Appgate SDP vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

Appgate and Cisco are both solutions in the Microsegmentation Software category. Appgate is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Cisco is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.5. Appgate holds a 3.3% mindshare in MS, compared to Cisco’s 10.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Appgate users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Appgate SDP

Read 8 Appgate SDP reviews

6,104 Views
427 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Workload

Read 15 Cisco Secure Workload reviews

6,193 Views
2,353 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Appgate SDP

Cisco Secure Workload

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Appgate SDP and Cisco Secure Workload are competitive products in cybersecurity. Appgate SDP is favored for cost-effectiveness, while Cisco Secure Workload is renowned for its feature-rich offering.

Features: Appgate SDP offers dynamic identity-based access control, seamless system integration, and is designed for scalability. Cisco Secure Workload provides comprehensive workload protection, advanced telemetry, and detailed security insights into network activities.

Room for Improvement: Appgate SDP could enhance its telemetry and analytics for deeper insights. Improved granularity in access controls and more robust application dependency mapping would benefit users. Cisco Secure Workload could reduce complexity in its deployment, streamline its feature set for easier management, and offer more intuitive user interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Appgate SDP has a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support, allowing quick implementation. Cisco Secure Workload may be more complex to deploy due to its extensive features, but it offers robust support to assist with such challenges.

Pricing and ROI: Appgate SDP is noted for its affordable initial costs and ongoing expenses, providing good ROI for budget-conscious organizations. Cisco Secure Workload has higher upfront costs, justified by its comprehensive features, offering solid long-term ROI for those needing extensive security infrastructures.

To learn more, read our detailed Appgate SDP vs. Cisco Secure Workload Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Appgate SDP vs. Cisco Secure Workload

August 2026

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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

Appgate SDP

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

8th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

ZTNA as a Service (17th), ZTNA (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (17th)

Cisco Secure Workload

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud and Data Center Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (18th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Microsegmentation Software category, the mindshare of Appgate SDP is 3.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 10.9%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Workload	10.9%
Appgate SDP	3.3%
Other	85.8%

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

Joseph Koomson

Ip Network Security Specialist at MTN Ghana

Zero trust access has strengthened remote connectivity and secures diverse office devices

Appgate SDP support is always available to assist, which is the primary strength. However, there are areas for improvement. When a user is unable to connect, the platform should display detailed information such as the user's IP address, MAC address, and specific reasons for connection failure. Currently, aside from invalid username and password errors, Appgate SDP provides generic errors related to policy, such as a policy admin error. The system should provide deeper diagnostics to explain why a user cannot connect. The dashboard could also be enhanced with additional features and logins to provide better visibility. Sometimes there is no immediate clarity about what is happening. After using Appgate SDP for a long time and experiencing various errors, we have learned where to investigate, but this would be problematic for new users trying to resolve issues. The dashboard could display user connection times, failure reasons, and other relevant information. The user activity logs and accounting features should be improved in particular.

Read full review

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Discover internal application dependencies and create a dependency map

We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration allows Cisco Secure Workload to learn about our networks and network tags, providing valuable insights into vulnerabilities related to the operating system and various applications installed on our servers. Recently, Cisco announced a new product called HyperShield, an AI-based autonomous micro-segmentation solution. While Cisco has not stated that HyperShield will replace Cisco Secure Workload, it represents a natural evolution for the company. HyperShield features dynamic policy discovery and enforcement; however, once policies are enforced, they do not change until a discovery occurs, requiring a re-enforcement process. This new platform operates autonomously, minimizing the need for user or security engineer intervention. I would have expected Cisco to incorporate more automatic discovery and enforcement features within the existing Cisco Secure Workload product. Instead of enhancing the current product, they have introduced a new solution. Cisco plans to honor existing Tetration licenses, allowing users to transition to HyperShield without additional costs, reflecting the investment enterprises have already made. From Cisco’s perspective, this represents a natural progression in their product line. While the product name changes, it seems more of a rebranding effort. The enhancements are greater autonomy, improved discovery, and automatic enforcement, which are now being introduced in HyperShield. Cisco Secure Workload offers automatic policy enforcement but cannot adjust policies dynamically as the application needs to change. Having used the platform for the past five years, the recent announcement has been reassuring. Cisco has confirmed that our investment in the platform will not go to waste. They will honor our existing licenses, providing a natural migration path to the new solution without any disruption

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is pretty stable."

"Appgate SDP has positively impacted my organization, as we are using it to securely access the internet after the cyber attack."

"Previously, with AnyConnect, we experienced frequent issues, and in comparison to that solution, we have seen significant improvement and minimum downtime."

"The interface is really friendly. It's simple to understand."

"It is a scalable solution...The support answers your questions very fast."

"One of the most important features is stopping lateral movement across our network."

"The flexibility of the tool is valuable; it is very robust, has a very robust configuration capability, is pretty well documented, and is also good interface-wise."

"The simplicity of the SDP platform is a standout feature; instead of navigating through intricate details, users can seamlessly connect to the company's network or switch to the internet with minimal effort."

More Appgate SDP pros

"The only use case I can see that makes sense is micro-segmentation. I think there are other use cases for it. The main purpose of the product is to do micro-segmentation by collecting IP. That could be done by installing an agent, and then you have all the communication coming in and out. You could also use some flow sensors installed in the network that receive a copy of the traffic and then report that back to the system."

"The product provides multiple-device integration."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."

"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."

"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."

"It's stable."

"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."

"The solution is very user-friendly, which clients appreciate."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"One thing that kind of sticks out to me is the ability to do a proper non-split tunnel. VPN tunnel-wise, it is not really a true unsplit tunnel, but I think that's just because of the way it's designed. A split VPN basically allows your system to talk to other systems without being forced down the tunnel. A VPN running in a non-split tunnel mode forces all the traffic down the tunnel to wherever you're VPNing to. It forces the traffic down so that the traffic is subject to the firewall and rules that you have in your corporate environment and such. It helps to prevent remote malicious folks that may be talking directly to that box from piggybacking into the corporate environment through it. They do it partially, but it would be nice to see more of an enterprise-level solution there."

"The user interface should be improved as it is not very easy to work with the updates."

"On the cloud, when you make some changes, it may be difficult."

"When a user is unable to connect, the platform should display detailed information such as the user's IP address, MAC address, and specific reasons for connection failure."

"If I could change or improve anything about Appgate SDP, it would be to enhance the user experience by improving the UI so that it is more explanatory."

"It would be better to connect to an application portal from any device. Documentation and support could be better."

"One thing that kind of sticks out to me is the ability to do a proper non-split tunnel."

"One limitation is that it's harder to provide access to multiple applications in the company with Appgate, but that's probably because of poor management."

More Appgate SDP cons

"They should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem. The issue with the price comes from the fact that you have to have it with enormous storage and enormous computes."

"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and there are few DC tools, it would be great to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."

"There was a controversy when Cisco reduced the amount of data they kept, and the solution became quite cost-intensive, which made its adoption challenging….Although they have modified it now, I preferred the previous version, and I wish all the functionality were back under the same product."

"It has an uninviting interface."

"The product should be easy to use, but it is not. Comparing it to other products, it was very complex."

"There's room for improvement when it comes to Cisco Secure Workload. A couple of internal areas could be refined a little bit. They are trying to solve it, depending on where you suppose the agent is. Suppose you have the agent on both the server and the client, which could be the front-end server or web server connecting to the. In that case, if those two are communicating on RPC, the server can look into its configuration. It could go down and find the configuration file on the FTP server and then set the policies to it. But there are a lot of different FTP servers out there. It's also a complex case for the tool to support all FTP servers."

"The problem is that we can only deploy the particular solution where we have the hardware with Cisco."

"The scalability of this solution needs to be improved."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $100 per user per month. One license for the site is around $17."

"It is a pretty expensive tool. It is maybe about $20,000 per year for a hundred users or so."

"The pricing is according to the market price. It is not a very cheap solution. They have some very aggressive promotions to sell the product in the market."

"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."

"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."

"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."

"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."

"Regarding price, Cisco Secure Workload can be expensive if you don't have a budget. If you're not doing micro-segmentation, every extra security measure or enforcement you're putting on top of your existing environment will be an extra cost. It's not a cheap solution at all. But from my point of view, if you need to do micro-segmentation, this is one of the best tools I've seen for it. I can't compare that to Microsoft's solution because I haven't looked into it. I've looked into VMware and Cisco. Those are the only two that I know of. I didn't know that Microsoft could do micro-segmentation at all. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard anything about it."

"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."

"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appgate SDP?

Regarding pricing and setup cost, everything is already pre-installed in my organization, so I am not sure about pricing details, as the other team handles it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Appgate SDP?

The reporting can be improved, as Appgate SDP is strong but could benefit from enhanced reporting features. This would improve visibility and simplify operational monitoring, along with simpler ini...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Appgate SDP?

I work as a Cloud Operations Engineer at PowerSchool India Private Limited, and I have been using Appgate SDP for about four years. My company has nine sites where we use Appgate SDP before logging...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Workload?

CloudStrike offers antivirus capabilities and firewall features for servers and VDI but lacks automatic policy discovery. This raises questions about the resources required to discover and write po...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Workload?

When we onboarded Cisco Secure Workload, the usual use case was to discover internal application dependencies and create a dependency map for Cisco ACI. As the network team, we chose to implement A...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Appgate SDP

Compared 4% of the time

Cyolo vs Appgate SDP

Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 13% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ZTNA

July 2026

Download Appgate SDP product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

August 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cisco Tetration

Overview

Appgate SDP provides a comprehensive approach to network access control, optimizing security with robust configurations and a user-friendly interface, featuring flexible deployment and server concealment to mitigate risks.

Appgate SDP has been designed to enhance security operations through reliable access management. It prides itself on offering strong documentation, substantial scalability, and an interface that supports easy deployment, creating a seamless experience for local and remote connections. It enables organizations to implement micro-segmentation and integrate multifactor authentication, thus elevating their security posture. Recent updates reflect improvements, yet aspects like cost, cloud modification difficulties, VPN customization needs, and an upgraded interface remain areas for future enhancement. Ideal for hybrid environments, Appgate SDP aids transitions from traditional VPNs, protecting digital assets and preventing lateral network threats.

What are the key features of Appgate SDP?

Robust Configuration: Allows flexible setups to meet specific requirements.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies deployment, enhancing user experience.
Server Concealment: Minimizes exposure to threats by hiding servers.
Scalability: Accommodates growing organizational needs with stable performance.
Access Rule Granularity: Provides detailed options for managing network access.

What benefits should be considered in user reviews?

Security Enhancement: Improved protection against lateral movement and ransomware.
Deployment Ease: Streamlined processes for faster implementation.
Strong Support: Reliable assistance from the vendor ensures sustained use.
Remote Work Optimization: Facilitates safe remote access, vital for modern work environments.

Appgate SDP is prevalent in industries shifting from traditional VPNs to more secure architectures. It supports enterprises embracing cloud technologies by providing reliable network access solutions, especially in hybrid work settings, ensuring the security of digital assets while accommodating multifactor authentication and micro-segmentation strategies.

Appgate

Cisco Secure Workload offers advanced auditing, micro-segmentation, and network visibility, automating policy presentation for improved security. It enhances application dependency mapping and provides comprehensive telemetry with strategic policy enforcement.

Cisco Secure Workload specializes in automating micro-segmentation, data center management, and traffic analysis. Its capabilities facilitate application dependency mapping and enhance internal micro-segmentation, providing invaluable network visibility. Users find its automation in policy presentation and strategic enforcement beneficial, along with granular control and scalability, despite needing improvements in scalability and integration capabilities. Enhanced notification features, troubleshooting options, and an efficient interface are desired for seamless deployment, along with stronger multi-tenancy, redundancy, and monitoring functions. Broader platform support and integrated cloud connectivity are desired for unified management across tools.

What are the most important features?

Auditing: Provides in-depth network analysis and security auditing capabilities.
Micro-Segmentation: Enhances network security by automating segmentation at a granular level.
Application Dependency Mapping: Visualizes connections and interactions between applications.
Network Visibility: Delivers comprehensive insight into network activities and dynamics.
Policy Discovery: Streamlines policy creation through automation and reduces manual intervention.
Comprehensive Telemetry: Offers complete coverage and insights for better security assessment.

What benefits and ROI should be evaluated?

Enhanced Security Measures: Offers robust features for network security improvement.
Automated Processes: Reduces manual efforts through automation, increasing efficiency.
Scalability: Adapts to growing network demands with flexible scalability options.
Granular Control: Allows detailed control over network policies and enforcement.

Entities in finance, gas, and oil sectors utilize Cisco Secure Workload for networking site management and compliance maintenance. It integrates into extensive Cisco infrastructure, aiding routers, switches, and endpoints, thus supporting auditors in network synchronization and auditing needs.

Cisco

Sample Customers

United States Air Force FINRA Weight Watchers Rackspace DataDog SageNet Verdant Norwegian Cruise Line VoiceBase The Third Floor

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Buyer's Guide

Appgate SDP vs. Cisco Secure Workload

August 2026

Free Report: Appgate SDP vs. Cisco Secure Workload

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