We performed a comparison between Cisco Umbrella and Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks based on Peerspot users’ reviews in five parameters. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Umbrella is commended for its advanced DNS security, user-friendly interface, and extensive licensing options, while Prisma Access is valued for its accessibility, top-quality security features, and adaptable policy application. Nevertheless, there is room for improvement in certain areas for both products, such as pricing and integrability for Cisco Umbrella and support and licensing for Prisma Access. Ultimately, the decision between the two will be influenced by the specific needs and priorities of the organization.
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The solution is stable."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"I also think that the dashboard view is really helpful. Whenever sites get blocked, we get the details and the users who are connecting to them."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is really important. In today's era, administration costs and operational expenses will cost you a lot, and it reduces that as well. You don't need extra resources to manage all your parameter firewalls, looking at every single device to allow resources internal access. By just introducing the single-pane-of-glass management, it has lifted the burden off of management, especially the network management."
"DNS protection, domain blocking, SIP component, and the Cisco Umbrella roaming client are the valuable features of Cisco Umbrella."
"We've found it to be stable and good for our customers."
"It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution."
"Umbrella, being one pane for managing, being all-encompassing, allows us to quickly go in, make a change, and it applies to either every location, if we want it to, or we can have policies in place that only apply to certain users or certain computers."
"I haven't found any issues related to latency or any other issue."
"I like that it integrates with the infrastructure. I also like the kind of data and intelligence that's built-in. It helps create innovative reports for security."
"This solution provides a DLP on the cloud and very few people have a scanning device for data at rest."
"Palo Alto Firewall is one of the best firewalls in the world."
"Panorama provides centralized management capabilities for all our firewalls and locations so that we can manage different data centers through a single device, a very valuable feature. We don't have to log into various devices to oversee them individually."
"The solution's most valuable features were the model's reduced complexity on the client side and its capability to provide security."
"The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud-native, in my opinion, is that it assists in identifying, analyzing, and remediating vulnerabilities."
"Overall, the cost savings, ease of deployment, and better VPN user experience and performance are valuable."
"There are plenty of features this solution provides and the most valuable would be the complete security protection we are receiving. We are provided with similar security that the Palo Alto AWS solution has. This includes features such as a firewall and machine learning AI."
"The Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) offered by Palo Alto is a good reporting tool. It gives insights into how things are going within the network. It takes all the data from the users' endpoints and does an analysis, and it suggests changes as well."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"The integration with other solutions is a little complex. If you want to integrate with something like ArcSight or LogRhythm or Splunk, you need to do a lot of configuration. There are no easy ways to implement it."
"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."
"Some countries don't have a DNS server leading to a domain resolution IP, not at a local level."
"It would be useful if they had a malware protection engine running inside their own VM."
"The reporting could be improved by way of the information that's displayed. For example, when you pull a report, it shows an internal employee going to many websites, but you can spin that right down by saying a lot of it is being cached."
"Its price could be better."
"I would like for them to continue building on IPS and IDS functionalities."
"We faced an issue regarding virtual appliances (VAs) during deployment. They could improve the quality and management of the virtual appliances offered right now. You can't see much because it is a Linux machine, and they have customized it. You don't have any route access to the machine, only seeing limited things in it. When we opened a ticket, they didn't know much about VAs themselves. So, that is where it is lacking right now. I know this will improve in the long run."
"There can be some latency issues with the solution that should be improved."
"The initial support team is not very good. Most of the time, I have found that they are one to three years experienced only. They don't have network expertise. They know about Palo Alto products but don't know how to troubleshoot the issues. We have to guide them most of the time to troubleshoot correctly since their approach is not developed."
"The licensing model isn't flexible enough. It's an all-or-nothing model. Other providers in the market allow you to buy modules or add-ons separately. With Prisma Access, you have to purchase the same module for all users."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks should consolidate the portals into a single portal. It is slow and takes more than ten seconds to load a page."
"My clients would like to see a more feature-rich product."
"While Palo Alto has understood the essence of building capabilities around cloud technology and have come up with a CASB offering, that is a very new product. There are other companies that have better offerings for understanding cloud applications and have more graceful controls. That's something that Palo Alto needs to work on."
"I would like the solution to support a different type of authentication. We can't configure a secondary method for our portal."
"There should be a dedicated portal or SASE-based solution. They're trying to add a plugin but it needs a dedicated portal because it is now an enterprise solution for multiple organizations. People should be able to directly log in to a dedicated page for Prisma Access, rather than going into a Panorama plugin, and always having to update the plugin."
More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Umbrella is ranked 1st in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 108 reviews while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 3rd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 55 reviews. Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8, while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Umbrella writes "Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks writes "Integration with Palo Alto platforms such as Cortex Data Lake and Autofocus gives us visibility into our attack surface". Cisco Umbrella is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, Fortinet FortiGate SWG and Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection, whereas Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Netskope , Zscaler Internet Access, Prisma SD-WAN and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. See our Cisco Umbrella vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks report.
See our list of best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors, best Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) vendors, and best Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) vendors.
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