AWS GuardDuty vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cisco are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.0, while Cisco is ranked #23. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 7.2% mindshare in CWPP, compared to Cisco’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 12, 2024

Cisco Secure Workload and AWS GuardDuty are competitors in the workload security space. AWS GuardDuty appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced threat detection capabilities and overall perceived value.

Features: Cisco Secure Workload is recognized for robust security measures, integration capabilities, and competitive pricing. AWS GuardDuty is favored for advanced threat detection, ease of use, and seamless AWS integration.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Workload requires better scalability, enhanced reporting features, and improved flexibility in its scaling options. AWS GuardDuty needs advancement in integration options, reduction in false positives, and improvement in integration flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Secure Workload provides smooth deployment processes and responsive customer support. AWS GuardDuty offers straightforward integration with AWS environments but lacks personalized customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Workload is noted for competitive pricing and solid ROI. AWS GuardDuty, despite higher costs, is often seen as offering better value through its effective threat detection and capability to deliver strong ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload

September 2026

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS GuardDuty is 7.2%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud	1.9%
AWS GuardDuty	7.2%
Cisco Secure Workload	2.1%
Other	88.8%

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021

Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats

The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.

Read full review

ShantanuKhare

Senior IT Auditor at Ernst & Young

Has provided automated threat detection and daily malicious activity insights while supporting seamless orchestration with existing dashboards

I would assess the integration of AWS GuardDuty with Threat Intelligence as majorly positive; no threat intelligence is 100% accurate, and there are a few false positives, but as a security engineer, this must be accepted, and overall, the response and service is good for us. We do not directly use AWS GuardDuty dashboard by itself, as we have our own integrated security dashboard; AWS GuardDuty gives the feed to that dashboard, and it's giving us a satisfactory view of how the security landscape looks. We use metrics such as zero-day threats, any malicious traffic, and any traffic which originates from OFAC countries to measure its effectiveness, as we are majorly into a financial institution, as any traffic that is from a malicious IP or a rogue device. I don't see any significant negative points regarding AWS GuardDuty; it's a good product to have if you're a cloud consumer. I rate AWS GuardDuty nine out of ten overall.

Read full review

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

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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 of Qualys TotalCloud is the visibility it provides."

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."

"I appreciate TotalCloud's real-time protection and remediation features. The remediation options include automated one-click remedies and custom changes that help manage vulnerabilities efficiently."

"The ability to identify cloud misconfigurations, prioritize security risks, and monitor cloud resources from a single platform is quite valuable."

"My experience with using TruRisk to mitigate noise from raw CVEs has been extremely effective."

"Having everything in a single place to look for it and a single integration into ServiceNow has been the big transformation."

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its cloud security posture management, Kubernetes, and container security capabilities."

"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view of risk, reducing the workload associated with consolidating multiple sources for risk prioritization."

More Qualys TotalCloud pros

"Deployment is great, and we didn't face any big challenges."

"The solution provides AWS GuardDuty S3 protection, EKS runtime protection, and malware protection."

"GuardDuty's comprehensive threat detection does not only monitor data - it also detects a wide range of security threats."

"The way it monitors accounts is definitely a very important feature."

"It helps us detect brute-force attacks based on machine learning."

"The correlation back end is the solution's most valuable feature."

"With anomaly detection, active threat monitoring, and set correlation, GuardDuty alerts me to any unusual user behavior or traffic patterns right away, which is great for staying on top of potential security risks."

"The out-of-band malware detection from the EBS volumes. It's really cool. No agents or anything needed, it automatically finds and correlates based on malware."

More AWS GuardDuty pros

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

"It's stable."

"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 product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."

"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."

"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"Some major banks and insurance companies require an on-premises solution for comprehensive vulnerability management, which TotalCloud does not offer."

"Overall, we are satisfied with it. However, the response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved. It is not yet in place according to requirements; it is not completely available even though the module has been released."

"I would like the ability to disable certain default built-in policies as they can be misleading when creating dashboards. That is the top one."

"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."

"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."

"We would like to see Windows-based sensors available in Qualys, as this would make the platform more versatile and support a broader range of environments."

"I sometimes have difficulty detecting or uninstalling certain versions of applications, which I have to do manually."

"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."

More Qualys TotalCloud cons

"We currently find Lacework to be much better at detecting vulnerabilities than AWS GuardDuty. The engines of AWS GuardDuty have to be improved."

"While sending the alerts to the email, they are not being patched. we have to do the patching and mapping manually. If GuardDuty could include a feature to do this automatically, it will make our job easier. That is something I believe can be improved."

"The solution's user interface could be improved because it will help users to understand multiple options."

"AWS GuardDuty sometimes shows false positives and should have better detection accuracy."

"Because it's a threat detection service, they need to keep up with the various threat factors because new threat factors and attack factors come up all the time."

"Comparing AWS GuardDuty to similar products from Microsoft, Microsoft has a product called Sentinel, which is a completely integrated solution that basically does everything from vulnerability management to managing log analytics. This is something which AWS GuardDuty doesn't have since it's a separate service."

"For the next release, they could provide IPS features as well."

"The product needs to improve its cost-efficiency since it is expensive."

More AWS GuardDuty cons

"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."

"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."

"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."

"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."

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

"It has an uninviting interface."

"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."

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

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."

"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."

"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."

"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."

"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."

"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."

More Qualys TotalCloud pricing and cost advice

"80 percent of the customers are using AWS GuardDuty, and we recommend it due to its low cost, especially for small customers, ranging from five to ten dollars a month. In our policies, we enforce the usage of this service, making it a recommended practice for security."

"The platform is inexpensive."

"The price of the solution is exactly right."

"We use a pay-as-you-use license, which is competitively priced in the market."

"Pricing is determined by the number of events sent."

"I prefer to have something on demand for myself. That's why I haven't been paying for GuardDuty specifically. AWS provides a wide range of offerings, especially in the security area."

"GuardDuty only enables accounts in regions where you have an active workload. If there are places where you don't have an active workload, you wouldn't even enable them. That's one area where they could allow you to cut down your cost."

"In terms of the costs associated with Amazon GuardDuty, it was $1 per GB from what I recall. Pricing was based on per gigabyte. For example, for the first five hundred gigabytes per month, it'll be $1 per GB, so it'll be $500. If your usage was greater, there's another bracket, for example, the next two thousand GB, then there's an add-on cost of 50 cents per GB. That's how Amazon GuardDuty pricing slowly goes up. I can't remember if there was any kind of additional cost apart from standard licensing for the solution. Nothing else that at least comes to mind. What the service was charging was worth it. That was one good thing when using Amazon GuardDuty because my company could be in a certain tier for a certain period. My company wasn't under a licensing model where it could overestimate its usage and under-utilize its usage and pay much more. This was what made the pricing model for Amazon GuardDuty better."

More AWS GuardDuty pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."

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

"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 pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

18%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	16

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?

We purchased Qualys TotalCloud for GCP and Azure as well. It is comparatively better than others regarding pricing. T...

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What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?

I am unsure about how Qualys TotalCloud can be improved. I do not have anything else to add about the needed improvem...

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What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?

My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is telemetry, although I am unsure about the specifics. A quick specific examp...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon GuardDuty?

AWS GuardDuty is an expensive feature, and while you can't expect the price to be low, it can be lower because it's p...

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What needs improvement with Amazon GuardDuty?

AWS GuardDuty is a good product; it's doing its job right now, and I don't see any additional improvements needed. Co...

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What is your primary use case for Amazon GuardDuty?

We generally use AWS GuardDuty for detection of zero-day vulnerabilities and automatic threat responses; it serves as...

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Comparisons

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Compared 56% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

TrendAI Vision One – Cloud Security vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 4% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 4% of the time

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Illumio Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 12% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 11% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 7% of the time

BMC Helix Cloud Security vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 6% of the time

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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Qualys TotalCloud

October 2026

Download Qualys TotalCloud product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty

October 2026

Download AWS GuardDuty product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

October 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan

No data available

Cisco Tetration

Overview

Qualys TotalCloud enhances security posture across cloud environments with continuous monitoring, vulnerability management, and risk visualization, ensuring efficient threat assessment and automated remediation for improved cyber risk reduction.

Qualys TotalCloud offers a robust suite of security tools essential for organizations managing multi-cloud infrastructures. By integrating cloud accounts and automating workflows, it supports AWS, Azure, and GCP, offering comprehensive vulnerability management and zero-day detection. The platform's user-friendly design, combined with its extensive risk management and unified threat assessment capabilities, enables organizations to prioritize and remediate vulnerabilities effectively. TruRisk Insights provides clear insights on cyber risks, while the automation options streamline patch management and scanning processes. API integration across IaaS and SaaS environments further enhances resource allocation efficiency and saves time, addressing misconfigurations across cloud environments.

What are the most important features of Qualys TotalCloud?

Accurate Vulnerability Reports: Delivers precise and actionable insights for risk mitigation.
Zero-Day Detection: Identifies and addresses zero-day vulnerabilities proactively.
Unified Threat Assessment: Offers comprehensive evaluation of threats across the environment.
Extensive Risk Management: Manages risks effectively with advanced insights and prioritization.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides non-stop surveillance for vulnerabilities and threats.
Cloud-Native Automation: Streamlines processes and reduces manual efforts using automation.
FlexScan for Internet-Facing VMs: Scans external VMs efficiently to detect vulnerabilities.
Dashboard Risk Visualization: Clear visualization helps prioritize vulnerabilities.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Security Posture: Enhances threat detection and response across clouds.
Time Savings: Automation reduces time spent on manual vulnerability management.
Resource Efficiency: Better allocation of resources through streamlined workflows.
Enhanced Risk Prioritization: Focus on critical vulnerabilities for effective mitigation.
Integrated Cloud Accounts: Facilitates seamless cloud management and security.

Qualys TotalCloud is deployed in sectors needing rigorous vulnerability management, such as finance and healthcare. Companies utilize it to secure multi-cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and GCP, focus on compliance, and integrate security into CI/CD pipelines to detect and remedy threats pre-deployment.

Qualys

AWS GuardDuty is a security service providing threat detection and continuous monitoring, integrating seamlessly with AWS services and third-party tools. Enhanced by machine learning, it offers comprehensive protection against unauthorized access and malicious activity within AWS environments.

GuardDuty offers behavior analysis and automated responses, utilizing multiple data sources like CloudTrail and VPC Flow Logs for thorough threat analysis. Its scalability and cost-effectiveness simplify the process of identifying suspicious activities, thereby protecting AWS environments from security threats. While users appreciate these features, there's room for improvement in expanded integrations, a more intuitive dashboard, and detailed threat intelligence. Key capabilities include facilitating compliance and enhancing cloud security by monitoring accounts, services, and detecting unusual patterns in real-time.

What are the key features of AWS GuardDuty?

Threat Detection: Identifies potential threats using behavior analysis and anomaly detection.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides round-the-clock surveillance of AWS environments.
Integration: Connects with AWS services and third-party tools for extended functionality.
Automated Responses: Facilitates immediate action against detected threats.

What benefits and ROI should users expect from AWS GuardDuty reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Offers scalable solutions without significant overhead costs.
Ease of Use: Simplifies threat detection and monitoring processes.
Scalability: Adapts to growing security needs efficiently.
Comprehensive Security: Protects AWS environments from unauthorized access and malicious activities.

Industries utilize AWS GuardDuty for robust security management, detecting threats and analyzing potential risks within AWS environments. This is crucial for sectors needing strict compliance and security, such as finance and healthcare, enabling these sectors to respond effectively to security events and maintain integrity.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

autodesk, mapbox, fico, webroot

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload

September 2026

Free Report: AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload

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