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Cleanup vs IBM Security Guardium Data Protection 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

Cleanup
Ranking in Database Security
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Mainframe Security (12th)
IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Ranking in Database Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Database Security category, the mindshare of Cleanup is 1.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is 27.4%, down from 32.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection27.4%
Cleanup1.9%
Other70.7%
Database Security
 

Featured Reviews

it_user350628 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
It looks forward in the database, so if it’s not showing any activity, you can get rid of that profile. But, if I give someone access to it, I can’t control the scope of what they can see.
It presents problems. The problem is, if I give someone access to it, I can’t control the scope of what they can see. They can see everything. I want to make the information available and more integrated with other security components, and I want it to be more reliable. It also needs acknowledgement that clean-up data can come from temporary cloned environments that somehow need to be incorporated into enterprise view of usage.
HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized monitoring has improved audit readiness and streamlines investigations of data access
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where I think it could be improved. One area is alert tuning and prioritization. Large environments can generate a significant number of alerts, and while the platform provides good visibility, reducing noise and automatically highlighting the highest-risk events would help security teams work more efficiently. Another area is ease of administration. As environments become more complex with cloud, hybrid, and on-premises databases, managing policies and configurations can require significant effort. Simplifying some of those workflows could reduce the operational overhead for administration. I would also like to see deeper automation and more advanced analytic capabilities. The security industry as a whole is moving toward faster threat detection and automated response, and having more built-in intelligence to identify unusual behavior with less manual tuning would be valuable. A couple of additional areas come to mind regarding needed improvements for IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. Integration is one of them. IBM Security Guardium Data Protection integrates with a variety of security tools, but as organizations adopt more cloud-native platforms and multicloud environments, smoother integration and simpler deployment processes would be beneficial. Many security teams are managing dozens of tools today, so reducing integration complexity can save a lot of operational effort. From a usability perspective, some administration and reporting tasks could be more intuitive, especially for new users. The platform is feature-rich, which is a strength, but it can also create a learning curve. Regarding support, my experience has generally been positive, but complex issues can sometimes require coordination across multiple teams before they are fully resolved. One feature I appreciate about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is the detailed audit trail that IBM Security Guardium Data Protection maintains. When investigating an issue, having a historical record of database activity can save a lot of time and provide the context needed to understand what happened. That is especially useful for compliance and forensic investigations. As for a wish-list item, I would like to see even more intelligent alert correlation and risk prioritization. A challenge across the security industry is that teams often deal with a large number of alerts from different tools, and determining which ones require immediate attention can still be time-consuming. Although IBM Security Guardium Data Protection already provides strong monitoring capabilities, more automated context and prioritization could help security teams focus on the highest-risk events faster.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is good, and they're great once they agree there’s a problem."
"The tech support is very knowledgeable."
"We also use IBM Guardium to support security initiatives and compliance policies. For example, our audit area can verify if someone has access to information that they shouldn't have, for their regular job functions."
"We acquired Guardium to encrypt certain databases to meet a customer requirement and it has been performing to spec."
"For us, the most valuable features are the auditing capabilities and the Guardium inspection engine."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for the customers is the monitoring and full log of the database activity of privileged users."
"It has been very difficult to analyze all the network traffic with something else. Guardium provides that feature, it's heuristic. So we have rule-based algorithms in place to take care of that."
"All the features are useful for the customer and they have many use cases, especially for DB protection."
"This is a textured product and the brand equity of IBM means it's reliable."
 

Cons

"Use it as an indication of data, not as gospel. Don’t take action based solely on it."
"If IBM Guardium Data Protection could find a way to not have a lot of coding and development required to get the solution up and running it would be an advantage. The information of the agent could improve, which is necessary for us to monitor the databases would be a great benefit."
"I would like them to support cloud services."
"The installation is not straightforward at all. In fact, it is very, very complicated."
"I would like to see a lot of additional reporting and analytics features. They have basic outlier detection, but I would love to see that go further, and model it after analytics tools like Splunk."
"It would be helpful, and convenient to improve the Chat support."
"It was difficult implementing it, configuring it, getting it up and running and in production. However, since then, I believe it has stabilized."
"While Guardium is great at structured monitoring (DAM), the product is lacking features on the file activity side (FAM)."
"Right now, we're in the development phase for IBM Guardium Data Protection, so I don't have any recommendations about additional features and room for improvement in the solution. We're very excited to work on IBM Guardium Data Protection because we are new to the solution, and we're still exploring product features. We're very excited about integrations and use case creation, and it's only after six to eight months that I'll be able to share my recommendations in terms of additional features the solution should have. We did find some difficulty in deploying IBM Guardium Data Protection here in Pakistan because of the lack of resources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"The cost depends on the number of databases. You can purchase advanced licenses, but the standard license is calculated based on the number of databases you have to onboard."
"Guardium is most suitable for large scale enterprises because the pricing model is better if you are implementing a large number of databases."
"IBM Guardium Data Protection charges you based on the number of users, e.g. based on the number of licenses, and it's either on a per-license or a per-data basis."
"I would suggest to review the type of data, need for security, and if the organizational structure needs the options IBM Guardium provides."
"​If you are researching this type of solution, work with IBM."
"IBM solutions have fair price strategy, and operates on a yearly basis. If it's a SaaS solution, then you can opt for yearly basis."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
22%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

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How does IBM Guardium Data Protection compare with Imperva SecureSphere Database Security?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a solution for database security from IBM that gives complete visibility, control, and analysis to secure sensitive data and comply with regulations. IBM S...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Guardium Data Protection?
I don't remember the exact prices, but Guardium is an expensive tool because it is targeted towards corporate enterprises.
What needs improvement with IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where I think it could be improved. One area is alert tuning and prioritization. Large environments can generat...
 

Also Known As

CA Cleanup
InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Standard Bank of South Africa
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Imperva, Oracle and others in Database Security. Updated: July 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.