OpenDNS
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Try OpenDNS's free home service with content filtering and faster browsing today
redeem nowWe start with direct ratings from our readers, then look at what real users are saying in practitioner forums and community spaces. We pair that with search demand data and profession-level persona analysis.
Editorial note: this was originally published in august of 2024
quick take
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OpenDNS provides DNS resolution services that enhance your internet security and speed compared to standard DNS providers. The service works by redirecting your web traffic through their secure servers, helping to block harmful websites and improve browsing performance.
Since its founding in 2006, OpenDNS has grown to serve millions of users worldwide. Cisco acquired the company in 2015, rebranding its business services as Cisco Umbrella while maintaining the OpenDNS name for consumer offerings.
The service offers several options for different needs. Home users can access a free basic service or upgrade to paid versions with extra features. Business customers can choose from various plans that include advanced security and management tools. The platform is particularly known for its content filtering abilities, which let users block unwanted websites and protect against online threats.
Setting up OpenDNS is straightforward - you simply change your network's DNS settings to use their servers. Once configured, the service works in the background to protect your devices and speed up your internet experience through faster DNS resolution and security screening.
monthly search interest
9.9k/mo now
OpenDNS has lost roughly half its search volume since early 2023, with a slow but consistent decline that hasn't reversed. This isn't a tool people are newly discovering: it's a product coasting on name recognition while active IT professionals migrate to alternatives. Safe to keep using if it's already in your stack, but the shrinking search interest reflects a user base that's gradually moving on.
OpenDNS works quite differently depending on whether you're protecting a home network, managing business devices, or running enterprise infrastructure. Pick your role below to see whether it's actually worth it for your situation.
overall sentiment
select your role to see what people like you are saying
Parent/Home User
positiveThe free tier is genuinely useful for household content filtering: you set it up once at the router level and it covers every device without ongoing maintenance. The category-based blocking is broader than Cloudflare's family mode. The main ceiling is the 40-domain exception limit, which gets frustrating if you run into false positives on legitimate sites.
strengths
concerns
Network Administrator
mixedIf you're already managing Cisco infrastructure, OpenDNS integrates into Umbrella and that's a reasonable path. If you're evaluating from scratch, the pricing at $38/user/year with a 10-user minimum is harder to justify when CleanBrowsing and Cloudflare Zero Trust are both cheaper and more actively developed. The community is actively looking for alternatives, which should factor into any long-term deployment decision.
strengths
concerns
Small Business Owner
mixedEasy to deploy without IT staff, which matters. But the minimum spend of $380/year for the Small Business plan is a real commitment for a tool with stagnating features and declining support quality. Before you sign up, test CleanBrowsing's business tier: it's cheaper, and its web infrastructure actually works. OpenDNS is a defensible choice if you're already using it, but not an obvious first pick for a new setup.
strengths
concerns
Remote Worker
positiveRemote workers appreciate OpenDNS as an additional security layer for accessing company resources from home and public networks. The straightforward setup and reliable protection against malicious sites provides peace of mind without adding complexity to their work environment.
strengths
concerns
“The pricing page and features page on the official site currently return 404 errors, which tells you something about where consumer-facing product development sits on Cisco's priority list.”
Community discussion around OpenDNS has shifted noticeably over the past few years. The most active thread on r/sysadmin frames the tool as a baseline to compare against rather than a first choice, with the original poster describing how their legacy free-tier account has become unreliable, with certain domains occasionally resolving to an OpenDNS block server instead of their actual destination. The thread is explicitly a search for something cheaper and more dependable. A software comparison aggregator puts OpenDNS alongside Cloudflare and CleanBrowsing as equivalent options, which is damning in its own way: a tool that once defined DNS filtering is now just one of three boxes on a chart. The pricing page and features page on the official site currently return 404 errors, which tells you something about where consumer-facing product development sits on Cisco's priority list.
The free Home tier is worth it for basic content filtering. At no cost, you get malware blocking and category-based web filtering that's straightforward to configure. The Home VIP tier at $19.95/year is marginal value since it mostly adds usage stats. The Small Business plan at $38/user/year with a 10-user minimum means you're committing $380/year minimum before you've seen a single advanced feature. At that price point, Cloudflare Zero Trust and CleanBrowsing for Business both deserve a direct comparison before you sign up.
Parents setting up household content filtering get the most straightforward value from the free tier. Network administrators who already run Cisco infrastructure will find the Umbrella integration makes sense as a bundled add-on rather than a standalone choice. Small business owners with no dedicated IT staff and modest filtering needs can get started quickly, though the pricing structure gets uncomfortable as headcount grows.
The consumer-facing web infrastructure is visibly neglected: the pricing page and features page both return 404 errors at time of writing. The free tier limits you to around 40 domain exceptions, which becomes a real operational constraint. Support quality has declined since the Cisco acquisition, and users on legacy accounts report intermittent reliability issues where allowed domains still resolve to the OpenDNS block server. Innovation on the consumer side has effectively stalled.
Cloudflare's free tier includes malware and adult content filtering via its 1.1.1.1 for Families service. It's faster, better maintained, and has no exception limits. OpenDNS has a slight edge in the depth of its category-based filtering for home users and a longer track record in enterprise environments. For new setups, Cloudflare wins unless you specifically need OpenDNS's content category library or are already inside a Cisco ecosystem.
It depends on which product you're using. The enterprise Cisco Umbrella product is actively developed and supported. The OpenDNS consumer product is effectively on life support: web pages are broken, feature updates are minimal, and community forums show users actively shopping for replacements. If reliability matters to your network, test it before committing. The brand name is no longer a guarantee of the quality it had pre-acquisition.
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