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Cisco Secure Workload vs IBM Cloud Pak for Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Workload
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (13th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)
IBM Cloud Pak for Security
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
29th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 13.6%, up from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Security is 0.0%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Workload13.6%
IBM Cloud Pak for Security0.0%
Other86.4%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
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
reviewer1907040 - PeerSpot reviewer
Great user-friendly interface; provides many functionalities and many free applications
The interface is good and very user-friendly, it's easy for our customers to use. Cloud Pak provides a lot of functionalities and many free applications available from the online shop which can be deployed to your system. It allows for an increase in functionalities even if you've bought the smallest installation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"The product provides multiple-device integration."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"The interface is good and very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"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."
"The emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"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 I need to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."
"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 product must be integrated with the cloud."
"Lacks sufficient technical support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?
The product provides multiple-device integration.
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...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
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, provid...
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Also Known As

Cisco Tetration
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Information Not Available
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