Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

Check Point Software Technologies and Cisco are both solutions in the Cloud and Data Center Security category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.6, while Cisco is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.5. Check Point Software Technologies holds a 2.5% mindshare in CDCS, compared to Cisco’s 11.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...

Read 161 Check Point CloudGuard Network Security reviews

6,019 Views
1,083 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Workload

Read 15 Cisco Secure Workload reviews

4,501 Views
3,151 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...

Cisco Secure Workload

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Cisco Secure Workload compete in the network security domain. Cisco Secure Workload is observed to generally offer superior features, while Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is acknowledged for its pricing and customer support.

Features: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides advanced threat prevention, comprehensive visibility, and flexible management across cloud environments. Cisco Secure Workload excels in workload protection, zero-trust security, and micro-segmentation, giving it an edge with workload-centric features.

Room for Improvement: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could benefit from enhanced integration with more third-party tools, improved user interface for cloud management, and more frequent updates to threat intelligence. Cisco Secure Workload could improve by simplifying its deployment complexity, enhancing scalability options for smaller businesses, and reducing the steep learning curve associated with its setup.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers an intuitive deployment process with strong customer service and technical support. Cisco Secure Workload requires a more complex deployment process with a noticeable learning curve, although it provides good integration capabilities across various environments.

Pricing and ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is known for its cost-effectiveness and strong ROI, appealing to budget-conscious organizations. Cisco Secure Workload involves higher initial costs but justifies them with its extensive features, offering satisfactory ROI over the long term as per some users’ perspectives.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,082 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

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)

Cisco Secure Workload

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

8th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (14th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 2.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 11.5%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security	2.5%
Cisco Secure Workload	11.5%
Other	86.0%

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

Martin Raška

Senior Security Engineer & Instructor at Arrow Electronics

Unification of security features strengthens network protection

The overall network security is good. It's big-picture, all in one bundle. It's valuable to have everything in one place instead of spreading across different products. Unified security management positively affects a company's security operations. They have one unified view of the security. I can connect multiple gateways to the management and have it in one place. I can have reporting and views in a single pane of glass on the consolidated platform. It's easy to use. The management is the best on the market. It's very easy to work with, read, understand, and navigate. It helps increase our customer's security posture. We can see in some cases CloudGuard improves our customers' posture 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

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 router's anti-bot feature and network security for detecting malware and preventing its spread are critical components. Additionally, there are other features like antivirus, anti-malware, and a firewall. T"

"The security configuration features have enhanced the reliable coordination of programs and data safety."

"Now, we can filter which websites users can access and block categories that are a risk. For example, we can block social media and gambling sites. This has helped to decrease the risk of access to malicious content on the internet."

"Check Point has pretty simple solutions, like the virtual appliance which you just download and it is imported into VMware and you just start using it."

"If you are looking at the value and security and you do not want to compromise, then Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is one of the best solutions you could have in your organization."

"We have very good visibility or granularity regarding security."

"I give it a ten out of ten."

"The solution has been quite stable."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pros

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

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

"It's stable."

"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 most valuable feature of this solution is security."

"The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network."

"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"The challenge mainly revolves around the slower functionality of virtual IP switching in Azure Virtual Network compared to on-premise solutions. On-premise, switching between clusters is faster, taking only a few seconds, while in Azure, it can extend up to five minutes. The downtime is a concern for us."

"I want the upgrades of their CloudGuard solution to major versions to be easier. We have had a few small hiccups. They have different types of cloud clusters called Geo Clusters, and those just cannot be upgraded past a certain point, which is a hurdle that we are currently experiencing."

"Its architecture and user interface need improvement. The user experience for this solution also needs to be improved, particularly in implementation, management, and operations."

"Zero touch removes any independence for configuring."

"In the next release, including VRF support would be highly beneficial."

"There is room for improvement in how it handles deployment itself, but I am not sure. It could be due to Azure's limitations, not Check Point's. Deploying a new firewall is quite bulky and not straightforward, especially in managing the resource group and networks. These issues seem to come more from the Azure part."

"For major upgrades, it's still necessary to destroy the VMs and re-create them again. Doing that would mean new public IPs as well."

"New features have been introduced recently, but they have not yet been integrated into CloudGuard Vsec."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security cons

"I'd like to see better documentation for advanced features. The documentation is fairly basic. I would also like to see better integration with other applications."

"It has an uninviting interface."

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

"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 I need to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."

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

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

"There's room for improvement when it comes to Cisco Secure Workload. A couple of internal areas could be refined a little bit. They are trying to solve it, depending on where you suppose the agent is. Suppose you have the agent on both the server and the client, which could be the front-end server or web server connecting to the. In that case, if those two are communicating on RPC, the server can look into its configuration. It could go down and find the configuration file on the FTP server and then set the policies to it. But there are a lot of different FTP servers out there. It's also a complex case for the tool to support all FTP servers."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We explored both pay-as-you-go and build-your-own-licensing models, and found both to be competitive."

"As a partner and solution provider for the last fifteen years, I have distanced myself from specific numbers. However, customer trust in the product is evident due to its comprehensive protective capabilities."

"There is flexibility in the different licensing models that are offered."

"When customers compare it with Sophos or any other products, the price is on the higher side."

"Generally, it has been fine for me. I can find my way around the price list, and it is pretty simple."

"We got discounts on pricing."

"It is expensive."

"The solution's licensing is based on the number of users of the VMs. We follow a pay-as-you-go model. Its pricing is competitive."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pricing and cost advice

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

"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 cost for the hardware is around 300k."

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

"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."

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

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	67
Midsize Enterprise	40
Large Enterprise	76

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

The tool's most valuable feature is its management console.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Although I do not know much about the pricing or setup costs, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very cost-effective. If you want to secure your organization completely from all ends agains...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could be improved with faster policy propagation across large multi-cloud environments and more intuitive dashboards for complex rule sets.

See all answers

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?

The product provides multiple-device integration.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 14% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 9% of the time

Trend Micro Deep Security vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 5% of the time

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Competitors

Illumio vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 18% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 15% of the time

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 14% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 10% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 8% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

January 2026

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security report

Download Check Point CloudGuard Network Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

January 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Cisco Tetration

Overview

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers centralized management, robust threat prevention, and seamless integration with major public clouds, ensuring consistent security for cloud and on-premises environments. It combines ease of use with flexibility across diverse IT infrastructure.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides comprehensive protection for IT infrastructures in AWS, Azure, and hybrid environments. It ensures firewall security, managing traffic and securing cloud infrastructures while maintaining network protection and compliance enforcement. Organizations benefit from its centralized security governance, enhanced visibility, and threat prevention for both perimeter and internal security. It offers seamless integration with leading cloud platforms, allowing for efficient deployment and scalability, aligning with modern cloud requirements.

What are the key features of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Ease of Setup and Use: Provides a user-friendly setup process and intuitive operation.
Robust Threat Prevention: Offers advanced capabilities to safeguard against potential threats.
Auto-Scaling: Adjusts resources dynamically to meet demand without manual intervention.
Centralized Management: Ensures uniform security policies across cloud and on-premises environments.
Integration with Major Public Clouds: Seamlessly works with AWS, Azure, and other leading platforms.
Intuitive ACL Menu: Simplifies access control list management with an easy-to-navigate interface.
Customizable Policy Options: Allows for personalized security settings suited to specific requirements.

What benefits should companies look for in Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Through automation and comprehensive reporting, organizations streamline operations.
Consistent Security Management: Offers uniform policies across different environments, reducing complexity.
Improved Threat Detection: Increases the ability to identify and respond to threats quickly.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing or changing infrastructure needs without compromising security.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and tech, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is vital for protecting sensitive data, managing compliance, and safeguarding daily operations. Its robust integration capabilities support diverse infrastructure setups, assisting companies in maintaining high-security standards efficiently.

Check Point Software Technologies

Cisco Secure Workload is a cloud and data security solution that offers a zero-trust policy of keeping an organization’s application workloads safe and secure throughout the entire on-premise and cloud data center ecosystems.

Cisco Secure Workload will consistently provide protection by discovering workload process anomalies, stopping threats immediately, minimizing the risk threat surface, and aborting any lateral movement.

Today’s ecosystems are very elastic, and in the application-focused dynamic of today’s aggressive marketplace, Cisco Secure Workload delivers a robust security solution that works effectively with today’s most popular applications. The solution uniquely surrounds each and every workload to ensure organizations are able to keep their data, network, and applications safe and secure at all times. Cisco Secure Workload ensures that enterprise organizations can maintain secure applications by consistently building firewalls around every workload level throughout the entire ecosystem. The solution can manage applications that are deployed on containers, virtual machines, or bare-metal servers.

Cisco Secure workload is able to meet an organization's busy needs and offers flexible options such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premises options. Using the Secure Workload SaaS options, users receive all the benefits of Cisco Secure Workload protection without the hassle of having to deploy and maintain the platform on premises. Users are responsible for acquiring the necessary software licensing and deploying software agents. Using SaaS, Secure Workload runs in the cloud and is operated and maintained by Cisco. This option offers the ability to scale easily and is a popular choice for SaaS-first and SaaS-only clients. Many organizations find they get the best TCO and achieve the best productivity and profitability using the SaaS options.

When choosing on-premises options, organizations choose between hardware-based appliance models (large or small form factors). Platform selection is dependent on scalability goals, the desired fidelity level of flow telemetry, and the actual number of workloads. When a user chooses to configure Cisco Secure Workload for a conversation-only flow telemetry for all workloads, each platform has the capability to scale up vertically twice the default platform scale. Additionally, with Secure Workload, it is possible for the platform to be scaled horizontally in order to satisfy the demands of extra large widely distributed enterprise environments using federation capabilities.

Cisco Secure Workload also provides a robust disaster recovery (DR) tool, which helps to make it a complete, comprehensive solution. The DR allows for continuous restore and backup capabilities that enable users to quickly remediate operations and data to a standby cluster in the event of a drastic failure or disaster.

Reviews from Real Users

“The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network. Other valuable features include vast support for annotations, flexible user applications, machine learning, automatic classification, and hierarchical policies.” - CTO at a tech vendor

Cisco

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload

December 2025

Free Report: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload

Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload report.

See our list of best Cloud and Data Center Security vendors.

We monitor all Cloud and Data Center Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.