Cisco Secure Workload vs Illumio comparison

Cisco and Illumio are both solutions in the Cloud and Data Center Security category. Cisco is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.5, while Illumio is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6. Cisco holds a 9.5% mindshare in CDCS, compared to Illumio’s 16.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Illumio users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Illumio and Cisco Secure Workload are competitors in the workload security category, each offering unique advantages. Cisco Secure Workload appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive feature set, despite Illumio's simpler approach and cost-effectiveness.

Features: Illumio offers micro-segmentation, adaptive security policies, and a user-friendly interface with simplified processes. Cisco Secure Workload provides advanced threat detection, comprehensive visibility across multi-cloud environments, and detailed policy automation.

Room for Improvement: Illumio could enhance its integration capabilities and expand its feature set. Additionally, a stronger focus on threat detection could be beneficial. Cisco Secure Workload could work on reducing complexity in deployment, simplify policy management, and lower the cost of entry.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Illumio is recognized for its straightforward deployment and accessible customer service, which attracts organizations seeking rapid implementation. Cisco Secure Workload, though complex to set up, offers extensive support options for managing sophisticated environments.

Pricing and ROI: Illumio is budget-friendly, offering competitive pricing and strong ROI due to reduced management complexity and operational costs. Cisco Secure Workload involves higher upfront costs but justifies these with its extensive feature set and significant ROI for those requiring comprehensive security.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Workload vs. Illumio Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. Illumio

April 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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.4%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 9.5%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 16.1%, down from 25.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Illumio	16.1%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security	3.4%
Cisco Secure Workload	9.5%
Other	71.0%

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

Sreeraj Mohandas

Security Engineer at HashXpert

Consolidated cloud security has reduced manual work and has automated vulnerability remediation

I elaborate on my rating of SentinelOne support by mentioning that there was some time where the troubleshooting took a longer time. In fact, there were many meetings going on. The availability of the document on the internet is on a lesser side because as an engineer, I would want to know about the troubleshooting aspects of this particular tool. When I am facing a customer, I do not prefer to bring the vendor to every call and try to resolve it, as it takes months and months. It would be better to have a training session with the engineer on site to explain and train properly. This is not the case with SentinelOne, so this is the only thing I have a complaint about. I do not have any other room for improvement to suggest within SentinelOne itself. However, I would really want the AI assistant for the threat hunting part to be more accessible. They have it, but they are making it licensed, so it is a bit on the higher end.

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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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Irfan Sharfi

Security Professional at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Micro-segmentation has transformed endpoint protection and now isolates internal threats effectively

Illumio can be improved in several areas based on our feedback. Sometimes, the PCE experiences slowness, especially when deploying around 300,000 endpoint devices. When these devices communicate within the network, loading the map or connections can cause latency, which needs improvement for a more user-friendly and faster experience. Regarding improvements to the interface, I believe we can add more features to the graphical user interface, such as proper logs. While the logs currently indicate what was blocked or allowed, clicking on a specific log should provide more information, such as which extra-scope rule is causing a denial, offering better analysis for troubleshooting.

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 most valuable features of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security are the asset inventory and issue indexing."

"Cloud Native Security's best feature is its ability to identify hard-coded secrets during pull request reviews."

"Our organization is growing steadily, so our infrastructure is expanding, and we're managing more technical resources. Singularity Cloud Security helps us track our resources so that we don't get lost in the overwhelming volume of things and ensures we follow best practices. The solution gives us better visibility into our resources and enables faster resolution."

"We're monitoring several cloud accounts with Singularity. It is convenient to identify issues or security failures in any account. It's nice to have all the details we need to solve these issues."

"The mean time to detect has been reduced."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has impacted my company positively as it provides good protection for the company and for the services."

"We really appreciate the Slack integration. When we have an incident, we get an instant notification. We also use Joe Sandbox, which Singularity can integrate with, so we can verify if a threat is legitimate."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security can integrate all your cloud accounts and resources you create in the AWS account, We have set it up to scan the AWS transfer services, EC2, security groups, and GitHub."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security 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."

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

"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations."

"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

"This product does everything that you need it to do and more and does a lot to provide visibility in a network environment, save time and money, and make the organization IT operate in a much more streamlined fashion."

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

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

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

"Illumio does more than general security product, it provides East-West traffic flow visibility and auditorial log which benefits on daily operation and periodical auditing."

"I observe extensive return on investment with Illumio."

"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."

"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."

"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."

"The dependency map is most valuable feature."

"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."

"We have been using the Illumio Adaptive Security Platform for a while now and we have seen a return on investment."

More Illumio pros

Cons

"We've found a lot of false positives."

"They need more experienced support personnel."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSPM tool, but its CWPP features need improvement, and there is scope for more application security posture management features."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSSPM tool, but the CSC CWPP features need improvement."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security could be improved with easier integrations to the Singularity Data Lake, particularly for various vendors."

"Maybe container runtime security could be improved."

"A two-month grace period for extended searches would be a valuable improvement."

"In version 2, a lot of rules have been deployed for Kubernetes security and CDR, which makes a lot of issues of critical severity, whereas they are not critical or of high severity. There is a mismatch of severities."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security cons

"Cisco Tetration needs more flags and system alerts that we should get with network capture."

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

"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 multi-tenancy, redundancy, backup and restore functionalities, as well as the monitoring aspects of the solution, need improvement."

"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 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."

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

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

"Illumio supports both on-prem and cloud environments, but I think the GUI interface could be more user-friendly."

"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."

"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems, for example, Cisco and Apache appliances."

"Technical support could be better. When we get a reply from support engineers, it is not kind or empathetic."

"Sometimes, the PCE experiences slowness, especially when deploying around 300,000 endpoint devices."

"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."

"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes."

"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades."

More Illumio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is okay. It is in line with what other providers were providing. It is not cheap. It is not expensive."

"It's not cheap, but it is worth the price."

"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's licensing and price were cheaper than the other solutions we looked at."

"The tool is cost-effective."

"SentinelOne is quite costly compared to other security platforms."

"I understand that SentinelOne is a market leader, but the bill we received was astronomical."

"I wasn't sure what to expect from the pricing, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a little less than I thought."

"PingSafe's pricing is good because it provides us with a solution."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."

"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	52
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	58

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?

The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is that the pric...

See all answers

What needs improvement with PingSafe?

Integration could be improved because not all solutions can be integrated with SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security...

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 Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?

It will be the same price as the Akamai price for Guardicore. It's expensive, that's true. But when you compare it to...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?

Illumio does not have much in terms of application dependency mapping features. They lack layer 7 process level segme...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?

Illumio's use case compared to Akamai is exactly the same. For the purpose of micro-segmentation, it is the same.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 6% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

FortiCNAPP vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 4% of the time

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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 13% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 7% of the time

TrendAI Deep Security vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 5% of the time

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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Illumio

Compared 24% of the time

VMware NSX vs Illumio

Compared 9% of the time

Zero Networks vs Illumio

Compared 4% of the time

TrendAI Deep Security vs Illumio

Compared 3% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Illumio

Compared 2% of the time

More Illumio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

April 2026

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security report

Download SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

May 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Buyer's Guide

Illumio

May 2026

Download Illumio product report

Also Known As

PingSafe

Cisco Tetration

Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP

Overview

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers a streamlined approach to cloud security with intuitive operation and strong integration capabilities for heightened threat detection and remediation efficiency.

Singularity Cloud Security stands out for its real-time detection and response, effectively minimizing detection and remediation timelines. Its automated remediation integrates smoothly with third-party tools enhancing operational efficiency. The comprehensive console ensures visibility and support for forensic investigations. Seamless platform integration and robust support for innovation are notable advantages. Areas for development include improved search functionality, affordability, better firewall capabilities for remote users, stable agents, comprehensive reporting, and efficient third-party integrations. Clarity in the interface, responsive support, and real-time alerting need enhancement, with a call for more automation and customization. Better scalability and cost-effective integration without compromising capabilities are desired.

What are SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's standout features?

Ease of Use: Intuitive operation simplifies navigation across platforms.
Real-Time Detection: Quick identification and response to threats.
Automated Remediation: Streamlines recovery processes with integration capabilities.
Forensic Visibility: Aids in thorough threat analysis and prevention strategies.
Comprehensive Console: Offers full visibility and historical data tracking.
Platform Integration: Supports seamless operation across cloud and hybrid environments.

What benefits should users expect from SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automation and third-party integration improve threat response.
Improved Detection: Reduces mean time to detect and respond to threats.
Operational Support: Comprehensive visibility and forensic tools aid operational decisions.
Cost Efficiency: Affordable integration with scaling capabilities without high overhead.

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is deployed in industries needing robust cloud security posture management, endpoint protection, and threat hunting. Utilized frequently across AWS and Azure, it assists in monitoring, threat detection, and maintaining compliance in diverse environments while providing real-time alerts and recommendations for proactive threat management.

SentinelOne

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

Illumio enhances security through micro-segmentation and real-time traffic control, offering detailed network visibility and precise application communication management. It supports scalability across environments, improving security posture and reducing lateral movement.

Illumio's features include real-time traffic control, micro-segmentation, and scalable policy management, allowing organizations to establish strict security measures against threats like ransomware. Its visibility map offers granular security insights essential for creating effective policies and auditing traffic. Centralized rule distribution and comprehensive traffic mapping augment security across environments. The platform's design ensures ease of deployment and compatibility, reducing unauthorized access by focusing on threat isolation and breach containment. While Illumio excels in flexibility and visibility, it requires advancements in technical support, third-party integrations, and user-friendly policy management to better support diverse operating systems and larger environments. Improved reporting, analytics, and automation for policy creation are necessary alongside reduced dependency on agents and enhanced data security measures.

What are Illumio's most important features?

Real-Time Traffic Control: Allows dynamic management of network traffic for enhanced security.
Micro-Segmentation: Enables precise control over application communication within networks.
Scalable Policy Management: Facilitates implementation of robust policy frameworks across environments.
Visibility Map: Provides granular insights for security policy creation and auditing purposes.
Threat Isolation and Breach Containment: Limits unauthorized access and mitigates security threats.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced Security Posture: Reduced lateral movement and improved threat mitigation.
Scalability: Supports security measures in growing and complex environments.
Deployment Ease: Lightweight and user-friendly implementation across platforms.
Compliance Maintenance: Assists in adhering to security standards across infrastructures.

Illumio is frequently deployed in industries where network segmentation is critical, such as finance and healthcare, offering detailed network visibility and control over application communication. Organizations integrate it seamlessly with existing infrastructures, facilitating the deployment of VENs and effective policy management to secure hybrid cloud and on-premises environments, ensuring compliance and defending against evolving threats.

Illumio

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. Illumio

April 2026

Free Report: Cisco Secure Workload vs. Illumio

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. Illumio and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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