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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs McAfee Vulnerability Manager for Databases [EOL] 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

IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Database Security (1st)
McAfee Vulnerability Manage...
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmer Faisel Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers mature agents, compliance reporting and reliable database security
The solution should allow the data to shift to a centralized repository with elastic servers and big data infrastructure. If a customer searches for old logs for retention purposes, there are limitations on appliances once they are set with specific hardware, so they can only be changed by uninstalling or reinstalling the hardware. The solution's aggregator feature allows data aggregation, but for instance, if a customer wants a project ready in two years, having an Elasticsearch in DB or the capacity to store huge amounts of data would be beneficial in data investigation or evaluation at an affordable cost. Some AI features should be added to IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. For example, the AI features implemented in the solution can be anomaly detection or suspicious activity identification.
Wahidur Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution's activity monitoring is valuable, but it should have more integrations and updates overall
Our primary use case for this solution is activity, authentication, and scans for audit purposes and priority assessments The feature I have found most valuable is activity monitoring. McAfee has not had many legacy features. They are not updating their value adjustment.In the next feature, I'd…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Audit Process Builder – Workflow generator to enhance audit tasks and compliance workflows."
"Being an IBM product it really offers security integration capabilities and robust features. Over the years, it has satisfactory met the requirements of our customers which makes it a very reliable and versatile solution."
"It sends out an immediate alert when there's suspicious activity."
"I think it scales pretty well. It can run on most of the database platforms currently out there. That is something we really like as a feature, because we try to hit everything in our environment to make sure we're meeting those regulations."
"It's made database monitoring more visible to the business, creating more conversations about how we should do it better."
"Its ability to find data."
"Our ability to see when users are accessing sensitive data."
"The tech support is very knowledgeable."
"The feature I have found most valuable is activity monitoring."
"The technical support is good; they are knowledgeable."
"The support is very good. They are very quick to respond when we have issues."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful, and convenient to improve the Chat support."
"The integration part of the present solution is very complex and tedious. Plus it gives a lot of false positives which need to be eradicated over time."
"​It will not go as fast as you want. ​"
"Guardium Data Protection is far better in terms of external integration. But in terms of firewall features, like when you're blocking activities, it's as if Oracle AVDF simply has superior features. This is just from third-party observations, but the users of Oracle AVDF are saying that when it comes to the firewall and protection functionality, they're much more inclined to AVDF."
"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."
"The documentation could be better."
"The most important requirements for us are integration with new database solutions and the ability to manage things like Jailbreak or something like that. Its reduction feature can also be improved. It has a functionality called reduction, which is like masking data, but it is just a replacement of characters. Sometimes the customer needs more than this. It would be good if it was more advanced or complete. We also have a problem with this solution because the IBM aggregator isn't working very well. IBM has created big data intelligence for Guardium, and occasionally, customers need three or four months of data, but they can't run it from the collectors. It can have a better dashboard and more pre-defined use cases for those customers who don't have any idea about data protection or don't have expert personnel in this area. For example, they can include five use cases for banks and five use cases for retail."
"The technical support is very poor."
"The UI needs to be improved."
"In the next feature, I'd like to see more integrations and updates overall, specifically bottom tech."
"Technical support could be more responsive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is very high price, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"One of the deployments that I know of had three databases, and the yearly fees are approximately $50,000 USD."
"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."
"It's an expensive solution"
"Guardium is most suitable for large scale enterprises because the pricing model is better if you are implementing a large number of databases."
"My company purchased IBM Guardium Data Protection in a package, so I'm unable to give its exact licensing cost, but for the package of three IBM solutions, it wasn't very expensive. I'd rate the pricing for all three solutions three out of five. When my team deployed IBM Guardium Data Protection, all features were included."
"It's not expensive compared to other products that are available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
The features I like are the robust policies, which allow us to create customized monitoring based on specific activities.
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Also Known As

InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Imperva, Oracle and others in Database Security. Updated: June 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.