Amazon Inspector vs IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #45 with an average rating of 5.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.9% mindshare in VM, compared to IBM’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment and Amazon Inspector compete in cybersecurity, specifically in vulnerability management and assessment. IBM Guardium shows an advantage in pricing and support, while Amazon Inspector is favored for its robust features and cost-benefit.

Features: IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment includes comprehensive data protection, automated vulnerability detection, and strong policy enforcement. Amazon Inspector focuses on seamless cloud integration, automated security assessments, and rich reporting capabilities. IBM targets on-premises protection, whereas Amazon embraces a cloud-native approach.

Room for Improvement: IBM Guardium could improve by simplifying initial setup, enhancing user interface, and expanding cloud support. Amazon Inspector may benefit from broader compatibility with non-AWS environments, enriched analytics, and enhanced customization options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Guardium requires significant initial expertise for deployment but offers attentive customer service with tailored support. Amazon Inspector eases deployment within AWS environments and integrates seamlessly, supported by effective documentation and support channels.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Guardium involves higher upfront costs but promises long-term ROI through data protection and compliance. Amazon Inspector's flexible pricing aligned with AWS usage may lead to lower initial costs and quicker ROI for AWS-heavy scenarios.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Inspector vs. IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector vs. IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.9%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Inspector is 2.9%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions

I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.

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John D'Arcy

Co-Founder, Professional AWS Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Automated vulnerability assessments continuously enhance security

The most valuable features probably are the ability to do automated vulnerability assessments, which it does with Amazon Inspector version two. It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities. This allows me to pinpoint potential security vulnerabilities and provide actionable recommendations relatively quickly. Larger enterprises usually use Inspector to gather all the vulnerabilities, the CVEs, across all accounts in an AWS organization. The enterprises I work for typically have many accounts in their organization, such as thousands of accounts where I am at the moment. It is a way to gather the vulnerabilities that are present on EC2 instances, container images, and Lambda functions.

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Dr. Sajid Latif

Guardium Administrator at Interactive Group

Improvements sought in database optimization while benefiting from robust security monitoring

We use the analytical functionality of Guardium, but the analytical functionality is not so powerful or flexible because it does not include the application user ID. It only includes the database user ID. To identify risky users, it does not support end users, so IBM must incorporate this feature into the built-in analytical engine of the Guardium. There is only one problem I experienced while using Guardium: the internal database of the collector is MySQL, which is not so powerful or flexible. When you make a query in a MySQL database, it takes too much time to respond. IBM should replace this MySQL database with a more powerful internal database for the logging mechanism so that Guardium can collect logging data flexibly and ensure optimization. My overall experience with Guardium is good. The only problem is that IBM must replace the internal DB, MySQL, with a more powerful enterprise-level database because enterprises use it at an enterprise level, and MySQL does not support optimally.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon Inspector is the categorization of findings, which filters vulnerabilities by instance, container image, container repository, and Lambda function."

"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."

"I recommend Amazon Inspector because it allows the automation of processes and requires less manual monitoring."

"Amazon Inspector is highly stable, rated ten out of ten, and this stability impacts business security and administration positively."

"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."

"The vulnerability discovery is valuable, and they also rank those vulnerabilities for you. So, you could rapidly attack some of the higher, severe vulnerabilities as they pop up, if they do pop up."

"The automated vulnerability detection aspect is most valuable."

"The findings dashboards are neat and easy to understand, offering clear demarcations for different types of findings and detailed insights into specific vulnerabilities and their associated instances. It is not a place where everything is dumped together. It offers an easy-to-understand layout."

More Amazon Inspector pros

"The Vulnerability Assessment feature is quite stable and helps identify numerous vulnerabilities in databases."

"The reporting features are good and there are many built-in reports that can be quickly configured."

"It helped with some of the regulatory requirements. It also helped with some of the security analytics and analysis. It was worthwhile from that perspective."

"The most valuable feature is that it provides a simple English recommendation on actions that you need to take once a vulnerability is discovered."

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"One major area for improvement is remediation. My team works on remediating findings over time, likely using available patches. However, easier integration with Amazon's patching services would be very helpful."

"There isn't too much to improve right now. Scanning on demand or as a part of the pipeline versus a post pipeline solution would be good, but it is not a deal breaker by any means."

"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."

"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."

"There is room for improvement in the scanning capabilities. I'd like to see broader coverage in terms of the vulnerabilities detected."

"It has a limited scope. So, AWS Inspector primarily focuses on the security of the EC2 instance. So, if your architecture includes other AWS services, then you may need to use additional tools for your comprehensive security assessment. So that is one con. Another is, like, we have a dependency on agents."

"The other point is that the reporting features of Inspector need improvement. For example, I am in an organization with millions of CVEs, and getting an overview of all this is challenging."

"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."

"There is only one problem I experienced while using Guardium: the internal database of the collector is MySQL, which is not so powerful or flexible."

"It was not as easy to use. The user-friendliness of it was somewhat lower than what I was expecting. It was also lacking in terms of the ease of the setup. There should be an automatic agent for deployment."

"The interface could be improved by having sub-groups of tests, ultimately making the process of collecting tests faster."

"Building policies is not that easy. There are some things that are turned off by default, for example, displaying values."

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It is scaled as you go. There are probably a certain number of scans per month, and there are tiers. If you're under a certain tier, it is free. The second level is pennies, and then all the way up to like a million. So, it has a tiered pricing program. They're pretty good with your initial scanning, and there is room to scale based on being affordable, but it is fairly cheap. There are no additional costs. They pretty much think about it as a pay-per-scan type model."

"The pricing is very transparent and clear."

"It's priced according to market standards for its services."

"The lowest cost would be around $10 for a few small accounts, however, for thousands of accounts, it could be around $5000 to $6000 dollars per month."

"One thing not advantageous for it was that it was a little bit more expensive. I would rate it one out of five in terms of pricing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

37%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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What do you like most about Amazon Inspector?

The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Inspector?

I manage pricing and purchase reserved instances, yet face challenges due to dependencies and lack of options for res...

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What needs improvement with Amazon Inspector?

There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for ot...

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What needs improvement with IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?

We use the analytical functionality of Guardium, but the analytical functionality is not so powerful or flexible beca...

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What is your primary use case for IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?

We are still using IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment. We only use IBM Guardium Data Protection and monitoring, da...

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What advice do you have for others considering IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?

We do not use IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment for data encryption or any other tool for analytics, or identity ...

See all answers

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Compared 31% of the time

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Compared 26% of the time

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Compared 25% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

July 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector

August 2025

Download Amazon Inspector product report

Buyer's Guide

Vulnerability Management

August 2025

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment report

Download IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment product report

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Amazon Inspector is an automated security assessment service that helps improve the security and compliance of applications deployed on AWS. Amazon Inspector automatically assesses applications for exposure, vulnerabilities, and deviations from best practices. After performing an assessment, Amazon Inspector produces a detailed list of security findings prioritized by level of severity. These findings can be reviewed directly or as part of detailed assessment reports which are available via the Amazon Inspector console or API.

Amazon Inspector security assessments help you check for unintended network accessibility of your Amazon EC2 instances and for vulnerabilities on those EC2 instances. Amazon Inspector assessments are offered to you as pre-defined rules packages mapped to common security best practices and vulnerability definitions. Examples of built-in rules include checking for access to your EC2 instances from the internet, remote root login being enabled, or vulnerable software versions installed. These rules are regularly updated by AWS security researchers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment scans data infrastructures (databases, data warehouses and big data environments) to detect vulnerabilities, and suggests remedial actions. The solution identifies exposures such as missing patches, weak passwords, unauthorized changes and misconfigured privileges.

IBM

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

betterment, caplinked, flatiron, university of nutri dame

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector vs. IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment

July 2025

Free Report: Amazon Inspector vs. IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Inspector vs. IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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