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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (5th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (8th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
Vibin Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
Zero-trust micro-segmentation has strengthened security and improves east-west traffic visibility
While Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is a very powerful solution, there are a few areas where it could be improved. One of the main challenges is the initial deployment and policy design complexity. In large environments, understanding all application dependencies and creating the right policies can take time and requires close coordination with application teams. The user interface and policy management can also be improved. As the number of policies grows, managing and organizing them becomes slightly complex. A more simplified or intuitive policy structure would help operational teams. Another area is integration with other security tools such as SIEM or SOAR platforms. While integration is possible, making it more seamless and easier to configure would add value. Additionally, the reporting and dashboard could be enhanced to provide more customizable and business-level insights, especially for management and reporting. One small improvement I would suggest for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is having more automation capabilities for policy creation and recommendation. For example, AI-driven suggestions based on observed traffic patterns would help reduce manual effort during the initial policy design. It would also help to have more predefined templates for common use cases, especially for industries such as banking, to speed up deployment. Another area is enhanced reporting customization where we can easily generate business-level dashboards for management and compliance teams without any additional effort.
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
"Qualys TotalCloud has helped us view our risk structure, vulnerabilities, and security posture."
"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"I found the initial setup user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys TotalCloud is the visibility it provides."
"Qualys TotalCloud helps you not just to identify misconfigurations, but you can actually also fix issues."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its cloud security posture management, Kubernetes, and container security capabilities."
"We were able to realize its benefits within 24 to 48 hours."
"Guardicore Centra offers the best coverage specifically in backward compatibility with legacy operating systems."
"To us, if it prevents downtime, it's priceless."
"Guardicore is really top-tier in their customer support."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation has impacted my organization positively because we find it difficult to remove the legacy systems, so it was very important to segment them from the rest of the network to protect them and protect the rest of our network."
"The solution is very scalable, especially when connected to the cloud resources."
"The real bonus is the fact that we can secure applications, all the way down to the individual services, on each host. It's actually more granular security than we can get out of a traditional firewall."
"Application Ring-Fencing and Deception Server, which is basically like a honeypot, are pretty useful features."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility of processes and connections."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"The most valuable feature right now is to do with having visibility on the network — especially on our servers — and to be able to enforce some type of security measures."
"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."
"The solution is very user-friendly, which clients appreciate."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"Overall, this is a really good product and I am happy with it."
 

Cons

"There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"The support is not up to the mark and seems to be overburdened."
"Enhancing clarity regarding its compliance capabilities would be beneficial, as the current scope is limited in geographic coverage."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"TotalCloud could improve the classification of vulnerabilities. Specifically, it could enhance the categorization of what aspects fall under patches resolved by OS or software updates and what pertains to configuration adjustments."
"We encountered challenges identifying the correct resource category for certain items, such as those in containers or storage."
"A feature improvement could be the inclusion of Windows OS support for container security, as it is currently only supported for Linux."
"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."
"Reporting is one area where I think Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can be improved."
"Customers would want to see the cost improved."
"Sometimes, the speed needs improvement, especially when it comes to the generation of maps, where it can be a bit slow."
"I would rate the stability a six out of ten, where one is low and ten is high stability."
"What we hear most from customers is that it requires a kernel module."
"Incident tagging could be improved. Other vendors offer semi-automatic tagging, which Guardicore doesn't yet have."
"The dashboard needs improvement. It should be more flexible so that I can easily see what I want or need to see."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"The product should be easy to use, but it is not. Comparing it to other products, it was very complex."
"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 emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"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 entire interface could be improved; it's ugly and uninviting, and Tetration tends to be a lot more cumbersome and not very intuitive compared to the biggest competitor's modern-looking GUI."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"The price is the same as other products in the market. There's no price argument to choose one or the other product, it will cost the customer approximately the same."
"The solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"The customer would complain about the cost."
"The pricing is too high."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"Guardicore Centra provides better value for money than NSX, was the other solution that we looked at, which was too expensive for what it does."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"GuardiCore has made some new changes to the license now. We've seen monthly and annual licenses based on a subscription. We have a few clients that pay anywhere from $25,000 a year."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"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 price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is regarding the cloud visibility that we were not having previously. Previous...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Guardicore Centra?
Regarding pricing and setup cost, I don't have information because I am from a consulting team and not from the sales...
What needs improvement with Guardicore Infection Monkey?
Reporting is one area where I think Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can be improved. They are working on it, but as of...
What is your primary use case for Guardicore Infection Monkey?
My main use case for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is related to Kubernetes instrumentation and visibility, although...
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 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 cre...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
Cisco Tetration
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Cisco Secure Workload and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.
912,006 professionals have used our research since 2012.