The Cisco Umbrella Alternative That Goes Beyond DNS
Replace Cisco Umbrella’s DNS-layer filtering with dope.swg: full SSL inspection on the device, no roaming clients, no SIG upgrade.
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Why Teams Look for a Cisco Umbrella Alternative
DNS-Layer Filtering Misses HTTPS Traffic
The base package filters at the DNS layer only, with no SSL inspection, no custom policies, and no DNS over HTTPS. Real inspection means upgrading to the Umbrella SIG tier.
dope.swg does full SSL break-and-inspect, URL filtering, and Cloud App Control on the device from day one. No upgrade tier to unlock the basics.
Roaming & Stopovers for Remote Users
“Protect anywhere” means buying the DNS package, paying for roaming client seats, and pointing your DNS at Umbrella. SSL inspection adds another stopover on top.
No roaming client and no stopover. The fly-direct agent enforces policy on the device itself, whether the user is in the office or traveling.
An à La Carte Packaging Puzzle
Capabilities are split across DNS Essentials, Advantage, and SIG tiers, so basic SSL inspection sits behind paid upgrades, and the buying process gets complicated fast.
SSL inspection, URL categorization, Cloud App Control, and anti-malware are all in one package. One price, no add-ons to unlock core security.
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How Cisco Umbrella Works (and Where DNS-Only Falls Short)
Cisco Umbrella Architecture
Cisco Umbrella intercepts requests at the DNS layer and applies policy by domain. To get SSL inspection you add a stopover and deploy the roaming client, then point DNS to Umbrella and upgrade the AnyConnect client. What should be a direct connection becomes a multi-step setup. dope.security does the inspection on the device, so there is nothing to point, route, or upgrade.
Cisco Umbrella Capabilities
Umbrella DNS gives you domain and category filtering with no SSL decryption and only partial Cloud App discovery. Full inspection requires the SIG tier, and even then cloud-app scanning is limited. dope.swg includes SSL inspection, full URL categorization, and Cloud App Control in the base product.
Cisco Umbrella UX
Umbrella ships without preset content or malware policies, and user-based configuration is buried in nested menus. dope.console starts blocking on day one with sensible defaults, and policy changes push to every device instantly.
![When there is a Cisco Umbrella outage, the [Zscaler] SWG will re-route data through a stopover for SSL inspection. You need a Cisco Umbrella alternative.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/623381c2c01066b228a1670b/6435c82bbab92bce6bf98b3a_lines.svg)
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are stopover data centers really that bad?
Data centers come at a high cost. If there are any outages or degradations around the world, it can have an impact on you. And if your closest data center goes down, your data could be rerouted to a completely different country — slowing you down in the process.
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DS COMPARED TO CISCO UMBRELLA
On-device SSL inspection
Full secure web gateway, not DNS-only
SSL inspection included in base
No roaming client required
SSO-enabled instant trial
Single console, built from scratch
Cloud App Control (ChatGPT / Claude)
AI-powered endpoint DLP (Dopamine)
Works in China / restricted regions
Performance vs legacy proxy SWG
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Up to 4x
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Baseline
FAQs
FAQ
Reach out to sales@dope.security and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Yes. dope.security is a full secure web gateway that replaces Cisco Umbrella’s DNS-layer filtering with on-device SSL inspection, URL filtering, Cloud App Control, and DLP, all included in the base product with no SIG upgrade or roaming client.
Cisco Umbrella’s competitors in the SSE and secure web gateway space include Zscaler, Netskope, Forcepoint, DNSFilter, and dope.security. dope.security is the newest and is agent-based, inspecting traffic on the endpoint rather than at a DNS resolver or in a data center.
DNS-layer security blocks or allows a request based on the domain name only; it cannot see inside encrypted HTTPS traffic. A secure web gateway decrypts and inspects the full session. Cisco Umbrella's base package is DNS-layer; dope.swg is a full secure web gateway that inspects on the device.
With Cisco Umbrella, full SSL inspection requires upgrading to the Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) tier. With dope.security, SSL inspection is included in the base product, so there is no separate tier to buy.
No. Cisco Umbrella needs a roaming client to protect off-network devices. dope.security runs a single lightweight agent that enforces policy on the device everywhere, on-network or off, with no roaming client to manage.
Common reasons are DNS-only filtering that misses HTTPS threats, paying to upgrade tiers for basic SSL inspection, roaming-client complexity for remote users, and backhaul latency. Greylock Partners replaced Cisco Umbrella with dope.security and signed in 27 days.
Migration is fast because there is no DNS redirection or roaming client to configure. dope.security deploys through your existing MDM; one Cisco Umbrella customer rolled out 2,000 machines in two days, and Greylock went from first proposal to signed contract in 27 days.
