Cisco Umbrella is a company within the Cybersecurity category. Cisco Umbrella is a cloud-native security platform that provides the first line of defense against threats on the internet. By leveraging DNS to stop threats over all ports and protocols, it provides visibility and protection for users both on and off the corporate network.
Cisco Umbrella was founded in 2015 (as rebranded Cisco entity) and is headquartered in San Jose, CA.
Cisco Umbrella is rated Leader on the Optimly Brand Authority Index, a measure of how well AI models can accurately describe the brand. The exact score is locked for unclaimed profiles.
AI narrative accuracy for Cisco Umbrella is Moderate. Significant factual deltas detected.
AI models classify Cisco Umbrella as a Challenger. AI names competitors first.
Cisco Umbrella appeared in 7 of 8 sampled buyer-intent queries (88%). Cisco Umbrella is highly visible for 'DNS Security' but faces stiff competition from Zscaler and Cloudflare for broader 'SASE' and 'SSE' queries.
AI reliably identifies Cisco Umbrella as a leader in DNS security and SASE. However, it may struggle with the nuance of recent repackaging and the specific technical differences between its various license tiers. Key gap: AI often fails to distinguish between the legacy 'OpenDNS' features and the modern 'Umbrella' enterprise suite, sometimes conflating pricing or capabilities.
Of 5 key facts verified about Cisco Umbrella, 4 are well-documented (likely accurate across AI models), 0 have limited sourcing, and 1 are retrieval-dependent and may be inaccurate without live search.
Confusion regarding exact package tiering (DNS Security Essentials vs. Advantage vs. SIG) which changes frequently.
Buyers turn to Cisco Umbrella for Default ISP DNS: Using basic DNS providers like Google Public DNS or ISP defaults which offer no security filtering., Manual DNS Configuration: Using OpenDNS Home or other free consumer-grade filtering tools without centralized management., among 2 documented problem areas.
Buyers evaluating Cisco Umbrella typically ask AI models about "best dns security for enterprise", "cloud delivered secure web gateway", "dns layer protection providers", and 3 similar queries.
Cisco Umbrella's main competitors are Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector, Cloudflare Gateway, Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access. According to AI models, these are the brands most frequently named alongside Cisco Umbrella in buyer-intent queries.
AI models suggest Default Isp Dns as alternatives to Cisco Umbrella, typically when buyers ask for lower-cost, simpler, or more specialized options.
Cisco Umbrella's core products are DNS-layer security, Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud-Delivered Firewall (CDFW), CASB, and Threat Intelligence..
Cisco Umbrella uses Subscription; tiered by feature set (Essentials, Advantage, SIG Essentials, SIG Advantage)..
Cisco Umbrella serves Small Business to Global Enterprise, K-12 and Higher Education, Managed Service Providers (MSPs)..
Cisco Umbrella Power of Cisco Talos threat intelligence combined with the simplest deployment mechanism in the industry (DNS redirection).
Brand Authority Index (BAI) tier: Leader (exact score locked for unclaimed brands)
Archetype: Challenger
https://optimly.ai/brand/cisco-umbrella
Last analyzed: April 10, 2026
Founded: 2006 (as OpenDNS); acquired by Cisco in 2015
Headquarters: San Jose, California, USA