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 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."
"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 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."
"It has improved our organization from a security posture perspective. We feel more confident now knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related. This is a very nice feature that provides peace of mind."
"The implementation is pretty easy."
"The initial setup is very easy and takes only a few minutes."
"Cisco's technical support is pretty good. When a solution is available, they will find it. On a scale from one to ten with ten being the best, I'd rate Cisco's technical support at nine."
"They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. "
"Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."
"Helps block personal email accounts."
"It's great that we can make sure a machine meets the minimum requirements before users are allowed to log in."
"It has predefined or preconfigured rules, which are getting periodically updated. They are providing continuous improvements and periodically updating all search queries that they are looking for. That is one thing that helps us to stay vigilant and focused. If we query our AWS account for any breaches or vulnerabilities with any of the cloud tests, and it alerts us based on these predefined rules. It also provides an option to configure our own rules, and based on these rules, it can query the cloud trail logs, pull the information, and trigger alerts in real-time. I haven't explored this feature much because there are multiple accounts, and we don't have enough time to explore this feature. It also provides multiple integrations. When vulnerabilities or breaches are happening, you should be aware of them immediately. It provides integration with tools such as Slack, PagerDuty so that you can get alerted as soon as the high severity stuff comes up. For example, you have a security group that has allowed public traffic on port 22. As TechOps, you should be aware of this immediately. You cannot scan each machine or look into all security groups to identify it. So, Prisma helps us and alerts us when this kind of high-priority stuff comes up. It has different statistics, analytics, and graphs for data. The description of alerts is also pretty good. They describe what are the possible causes for this and what are the solutions. From Prisma Cloud, you can directly go to the AWS account. When you click on an alert, a resource, or a resource ID, it takes you to the AWS console where you need to log in. If you are already logged in, it will take you to that instance directly, and you can fix the issue there. I have found this feature very useful."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it offers stability and scalability while being a very secure product."
"The solution improved the consistency of our security controls and the BCP. There has been a 20 percent reduction in TCO. Prisma Access also enabled us to deliver better applications by centralizing security management."
"The stacked policies, event policies, and routing policies are easy to understand for someone with general knowledge."
"It's very stable. Sometimes after installing the boxes, we leave them for one or two years. We would just touch the box in the case of the customer needing new requirements or changes to the setup."
"The solution's most valuable features were the model's reduced complexity on the client side and its capability to provide security."
"Monitoring is the most valuable feature because we can easily monitor all kinds of stuff coming over the network. We can check the dashboard and work accordingly."
"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."
"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 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"
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"If I want to see which users access a website, I need an Active Directory registered on Umbrella's cloud."
"If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it... Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well."
"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"The locks and management could be better. The product is fairly new, and it may take some time to get all the features up and running."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"The pricing is a bit high. Being outside of the USA, we have issues with the exchange rate."
"The pricing changes too fast. We get the license and we need to relicense it because they already made changes to it. We always need to be on top of the licenses because they're always changing."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"Better integration with the MDM solution would be useful."
"My clients would like to see a more feature-rich product."
"The user interface could be better. They need to work a little bit on the console. It is similar to their firewalls but not exactly. They need to clean it up a bit."
"The one thing that I've been a little bit disappointed with is when we have had to open cases with Palo Alto about Prisma Access issues. Versus their other platforms, like their firewalls, where we tend to get really quick responses and very definitive answers, the few tickets I've had to open for Prisma Access have taken them longer to respond to. And they haven't necessarily given me the kind of answer I was looking for, meaning a fix to the problem."
"Lacks a hybrid model which has API plus in-line security."
"I haven't seen any SD-WAN configuration capability. If Prisma Access would support SD-WAN, that would help... SD-WAN devices should be able to reach Prisma Access, and Palo Alto should support different, vendor-specific devices, not just Palo Alto devices, for SD-WAN configuration."
"The BGP filtering options on Prisma Access should be improved."
"When we deploy firewall rules via Panorama, we find it's a little bit slow. We have a global environment and might have 100 gateways or VPNs in the cloud. When we deploy something, it tries to deploy it one-by-one, and that can be slow."
More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Umbrella is ranked 2nd in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 108 reviews while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 1st in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 59 reviews. Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8, while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2. 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, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Cloudflare DNS, whereas Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Netskope , Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Zscaler Internet Access, Prisma SD-WAN and FortiSASE . See our Cisco Umbrella vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks report.
See our list of best Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) vendors, best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors, and best Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) vendors.
We monitor all Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.