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Cisco Secure Workload vs FortiCNAPP comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (7th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
FortiCNAPP
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (29th), Container Security (19th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (10th), Compliance Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.1%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiCNAPP is 4.0%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.6%
FortiCNAPP4.0%
Cisco Secure Workload2.1%
Other92.3%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
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.
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Charl Pinches - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Sales Specialist at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloud risk has become visible and security teams prioritize and act on threats efficiently
FortiCNAPP can be improved because the platform can feel complex at the start, especially for teams new to CNAP tooling. Some users mention that they found the interface and data models less intuitive than expected, and I have had situations where reporting and alert configurations might require time. Regarding other improvements needed for FortiCNAPP, the majority of the time is that reporting and alert configuration might require time to tune properly. This is the significant issue, combined with the fact that some users find the interface and data model less intuitive than expected. Regarding FortiCNAPP's AI capabilities, I think there might be a bit of improvement needed. However, since Fortinet is a security vendor overall, keeping the data safe is not a problem. I know they have invested a lot in getting it to a place where it is a trusted platform.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"By integrating TotalCloud, we have significantly reduced vulnerabilities in our deployment pipeline."
"TotalCloud provides the easiest and the best approach for cloud infrastructure management."
"The agent and agentless scanning in TotalCloud, particularly the FlexScan method, is incredibly valuable. With traditional scanning approaches, we had to give IP ranges and whitelist IPs. All that is now simplified. FlexScan requires minimal intervention, and after configuration, it automatically collects data and performs necessary scans."
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other customers."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its ability to link clusters of assets, providing a clear model of deployments, vulnerabilities, and statuses."
"The vulnerability management feature is the one I like the most because it provides a clear picture of all vulnerabilities."
"In my opinion, this is the best tool."
"The dashboards are particularly valuable as they offer a comprehensive view of the environment, highlighting any misconfigurations."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"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."
"The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage; the telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent, it's complete, and you see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"It's stable."
"FortiCNAPP is a competitive and robust solution, the only one in the IT sphere that addresses all quadrants in the Gartner Quadrants."
"Lacework is helping a lot in reducing the noise of the alerts. Usually, whenever you have a tool in place, you have a lot of noise in terms of alerts, but the time for an engineer to look into those alerts is limited. Lacework is helping us to consolidate the information that we are getting from the agents and other sources. We are able to focus only on the things that matter, which is the most valuable thing for us. It saves time, and for investigations, we have the right context to take action."
"There are many valuable features that I use in my daily work. The first are alerts and the event dossier that it generates, based on the severity. That is very insightful and helps me to have a security cap in our infrastructure. The second thing I like is the agent-based vulnerability management, which is the most accurate information."
"FortiCNAPP has positively impacted my organization by providing centralized visibility and consolidating our cloud security posture management, helping us identify misconfigurations and public accessibility issues, which allowed us to enhance IAM governance and visibility on vulnerabilities."
"The compliance reports are definitely most valuable because they save time and are accurate. So, instead of relying on a human going through and checking or providing me with a report, I could just log into Lacework and see for myself."
"I find the cloud configuration compliance scanning mature. It generates a lot of data and supports major frameworks like ISO 27001 or SOC 2, providing reports and datasets. Another feature I appreciate is setting custom alerts for specific events. Additionally, I value the agent-based monitoring and scanning for compute nodes. It gives us deeper insights into our workloads and helps identify vulnerabilities across our deployed assets."
"For the most part, out-of-the-box, it tells you right away about the things you need to work on. I like the fact that it prioritizes alerts based on severity, so that you can focus your efforts on anything that would be critical/high first, moderate second, and work your way down, trying to continue to improve your security posture."
"The most valuable aspects are identifying vulnerabilities—things that are out there that we aren't aware of—as well as finding what path of access attackers could use, and being able to see open SSL or S3 buckets and the like."
 

Cons

"I sometimes have difficulty detecting or uninstalling certain versions of applications, which I have to do manually."
"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."
"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."
"Their support could be improved."
"The price is very expensive, actually."
"We would like to see Windows-based sensors available in Qualys, as this would make the platform more versatile and support a broader range of environments."
"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"In general, I would not recommend Lacework right now. There are more mature solutions that would be a better fit."
"Lacework has not reduced the number of alerts we get. We've actually had to add resources as a result of using it because the application requires a lot of people to understand it to get the value out of it properly."
"I would like to see a remote access assistance feature. And the threat-hunting platform could be better."
"Its integrations with third-party SIEMs can be better. That is one of the things that we discussed with them."
"A feature that I have requested from them is the ability to sort alerts and policies based on a security framework. Right now, when you go into alerts, you have hundreds and hundreds of them that you have to manually pick. It would be useful to have categories for CIS Benchmark or SOC 2 and be able to display all the alerts and policies for one security framework."
"There are a couple of the difficulties we encounter in the realm of cybersecurity, or security as a whole, that relate to potentially limited clarity. Having the capacity to perceive the configuration aspect and having the ability to contribute to it holds substantial advantages, in my view. It ranks high, primarily due to its role in guaranteeing compliance and the potential to uncover vulnerabilities, which could infiltrate the system and introduce potential risks. I had been exploring a specific feature that captured my interest. However, just yesterday, I participated in a product update session that announced the imminent arrival of this feature. The feature involves real-time alerting. This was something I had been anticipating, and it seems that this capability is now being integrated, possibly as part of threat intelligence. While anomaly events consistently and promptly appear in the console, certain alerts tend to experience delays before being displayed. Yet, with the recent product update, this issue is expected to be resolved. Currently, a comprehensive view of all policies is available within the console. However, I want a more tailored display of my compliance posture, focusing specifically on policies relevant to me. For instance, if I'm not subject to HIPAA regulations, I'd prefer not to see the HIPAA compliance details. It's worth noting that even with this request, there exists a filtering mechanism to control the type of compliance information visible. This flexibility provides a workaround to my preference, which is why it's challenging for me to definitively state my exact request."
"The biggest thing I would like to see improved is for them to pursue and obtain a FedRAMP moderate authorization... I don't believe they have any immediate plans to get FedRAMP moderate authorized, which is a bit of a challenge for us because we can only use Lacework in our commercial environment."
"The customer support for FortiCNAPP is fine, though it can take time as we need to engage with AWS first, but I would rate it around 7 or 8 out of 10."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"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 offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"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 is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"My smaller deployments cost around 200,000 a year, which is probably not as expensive as Wiz."
"The licensing fee was approximately $80,000 USD, per year."
"The pricing has gotten better. That scenario was somewhat unstable. They have a rather interesting licensing structure. I believe you get 200 resources per "Lacework unit." It was difficult, in the beginning, to figure out exactly what a "resource" was... That was a problem until about a year or so ago. They have improved it and it has stabilized quite a bit."
"It is slightly expensive. It depends on how big your environment is, but it is expensive. Right now, we are spending a lot of money. We have covered all of the cloud providers and most of our colocation facilities as well, so we cannot complain, but it is slightly expensive. It is not super expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
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...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lacework?
The pricing is a mediator compared to other products; it is not that much higher and not much lower than other produc...
What needs improvement with Lacework?
When considering improvements for FortiCNAPP, I think there could be enhancements regarding the license, possibly add...
What is your primary use case for Lacework?
Deploying FortiCNAPP is easy for us because our technicians know FortiGate, which is the solution, and they are famil...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Cisco Tetration
Polygraph, FortiCNP, Lacework
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
J.Crew, AdRoll, Snowflake, VMWare, Iterable, Pure Storage, TrueCar, NerdWallet, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. FortiCNAPP and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.