Cisco Secure Workload vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security comparison

Cisco and CrowdStrike are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. Cisco is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.5, while CrowdStrike is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.7. Cisco holds a 2.0% mindshare in CWPP, compared to CrowdStrike’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of CrowdStrike users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Cisco Secure Workload and CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security are competitors in the cloud security market. Users generally favor the features of CrowdStrike for its proactive threat detection capabilities.

Features: Cisco Secure Workload is noted for strong analytics, visibility in hybrid environments, and integration with existing infrastructure. CrowdStrike Falcon is recognized for comprehensive threat intelligence, ease of scalability, and advanced threat detection, which users rate highly.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Workload users often mention the need for easier setup processes, enhanced reporting, and better usability optimization. CrowdStrike Falcon feedback highlights the need to reduce resource consumption and suggestions to improve usability and efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CrowdStrike Falcon is favored for its seamless deployment process, being less complex compared to Cisco Secure Workload. Cisco offers robust customer support, but CrowdStrike's automated deployment and operational readiness are seen as advantages in the initial stages.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Workload is considered competitively priced, attracting cost-conscious buyers. Although CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is more expensive, users believe its long-term ROI justifies this cost due to advanced security capabilities and market-leading threat intelligence.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

June 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

Qualys TotalCloud

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.0%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is 3.7%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud	1.7%
CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security	3.7%
Cisco Secure Workload	2.0%
Other	92.6%

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

Robert Orłowski

IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.

Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities

Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.

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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

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Manish Indupuri

senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Provides centralized visibility and real-time threat detection across multiple cloud accounts

Regarding how CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security can be improved, I would say they can improve their support. There were a couple of cases where we needed to escalate issues in order to get proper support. That part could use some tweaking on their end. Additionally, the recent incident during the last summer literally impacted our systems. We had some of our workloads that affected the business, and it was a difficult experience. Apart from that, it is a good tool and the experience with CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security has been excellent. We did not find any kind of issues, but if they could improve their response to security-related incidents and provide on-time support or better understand our concerns and address them accordingly, it could be very helpful. Regarding needed improvements, I think they should enhance automatic alerting with CI/CD scanning and reporting capabilities. Additionally, it would be better to implement Falcon sensor health monitoring so agents are always active. We could know how it is behaving and how it is treating our environment. That could be a little helpful.

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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

"Vulnerability and threat detection and assessment of the criticality of the vulnerabilities exposed are most valuable."

"I like the web API security and IoT scanning features the most. The user-friendly design of TotalCloud's interface enables customers to navigate it and use its full potential easily"

"While automatic inventory detection upon connection is a helpful feature, a truly valuable capability would be assessing an environment's security posture against Azure and CIS best practices."

"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."

"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other customers."

"I would definitely recommend it because it is easy to handle any cloud resources."

"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution."

"The vulnerability management feature is the one I like the most because it provides a clear picture of all vulnerabilities."

More Qualys TotalCloud pros

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

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

"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."

"The product provides multiple-device integration."

"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."

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

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

"The solution has login features like multi factor authentication."

"The initial setup is easy ."

"We like the solution's management and monitoring tools for our network. We use it to monitor our network between workstations and outside our organization. The AI provides useful visualizations of our network on a dashboard."

"It provides alerts on suspicious command executions, helping us safeguard our systems."

"The most significant benefit is how quickly malware and other malicious attacks are detected."

"Technical support is helpful."

"Cloud security is one valuable feature. Spotlight is the other one. There is also vulnerability management and a couple of more features."

"CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is user-friendly."

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security pros

Cons

"Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA."

"There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."

"TotalCloud could improve the classification of vulnerabilities. Specifically, it could enhance the categorization of what aspects fall under patches resolved by OS or software updates and what pertains to configuration adjustments."

"Regarding technical support from Qualys, they respond, but the response time can be too long. Sometimes we need to wait weeks for solutions to simple questions."

"I think Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its handling of zero-day vulnerabilities and supply chain management because modern ransomware attacks not only target prime critical infrastructures but also the supply chain system."

"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."

"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."

"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."

More Qualys TotalCloud cons

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"I'd like to see better documentation for advanced features. The documentation is fairly basic. I would also like to see better integration with other applications."

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

"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."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

"The user interface needs improvement as it's sometimes difficult to locate specific dashboards or reports."

"I think the UI could be improved, but the technical support said CrowdStrike will improve the UI in the near future. But right now, it’s so messy."

"The UI part needs to be improved."

"There were some integration issues with this product."

"The SIEM needs to be more developed."

"The only challenge lies in token verification."

"Incorporating threat intelligence into the system would be a valuable addition."

"Different file options should be available, and clients should be able to select from the options."

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."

"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."

"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."

"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."

"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."

"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."

"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."

"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."

More Qualys TotalCloud 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."

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

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

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

"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."

"It's an expensive product"

"CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is pricy."

"It is expensive, but it adds value."

"Its price is moderate."

"CrowdStrike Falcon is very expensive."

"The pricing is fair for what you get. I'd rate them a solid nine out of ten in terms of pricing."

"The pricing is reasonable, neither overly expensive nor excessively cheap, making it competitive compared to other market options."

"CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is very expensive for us. Last month, we had a big issue that took much time and money to resolve. It slowed down our business and required our management team to get involved. We had a problem similar to the "Blue Screen of Death" issue many US companies faced. This incident used up many of our IT resources in just a few months. That's why we're looking for a replacement tool now."

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	30

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?

The price is very expensive, actually.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?

To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...

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What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?

My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...

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 discov...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...

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 cre...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM?

In terms of pricing, the setup cost and licensing are comparatively a bit expensive, but the solution's effectiveness...

See all answers

What needs improvement with CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM?

I recommend enhancing CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, particularly in the areas of vulnerability management and ag...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM?

I have been using CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security for almost three years. My primary use case involves securing end...

See all answers

Comparisons

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SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

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AWS GuardDuty vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

Wiz vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Security Hub vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Compared 3% of the time

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Qualys TotalCloud

July 2026

Download Qualys TotalCloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

August 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Buyer's Guide

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

August 2026

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security report

Download CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security product report

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan

Cisco Tetration

CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM

Overview

Qualys TotalCloud enhances security posture across cloud environments with continuous monitoring, vulnerability management, and risk visualization, ensuring efficient threat assessment and automated remediation for improved cyber risk reduction.

Qualys TotalCloud offers a robust suite of security tools essential for organizations managing multi-cloud infrastructures. By integrating cloud accounts and automating workflows, it supports AWS, Azure, and GCP, offering comprehensive vulnerability management and zero-day detection. The platform's user-friendly design, combined with its extensive risk management and unified threat assessment capabilities, enables organizations to prioritize and remediate vulnerabilities effectively. TruRisk Insights provides clear insights on cyber risks, while the automation options streamline patch management and scanning processes. API integration across IaaS and SaaS environments further enhances resource allocation efficiency and saves time, addressing misconfigurations across cloud environments.

What are the most important features of Qualys TotalCloud?

Accurate Vulnerability Reports: Delivers precise and actionable insights for risk mitigation.
Zero-Day Detection: Identifies and addresses zero-day vulnerabilities proactively.
Unified Threat Assessment: Offers comprehensive evaluation of threats across the environment.
Extensive Risk Management: Manages risks effectively with advanced insights and prioritization.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides non-stop surveillance for vulnerabilities and threats.
Cloud-Native Automation: Streamlines processes and reduces manual efforts using automation.
FlexScan for Internet-Facing VMs: Scans external VMs efficiently to detect vulnerabilities.
Dashboard Risk Visualization: Clear visualization helps prioritize vulnerabilities.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Security Posture: Enhances threat detection and response across clouds.
Time Savings: Automation reduces time spent on manual vulnerability management.
Resource Efficiency: Better allocation of resources through streamlined workflows.
Enhanced Risk Prioritization: Focus on critical vulnerabilities for effective mitigation.
Integrated Cloud Accounts: Facilitates seamless cloud management and security.

Qualys TotalCloud is deployed in sectors needing rigorous vulnerability management, such as finance and healthcare. Companies utilize it to secure multi-cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and GCP, focus on compliance, and integrate security into CI/CD pipelines to detect and remedy threats pre-deployment.

Qualys

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

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security helps organizations stop cloud breaches from code to runtime. As CrowdStrike's cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP), it combines real-time cloud detection and response with proactive cloud security to help security teams prevent, detect, investigate, and stop modern cloud attacks.

Industry-leading threat intelligence and AI-powered insights help security teams understand how adversaries operate, uncover evasive threats, and respond with confidence. The result is a stronger cloud security posture, faster investigations, and reduced mean time to detect and respond.

What are CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security's key features?

Real-Time Protection: Detects and responds to cloud attacks in real time.
Industry-Leading Adversary Intelligence: Turns intel into prioritized risk and threats.
Cloud Asset Visibility: Discovers and maps assets across the entire cloud estate.
Preemptive Security: Identities risks earlier in development to prevent insecure deployments.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Faster Threat Detection and Response: Achieve up to 89% faster cloud detection and response
Improved Cloud Security Posture: Identify and prioritize high-risk vulnerabilities and misconfigurations faster
Reduce Blind Spots: Gain up to 72% faster ability to monitor the entire cloud estate
Compliance Assurance: Aids in maintaining industry standards.
Return on Investment: 264% Return on Investment over 3 year period

Organizations use Falcon Cloud Security to stop cloud breaches from code to runtime. It helps teams reduce blind spots, focus on the risks most likely to lead to a breach, and detect and respond to attacks faster. By connecting proactive cloud security with real-time detection and response, it strengthens security from development through production.

CrowdStrike

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

June 2026

Free Report: Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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