Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Cisco Secure Workload are both solutions in the Cisco Security Portfolio category. Cisco Secure Network Analytics is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.5, while Cisco Secure Workload is ranked #9. Cisco Secure Network Analytics holds a 9.9% mindshare in CSS, compared to Cisco Secure Workload’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Cisco Secure Network Analytics users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco Secure Workload users who would recommend it.

Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Read 62 Cisco Secure Network Analytics reviews

11,603 Views
1,044 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Workload

Read 15 Cisco Secure Workload reviews

7,058 Views
706 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Cisco Secure Workload

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Cisco Secure Workload based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cisco Security Portfolio solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Cisco Secure Workload Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Cisco Secure Workload

September 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 921,028 peers since 2012

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

Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (32nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (7th)

Cisco Secure Workload

Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud and Data Center Security (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (23rd), Microsegmentation Software (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 9.9%, up from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 5.9%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cisco Security Portfolio Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	9.9%
Cisco Secure Workload	5.9%
Other	84.2%

Cisco Security Portfolio

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Harun-Owr-Roshid

CEO at BRIGHT-i SYSTEMS LIMITED

Have streamlined network visibility and troubleshooting while seeing benefits from AI integration

In terms of improvements for Cisco Secure Network Analytics, from the implementation point of view, now that AI is in use, some other features need to be upgraded considering AI solutions. Proper management of the database is also important; it should be centralized for easier data collection from a single database. When precise manual analysis is needed, it's sometimes difficult, so having a centralized database will allow network admins to find actual scenarios more effectively, especially since some information may not be visible on the GUI. Cisco should upgrade their hardware part to run the database, because sometimes it cannot handle the load while all features are running in the network. The database management should indeed be centralized because while AI runs behind the systems, central management is essential. For example, in a network with 100 Cisco switches, a few routers, firewalls, and access points, all data generated should be preserved in a central database. This approach simplifies management and analysis for troubleshooting, as GUI interfaces may not always provide visible information. Centralizing the database will allow for better understanding of which information is preserved for each specific device.

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

"Great network monitoring, looking at anomaly detection and evaluation."

"I value the feature which enables me to detect devices talking to suspect IPs."

"Maps is a unique feature which provides logical grouping of different segments of the network with complete visibility and alerting based on a total or protocol base as per defined threshold."

"Stealthwatch doubled our threat detection rate, while halving our incident response time and the time it takes us to detect and remediate threats."

"The most valuable feature is NetFlow. The beginning of any security investigation starts with NetFlow data."

"Stealthwatch reduced our incident response rate, as well as the amount of time it takes to detect and remediate threats by about 25%."

"The most valuable feature about this solution is that it gives me insight of my network."

"This solution has improved network visibility a lot."

More Cisco Secure Network Analytics pros

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

"The scalability of Cisco Tetration is very good."

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

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

"Overall, this is a really good product and I am happy with it."

"By using Tetration insight, we are able to get the latency on our level accounts and we can determine whatever the issue is with the application latency itself."

"This product does everything that you need it to do and more and does a lot to provide visibility in a network environment, save time and money, and make the organization IT operate in a much more streamlined fashion."

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"One update that I would like to see is an agent-based client. Currently, Stealthwatch is network-based. A local agent could help manage endpoints."

"Their response capability and the ability to push out responses along with changes in the network is important. This is something lacking, they don't have a lot of that, it's a passive tool."

"Its granularity for RBAC roles-based access control needs improvement."

"It hasn't really improved our direct detection rate but it has definitely reduced our incident response time as we wouldn't have been able to detect threats or immediate risks without this solution."

"The GUI could use some improvement. Being able to find features more easily would be a great improvement if it was simplified."

"Many of these tools require extensive on-premises hardware to run."

"I would like to see some improvement when it comes to reporting."

"We haven't seen ROI."

More Cisco Secure Network Analytics cons

"It is not so easy to use and configure. It needs a bunch of further resources to work, which is mainly the biggest downside of it. The deployment is huge."

"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."

"The multi-tenancy, redundancy, backup and restore functionalities, as well as the monitoring aspects of the solution, need improvement. The solution offers virtually no enterprise-grade possibility for monitoring."

"The entire interface could be improved; it's ugly and uninviting, and Tetration tends to be a lot more cumbersome and not very intuitive compared to the biggest competitor's modern-looking GUI."

"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."

"A feature that I was looking for was emailed alerts and notifications so we'd get them right away."

"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 interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs are outrageous."

"It is worth the cost."

"Licensing is on a yearly basis."

"One of the things which bugs me about Lancope is the licensing. We understand how licensing works. Our problem is when we bought and purchased most of these Lancope devices, we did so with our sister company. Somewhere within the purchase and distribution, licensing got mixed up. That is all on Cisco, and it is their responsibility. They allotted some of our sister company's equipment to us, and some of our equipment to them. To date, they have never been able to fix it."

"Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."

"The tool is not cheaply priced."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"On a yearly basis, licensing is somewhere around $30,000."

More Cisco Secure Network Analytics pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	52

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 Cisco Stealthwatch?

Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?

Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?

My main use case for Cisco Secure Network Analytics has been network visibility and anomaly-based threat detection within the enterprise environment. In security operations and VAPT-related activit...

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Network Analytics

November 2026

Download Cisco Secure Network Analytics product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

November 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch

Cisco Tetration

Overview

Cisco Secure Network Analytics enhances network security through integrated threat detection and detailed traffic visibility, optimizing performance with AI analytics and strong platform integrations.

Cisco Secure Network Analytics offers deep visibility into network traffic, with tools like network maps and server response times. Its AI-driven analytics help detect threats, focusing on east-west traffic. Integration with platforms such as pxGrid and ISE complements its capabilities. Reporting and telemetry help in identifying bandwidth issues, yet improvements are desired in AI for better data organization. Installation complexity and false positives present challenges, and managing network loads effectively is a recognized need.

What are the key features of Cisco Secure Network Analytics?

Deep Visibility: Provides comprehensive insights into network traffic and server behavior.
Network Maps: Enhances understanding of traffic flow and infrastructure layout.
AI Analytics: Uses AI for superior threat detection and anomaly recognition.
Integration: Compatible with platforms like pxGrid and ISE for enhanced security management.
Telemetry: Delivers detailed bandwidth usage and traffic analysis reports.

How does Cisco Secure Network Analytics provide value?

Enhanced Security: Elevates threat detection and response capabilities.
Traffic Insights: Identifies encrypted and anomalous network behaviors.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting industry standards for data protection.
Endpoint Protection: Guards network endpoints against potential threats.

Industries such as banking, defense, and police rely on Cisco Secure Network Analytics for securing networks against threats. Its capability to provide insights into encrypted traffic and facilitate device auditing makes it a sought-after choice for those requiring extensive network visibility. Users appreciate its application for threat prevention and response in demanding sectors.

Cisco

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

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Cisco Secure Workload

September 2026

Free Report: Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Cisco Secure Workload

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