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Cisco Secure Workload vs Illumio comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
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Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
2nd
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
9th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
Illumio
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
6th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 2.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 13.2%, up from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 22.8%, down from 24.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security2.6%
Illumio22.8%
Cisco Secure Workload13.2%
Other61.4%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Ritesh P. - PeerSpot reviewer
It's more scalable and flexible than our previous solution because we don't need to install any agents
The reporting works well, but sometimes the severity classifications are inaccurate. Sometimes, it flags an issue as high-impact, but it should be a lower severity. For example, it might highlight an exposed AWS encryption key, a critical compliance issue, but it isn't tagged as a high-risk problem. That only happens about 10 percent of the time. It shows a true positive 80-90 percent of the time.
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
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My favorite feature is Storyline."
"SentinelOne is far superior to our previous solution, Accops, due to its seamless updates, effortless maintenance, and user-friendly interface and dashboard."
"Singularity Cloud Workload Security provides us with better security detection and more visibility. It is another resource that we can use to detect vulnerabilities in our company's systems. For example, it can help us detect new file processes that we are not familiar with, which could be used by attackers to exploit our systems. Singularity Cloud Workload Security can also help us diagnose and analyze data to determine whether it is malicious or not. Singularity Cloud Workload Security is like another pair of eyes that can help us protect our systems from cyberattacks."
"We like SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's vulnerability assessment and management features, and its vulnerability databases."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is excellent, and I highly recommend it."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has significantly improved our risk posture."
"The GUI is one of the best features. Audit reports and documentation for alerts are also valuable."
"The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best features."
"It's stable."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"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 is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"The dependency map is most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"The solution is easy to use."
"I would recommend Illumio to all sizes of companies."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"Customer support is excellent."
 

Cons

"While SentinelOne offers robust security features, its higher cost may present a challenge for budget-conscious organizations."
"Customized queries should be made easier to improve SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security."
"There is room for improvement in the current active licensing model for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security."
"While SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers real-time response, there is room for improvement in alert accuracy."
"A beneficial improvement for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security would be integration with Jira, allowing for a more streamlined ticketing system."
"A few YouTube videos could be helpful. There isn't a lot of information out there to look at."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security can improve by eliminating 100 percent of the false positives."
"The alerting system of the product is an area that I look at and sometimes get confused about. I feel the alerting feature needs improvement."
"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"The emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"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'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 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."
"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 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 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."
"We need more details on areas where there is an error or a traffic blockage. I would like the tool to offer a more detailed view."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"I have not had the chance to experiment deeply with it."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing tends to be high."
"The price depends on the extension of the solution that you want to buy. If you want to buy just EDR, the price is less. XDR is a little bit more expensive. There are going to be different add-ons for Singularity."
"While SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers robust protection, its high cost may be prohibitive for small and medium-sized businesses."
"The pricing for PingSafe in India was more reasonable than other competitors."
"The tool is cost-effective."
"The features included in PingSafe justify its price point."
"It's a fair price for what you get. We are happy with the price as it stands."
"It was reasonable pricing for me."
"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."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise55
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?
The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?
I think the pricing of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is a bit high.
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
One area that could be improved in SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is their policies; the way they have config...
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 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 do you like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is t...
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. Th...
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Cisco Tetration
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. Illumio and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
870,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.