysis enabled by full path detection. Page and path-level reporting provides analytical credibility to what is being marked as malicious. URLs in the Web Titan databases are detailed down to the path level.
• Zero Latency: The Beauty of DNS Filtering is that it has no impact on your users' internet speeds.
• Three-step easy setup: Add location identifier/ Set policy/Forward DNS to WebTitan Cloud.

Why Managed Service Providers and Businesses are Moving to WebTitan

Managed Service Providers are moving from Cisco Umbrella to WebTitan due to better pricing and fantastic support from product experts before and after the sales process. 

Read more about the benefits of WebTitan DNS filter for Managed Service Providers here.

What Does WebTitan from TitanHQ Give the MSP?

• Margin-making capability.
• Scalable, multi-tenant clouds in the UK and AWS. Private IP with secondary backup.
• A malware and phishing link killer for your customers.
• Microsoft, Virgin, ViaSat, and Datto primarily use WebTitan for its security capabilities.
• Save on truck roll, engineering, and support costs. Stop unhappy, time-consuming customers.
• Real-time LIVE updating of malware and malicious threats.
• An active database of 650 million users trains the machine learning algorithm-based protection in WebTitan.
• Ease of deployment, roll-out, and use. We’ll hold your hand through roll-out and scale you into the product if needed. We’re a partner who will grow and slow together.
• No punitive terms or measures, no sharp practices. Full industry-leading support from real techies who sit beside the product owners over both phone and email. Pre and post-sales support.
• API for the MSP, in particular, when not using an RMM. Automation capabilities.
• Reporting – the power of reporting with full AD integration. Ease of user identification and reporting. They can show their customers the volume of malicious attacks they have prevented.
• Easy filtering at multiple levels and the capability to recognize users in many different ways. Offers remote employee protection.