Control D vs Cisco Umbrella: What's the Better Choice?

Cisco added DNS filtering and threat protection to its roster following the acquisition of OpenDNS in 2015. But does that make it the best choice for DNS filtering software?

Control D is a better choice if you're looking for seamless onboarding, responsive customer support, and affordable plans. While Control D doesn't have the same global brand recognition as Cisco, it certainly holds its own from a technical and UX standpoint.

This article compares Control D vs Cisco Umbrella and analyzes both against the following criteria:

• Plans
• Pricing
• General Features
• Clients, Applications, and Integrations
• Analytics & Reporting
• Support
• Performance

Plans

Cisco offers Umbrella as either as part of a full Security Service Edge (SSE) package or as a standalone service, with each plan providing additional features and functionality.

There are four Umbrella plans to choose from: DNS Essentials, DNS Advantage, SIG Essentials, and SIG Advantage. There are also two additional plans – Secure Access Essentials and Secure Access Advantage – which integrate all functionality in SIG Advantage, plus additional zero-trust network access and monitoring capabilities.

Due to the large number of plans on offer, determining which plan is best suited for your needs may prolong the setup process since you’ll likely have to talk to a sales rep first.

Another thing to note is that Umbrella’s target market is large enterprises with sizable budgets and IT teams. Their product reflects this, with users often mentioning that the service has a steep learning curve.

On the other hand, Control D simplifies the entire process by removing plans altogether. Instead, a distinction is made between organization types which affects pricing – more on that later in the next section. 

But how does removing plans help? Firstly, there's no gatekeeping features. All plans include the same features by default, meaning you never have to worry about upgrading. What's more, onboarding is quick and painless — you don't need long sales conversations. Just sign up and start building your environment.

Pricing

Cisco Umbrella does not advertise its pricing structure, but since Umbrella targets large enterprises, it’s safe to say the service comes with a premium price tag. Reports online suggest per-user costs start at $2.50/month and go as high as $28/month depending on the plan and size of your business – but we cannot independently confirm this information.

However, it’s important to mention that online reviews suggest the service has a steep pricing structure, which validates some of the claims.

Conversely, Control D offers a simple pricing model:

• Enterprise – $2/endpoint/month
• MSP – $1/endpoint/month
• School/Non-Profit – eligible for a further discounted rate

When comparing the two, Control D is significantly more cost-effective than Cisco Umbrella, even when taking Umbrella’s lowest reported figure into account. This becomes more apparent when we examine the list of features offered by both services, with Control D providing considerably more value. 

Let’s explore. 

General Features

Blockable Services

Control D and Cisco Umbrella both offer blockable Services, which are specific applications, platforms, websites, groups of websites, tools, vendors, etc. 

While Umbrella offers fewer than 100, Control D has 1,000+ Services to give you precise, customized control over what is resolved on Endpoints and networks.

Block Ads & Trackers

Ads and trackers are not only a nuisance that impedes your privacy, but they also hog resources which can slow down your browsing experience.

Control D blocks these from resolving, thus maintaining your privacy, freeing up bandwidth to ensure web pages load faster, and keeping web pages ad-free.

Cisco Umbrella does not offer this feature at all.

Traffic Redirection

A standout feature for Control D is Traffic Redirection. This allows you to spoof your IP address to a proxy server in 60+ countries with over 100 exit locations, all without using a VPN.

The feature is not available with Cisco Umbrella.

Advanced Geo-Custom Rules

With Control D, you can utilize Geo-Custom Rules to enforce block, redirect, and bypass rules for all DNS queries. You have the ability to apply rules to queries made from an IP address, queries that resolve to an IP address, and queries that are made from or resolve to IP addresses (not) in a specific ASN or country.

While Cisco Umbrella allows you to enforce geo-based rules, it’s limited to only blocking IP addresses. This means you cannot redirect DNS queries to another proxy location or enforce geo-based rules to specific ASNs or countries. 

👉 Read our documentation for more information on Geo-Custom Rules and its benefits

Remote Browser Isolation (RBI)

Umbrella offers Remote Browser Isolation as a purchasable add-on for the SIG Essentials plan and up. 

By creating a remote browser on your Endpoint, RBI protects you from malicious code, ransomware, and phishing attempts. It acts like a middleman between you and the website or service you’re accessing, thus safeguarding your network and device.

This feature is not yet available with Control D.

Malware Filter Effectiveness

An independent test conducted in September 2024 examined the malware filter effectiveness of various different public DNS resolvers.

Note: While Cisco Umbrella was not included in the test, we felt it was important to showcase how Control D’s malware filter stands up against some of the largest competitors in the industry.

Control D outperformed all other participants, ranking first with a 99.97% block rate.

For comparison, Cloudflare – which is considered a direct competitor of Cisco Umbrella – ranked fourth last with a 3.93% block rate, and Google ranked third last with a 0.22% block rate.

Clients, Applications, and Integrations

Control D and Cisco Umbrella are similar in terms of their supported platforms and integrations since they are both compatible with desktop and mobile devices, Active Directory, and offer API access. 

However, the main difference is that Control D can be deployed on Linux devices, whereas Umbrella cannot. 

Analytics & Reporting

Data Export & Query Log Retention

Both platforms allow you to export your query log data but differ in terms of how long they store that data for. 

Control D stores 7 days of data for all users, while Cisco Umbrella offers up to 30 days of data.

Report Retention

With Control D, you can view reports from the last 30 days with hourly time-series granularity or from the last year with daily time-series granularity. 

Similarly, Umbrella allows you to view reports from the last 30 days to 1 year.

Data Storage Regions

Cisco Umbrella provides two data storage regions: North America and Europe.

On the other hand, Control D offers three: North America, Europe, and Australia. 

For an additional cost, Control D can also provide a custom storage region of your choosing, a feature Umbrella does not offer.

Support

It goes without saying that support is one of the most important aspects of any software or service. Things can – and often do – go wrong, and it’s important to be able to fix those issues immediately.

Cisco Umbrella is infamous for having below-par customer support, with many users expressing their displeasure on various online review platforms. The main complaints include the inability to contact a knowledgeable support agent, with one user claiming their support requests were ignored entirely.

On the flip side, Control D has a reputation for offering stellar pre and post-sales support. Countless reviews praise response times and the in-depth guidance their answers provide. 

This is largely due to Control D’s 24-hour guaranteed response time – with users often receiving a reply in just a few hours – and because support queries are usually conducted by product engineers themselves, this ensures your issue is resolved promptly and thoroughly, with recommendations on how to prevent similar problems from occurring again.

Chat Support

While Umbrella does not provide chat support, Control D does through Barry, an intelligent chatbot designed to assist with a wide range of queries.

Powered by advanced machine learning, Barry leverages Control D’s comprehensive documentation and the team's expertise to deliver accurate and instant responses. 

Whether you’re configuring ctrl TOML files or resolving technical issues, Barry is equipped to handle almost all requests in seconds.

If your question falls beyond Barry’s scope, your query can be escalated to a human support agent for further assistance.

👉 Find out more about Barry and his capabilities

Prioritized Support

Cisco offers 24x7 software support service via email and phone as a purchasable add-on for Umbrella users. If you’ve purchased the Secure Access plan, this service is required. 

While Control D does not offer a 24x7 support service, you can purchase an enhanced SLA as an add-on. Alternatively, you can utilize Barry for immediate responses to queries.

Performance

All data used in this section has been sourced from DNSPerf.

Latency

Control D ranks fifth in Performance with a DNS query speed of 17.02 ms, whereas Cisco Umbrella ranks sixth with a speed of 19.01 ms.

Uptime

Control D has a superior Uptime of 99.96% compared to Cisco Umbrella’s 98.28%, which comes in last place.

Quality

Control D outshines Cisco Umbrella in the Quality metric with a score of 99.96% compared to 98.26%.

Final Thoughts

Cisco is a giant in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) space, offering a myriad of services from computing, networking, and security.

Their DNS product Umbrella, while competent, lacks the advanced features and support necessary to keep organizations safe and secure on the internet.

In comparison, Control D is a more feature-rich service that provides granular control and customization, a smoother onboarding experience, and superior customer support without breaking the bank.