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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Cisco Secure Workload 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

Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (33rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (16th), Microsegmentation Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 9.9%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 5.9%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics9.9%
Cisco Secure Workload5.9%
Other84.2%
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

Akash Das Barman - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Trainee at DataSpace Academy
Network analytics has reduced investigation time and provides deeper visibility into lateral movement
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look very attractive for audit and compliance teams at implementation time and can generate structured reports for visibility, risk posture, and traffic summaries. In practice, many teams do not rely on it heavily because SIEM tools or GRC platforms already handle reporting better. Built-in threat intelligence feeds represent another area where expectations do not always match usage. The platform includes threat intelligence-based detection and classifications. Initially, teams expect to depend on this heavily, but later SOC teams often prefer their own threat intelligence feeds or correlate intelligence inside SIEM instead. The built-in feeds are used but not as a primary detection source. Automated incident summaries and guided investigation views are designed to simplify triage by automatically grouping related activity into incidents. However, teams often move away from them due to various factors affecting adoption.
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

"Being able to look at the Layer 7 application and get information about intrusion attempts is the most valuable feature for us."
"I value the feature which enables me to detect devices talking to suspect IPs."
"Stealthwatch improved our organization by providing more information so we can be proactive with security analysis."
"The most valuable feature is anomaly detection, where it finds things that are not allowed internally."
"Maps is a unique feature which provides logical grouping of different segments of the network with complete visibility and alerting based on a total or protocol base as per defined threshold."
"It provides good visibility to the customers. People are still evaluating it, but it provides visibility and helps them to take action to remediate and mitigate the issues that are highlighted on the dashboard. It has good integration with the Cisco switching platform."
"Provides easily identifiable anomalies that you can't see with signature detections."
"Stability is the most valuable feature we have seen in this solution."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"The scalability of Cisco Tetration is very good."
"The only use case I can see that makes sense is micro-segmentation. I think there are other use cases for it. The main purpose of the product is to do micro-segmentation by collecting IP. That could be done by installing an agent, and then you have all the communication coming in and out. You could also use some flow sensors installed in the network that receive a copy of the traffic and then report that back to the system."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"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."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
 

Cons

"This is an expensive product. We have quit paying for support because we don't want to have to upgrade it and keep paying for it."
"Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations."
"One update that I would like to see is an agent-based client. Currently, Stealthwatch is network-based. A local agent could help manage endpoints."
"Cisco Stealthwatch can improve by having bundled packages for popular add-ons. It would be a lot easier for people implementing it, have let's say a better way to use the product."
"The initial setup was straightforward but required a lot of data entry, to begin with building out the server types and network types."
"The GUI could use some improvement. Being able to find features more easily would be a great improvement if it was simplified."
"The initial setup is complex, as there is a lot to configure."
"Improvements are needed on the application layer for complete security analysis."
"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."
"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."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"The scalability of this solution needs to be improved."
"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."
"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 product should be easy to use, but it is not. Comparing it to other products, it was very complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. It costs several hundred thousand dollars per year (depending on how many flows you are collecting)."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside>in traffic."
"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"The yearly licensing cost is about $50,000."
"Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"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."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?
My main use case for Cisco Secure Network Analytics has been network visibility and anomaly-based threat detection within the enterprise environment. In security operations and VAPT-related activit...
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...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
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, provid...
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 create a dependency map for Cisco ACI. As the network team, we chose to implement A...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
Cisco Tetration
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Cisco Secure Workload and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.