Cisco Secure Workload vs Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform comparison

Cisco Secure Workload vs. Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform

Download the complete report

Helped 909,725 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 Workload

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (18th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)

Qualys Enterprise TruRisk P...

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 8.7%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform is 1.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Workload	8.7%
Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform	1.4%
Other	89.9%

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

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

Prashant-Kamble

VP – Head PM O at Vodafone Idea Ltd.

Governance dashboards have improved risk visibility but still need smarter automated decisions

The governance part is the most prominent area for improvement. We want to have a dashboard with just one click where the KPIs are pre-configured as per the business requirement and those things are monitored on a regular basis to check how things are moving. Governance and high-level management or board level visibility matter the most. We are trying to incorporate artificial models which can take care of many things that are currently taken care of manually or through certain jobs so that they can be automated with the help of AI models or agents. We will progress as the AI model matures with pattern learning and all those things. We want self-decision capabilities. Not just analysis and giving alerts, but even taking decisions of actions and performing those actions. The first step would be to not only alert that there is an issue or threat, but to evaluate the threat itself in generality and suggest something. The second step is where those suggestions will definitely have some good minds working on them, but only if they are suitable will we make it as a learning model. Otherwise, we will discard and modify those things. The second level would be to let the learning model learn and then gradually figure out whether we can delegate the decision in the sense of the action that they can perform, see it and then evaluate whether it is falling in line as per the expectation. This is how we will progress on a use case basis only.

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

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

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

"I am really quite satisfied with them."

"The major benefits of the product include that Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform is very detailed and combines with the vulnerability management solution, providing us the true risk platform to outline the risky applications and payloads in the network."

"Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform is considered a good leader in its field."

"Qualys offers versatility. It can function both with and without agents, offering flexibility in deployment. Furthermore, it provides comprehensive support for various systems such as Windows Server, Unix servers, and databases, including SQL, Oracle, and others for development."

"The best feature in Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform is TruRisk, which includes the calculation of risk of any kind."

"Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform was helpful with threat prioritization features for resource allocation, and it played a good role in our analysis and day-to-day monitoring."

"The agent itself is the only thing that benefits my organization because all functionalities are tied to one agent."

"Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform positively impacts our organization by saving time and reducing the need for more employees for operations, with notable money saved."

More Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform pros

Cons

"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."

"The product must be integrated with the cloud."

"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."

"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 problem is that we can only deploy the particular solution where we have the hardware with Cisco."

"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."

"The emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

"The technical support of Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform can be improved because sometimes we are waiting too long for responses from them."

"The report sometimes inaccurately identifies the corresponding operating system version."

"The primary disadvantage is that it requires a lot of compute resources to implement."

"We experience some initial challenges with integration, as the response from the SME is too slow."

"There are areas for improvement in their support structure."

"Unfortunately, the only problem I see is that the kind of technology they sell is not casual for security because it is not a real crucial technology if you are a medium company."

"Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform does not have good qualities, and we are struggling to use this tool to achieve what we are looking for in terms of exposure management in our environment."

"Once we supplied 130 URLs to it for scanning one by one, and it crashed in between. We did not have any clue what happened, so we had to reach out to support."

More Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud and Data Center Security solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

17%

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Transportation Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

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?

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 create a dependency map for Cisco ACI. As the network team, we chose to implement A...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform?

I obtained Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform directly from a partner and not through the AWS Marketplace.

What needs improvement with Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform?

Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform does not have good qualities, and we are struggling to use this tool to achieve what we are looking for in terms of exposure management in our environment. The re...

What is your primary use case for Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform?

My main use case for Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform is to provide a view of the exposure management risk of the company for vulnerabilities and other capabilities including cloud solutions. I s...

Illumio Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Comparisons

Compared 14% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 13% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 5% of the time

BMC Helix Cloud Security vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform

Compared 23% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform

Compared 19% of the time

Qualys TotalCloud vs Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Rapid7 InsightCloudSec vs Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform

Compared 6% of the time

More Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Cisco Secure Workload

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform

Download Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform product report

Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform report

Also Known As

Cisco Tetration

Qualys Cloud Platform

Overview

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

Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform provides robust risk management, supporting both agent-based and agentless deployments, scanning environments, categorizing risks, and prioritizing threats with machine learning capabilities.

Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform enhances vulnerability management across diverse systems, including Windows Server, databases, and network devices. It assigns CVE and CVSS scores, delivers detailed reports, and guides threat prioritization. Machine learning enables precise risk assessment and prioritization, suggesting remediation for security improvements. Users have noted support efficiency and UI improvements needed for customized checks and downloads, with AI integration highlighted as lacking compared to competitors.

What are the key features of Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform?

Versatile Deployments: Suitable for agent and agentless setups, expanding its utility across environments.
Comprehensive Vulnerability Data: Includes CVE/CVSS scores, detailed risk information, and extensive reporting capabilities.
Risk Assessment & Prioritization: Machine learning-driven insights for prioritizing and mitigating threats effectively.
Compatibility: Supports Windows Server, databases, network devices, and Kubernetes, ensuring thorough coverage.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Improved Security Posture: Identifies critical vulnerabilities that might be overlooked, ensuring comprehensive risk management.
Time Efficiency: Automates scanning and reporting, reducing manual effort and speeding up threat mitigation.
Enhanced Compliance: Assists in meeting security standards, aiding zero-trust implementation and overall enterprise compliance.

Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform is leveraged in industries for vulnerability scans across internal networks, URLs, and IP addresses, especially within cloud and hybrid environments. It supports businesses in securing Windows, Linux, and Kubernetes clusters, offering internal asset and vulnerability assessments, and aiding in zero-trust security strategies.

Qualys

Sample Customers

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Information Not Available

Cisco Secure Workload vs. Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform