Cisco Secure Workload vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security comparison

Cisco and CrowdStrike are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. Cisco is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.5, while CrowdStrike is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.7. Cisco holds a 2.0% mindshare in CWPP, compared to CrowdStrike’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of CrowdStrike users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Cisco Secure Workload and CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security are competitors in the cloud security market. Users generally favor the features of CrowdStrike for its proactive threat detection capabilities.

Features: Cisco Secure Workload is noted for strong analytics, visibility in hybrid environments, and integration with existing infrastructure. CrowdStrike Falcon is recognized for comprehensive threat intelligence, ease of scalability, and advanced threat detection, which users rate highly.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Workload users often mention the need for easier setup processes, enhanced reporting, and better usability optimization. CrowdStrike Falcon feedback highlights the need to reduce resource consumption and suggestions to improve usability and efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CrowdStrike Falcon is favored for its seamless deployment process, being less complex compared to Cisco Secure Workload. Cisco offers robust customer support, but CrowdStrike's automated deployment and operational readiness are seen as advantages in the initial stages.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Workload is considered competitively priced, attracting cost-conscious buyers. Although CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is more expensive, users believe its long-term ROI justifies this cost due to advanced security capabilities and market-leading threat intelligence.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

June 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 August 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.0%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is 3.7%, down from 6.4% 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	1.7%
CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security	3.7%
Cisco Secure Workload	2.0%
Other	92.6%

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

Robert Orłowski

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.

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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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Manish Indupuri

senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Provides centralized visibility and real-time threat detection across multiple cloud accounts

Regarding how CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security can be improved, I would say they can improve their support. There were a couple of cases where we needed to escalate issues in order to get proper support. That part could use some tweaking on their end. Additionally, the recent incident during the last summer literally impacted our systems. We had some of our workloads that affected the business, and it was a difficult experience. Apart from that, it is a good tool and the experience with CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security has been excellent. We did not find any kind of issues, but if they could improve their response to security-related incidents and provide on-time support or better understand our concerns and address them accordingly, it could be very helpful. Regarding needed improvements, I think they should enhance automatic alerting with CI/CD scanning and reporting capabilities. Additionally, it would be better to implement Falcon sensor health monitoring so agents are always active. We could know how it is behaving and how it is treating our environment. That could be a little helpful.

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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

"I like the web API security and IoT scanning features the most. The user-friendly design of TotalCloud's interface enables customers to navigate it and use its full potential easily"

"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."

"The most valuable feature of Qualys TotalCloud is the visibility it provides."

"One of the most valuable features of Qualys TotalCloud is FlexScan, which is specifically for internet-facing VMs. We found this feature to be very useful. It was a key differentiator for us."

"While automatic inventory detection upon connection is a helpful feature, a truly valuable capability would be assessing an environment's security posture against Azure and CIS best practices."

"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."

"The best feature would be the ability to create policies. It is easy to control and update policies as required."

"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."

More Qualys TotalCloud pros

"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."

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

"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."

"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 most valuable feature of this solution is security."

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

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

"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

"Our security has been significantly increased and it is pretty stable in our environment, which is one thing that CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security literally gave us with a positive impact and makes it a good investment."

"We like the solution's management and monitoring tools for our network. We use it to monitor our network between workstations and outside our organization. The AI provides useful visualizations of our network on a dashboard."

"The most valuable feature of CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is its lightweight sensor, taking minimal space and not impacting server performance."

"Falcon is a cloud-based technology, so its resource usage is light. You deploy the agents to your endpoints, but the processing is done on the cloud, so you're CPU utilization is only about 2 percent. Some others solutions use between 30 to 60 percent."

"The solution has login features like multi factor authentication."

"It's easy to gather insights and conduct analysis about existing threats."

"The product's initial setup phase is easy."

"I have contacted customer service, and they are fast."

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security pros

Cons

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

"The response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved."

"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."

"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."

"The price is very expensive, actually."

"Their support could be improved."

"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."

More Qualys TotalCloud cons

"A feature that I was looking for was emailed alerts and notifications so we'd get them right away."

"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 product must be integrated with the cloud."

"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."

"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."

"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."

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

"It has an uninviting interface."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

"The only challenge lies in token verification."

"I think the UI could be improved, but the technical support said CrowdStrike will improve the UI in the near future. But right now, it’s so messy."

"There is room for improvement in the solution's ability to handle Linux systems."

"I would not say the tool's integration capabilities were straightforward because the complexity depends on the volume of the data."

"The file integrity monitoring feature should be enhanced and offered more control"

"The recent incident during the last summer literally impacted our systems. We had some of our workloads that affected the business, and it was a difficult experience."

"Incorporating threat intelligence into the system would be a valuable addition."

"The main area for improvement is pricing, as it is quite expensive."

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."

"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 is expensive."

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

"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."

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

"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."

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

More Qualys TotalCloud pricing and cost advice

"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 based on how many computers you're going to install it on."

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

"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."

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

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

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

"It's an expensive package but does what it says it will do."

"CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security is pricy."

"Its price is moderate."

"It's an expensive product"

"The pricing is fair for what you get. I'd rate them a solid nine out of ten in terms of pricing."

"CrowdStrike Falcon is very expensive."

"It is expensive, but it adds value."

"The price is not too high, it is okay."

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	30

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

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

The price is very expensive, actually.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?

To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?

My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...

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 discov...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM?

In terms of pricing, the setup cost and licensing are comparatively a bit expensive, but the solution's effectiveness...

See all answers

What needs improvement with CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM?

I recommend enhancing CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, particularly in the areas of vulnerability management and ag...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM?

I have been using CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security for almost three years. My primary use case involves securing end...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

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AWS GuardDuty vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

Wiz vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Security Hub vs CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Compared 3% of the time

More CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Qualys TotalCloud

July 2026

Download Qualys TotalCloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

August 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Buyer's Guide

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

August 2026

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security report

Download CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security product report

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan

Cisco Tetration

CrowdStrike Falcon ASPM

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

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

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security helps organizations stop cloud breaches from code to runtime. As CrowdStrike's cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP), it combines real-time cloud detection and response with proactive cloud security to help security teams prevent, detect, investigate, and stop modern cloud attacks.

Industry-leading threat intelligence and AI-powered insights help security teams understand how adversaries operate, uncover evasive threats, and respond with confidence. The result is a stronger cloud security posture, faster investigations, and reduced mean time to detect and respond.

What are CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security's key features?

Real-Time Protection: Detects and responds to cloud attacks in real time.
Industry-Leading Adversary Intelligence: Turns intel into prioritized risk and threats.
Cloud Asset Visibility: Discovers and maps assets across the entire cloud estate.
Preemptive Security: Identities risks earlier in development to prevent insecure deployments.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Faster Threat Detection and Response: Achieve up to 89% faster cloud detection and response
Improved Cloud Security Posture: Identify and prioritize high-risk vulnerabilities and misconfigurations faster
Reduce Blind Spots: Gain up to 72% faster ability to monitor the entire cloud estate
Compliance Assurance: Aids in maintaining industry standards.
Return on Investment: 264% Return on Investment over 3 year period

Organizations use Falcon Cloud Security to stop cloud breaches from code to runtime. It helps teams reduce blind spots, focus on the risks most likely to lead to a breach, and detect and respond to attacks faster. By connecting proactive cloud security with real-time detection and response, it strengthens security from development through production.

CrowdStrike

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

June 2026

Free Report: Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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