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Cisco Secure Workload vs Orca Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (7th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (7th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Orca Security
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Security (7th), API Security (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (6th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd), AI Security (1st)
 

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 Orca Security is 5.2%, 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
ProductMindshare (%)
Orca Security5.2%
Qualys TotalCloud1.7%
Cisco Secure Workload2.0%
Other91.1%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
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.
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
Nykole Denoo - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Analyst at BNY
Cloud risk visibility has transformed how I prioritize threats and reduce unnecessary spend
From my perspective, Orca Security is a really good tool. I would say one area I would like to see CNAPP platforms get is more intelligence when it comes to risk prioritization, which correlates with vulnerability, exposing assets, identities, and active threats to help the security team focus on risks that are more likely to be exploited. I am a huge advocate for automation. I also think deeper automation for remediation or stronger integration with ticketing and CI/CD pipelines or more customization would help. Executive reporting would help the security team respond significantly faster and communicate risk more effectively if those kinds of improvements are made.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users."
"Vulnerability and threat detection and assessment of the criticality of the vulnerabilities exposed are most valuable."
"CSPM is currently the most used feature, and we are enjoying the new feature, FlexScan, which is valuable for Internet-facing VMs."
"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."
"Qualys TotalCloud helps you not just to identify misconfigurations, but you can actually also fix issues."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its agent versatility."
"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."
"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 product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"The scalability of Cisco Tetration is very good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"Overall, this is a really good product and I am happy with it."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"The reporting and automated remediation capabilities are valuable to me. They're real game-changers."
"Orca's platform provides an agentless data collection facility that collects information directly from the cloud using APIs, with zero impact on performance."
"The visibility Orca provides into my environment is at the highest level... When I dropped them into the environment, from the very get-go I had more insight into the risks in my environment than I had had during the entire two and a half years I had been here."
"Orca Security has helped reduce the time it takes to address cloud security alerts."
"With Orca, I feel confident that I have full coverage of all of my resources."
"Orca Security provides a very holistic approach and a very user-friendly GUI while supporting multiple clouds, which is helpful for security personnel to identify and mitigate risks."
"Orca provides X-ray vision into everything within the cloud properties, whereas normally, this would require multiple tools."
"Orca Security has positively impacted my organization by improving our security posture and hardening our services and resources."
 

Cons

"I think Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its handling of zero-day vulnerabilities and supply chain management because modern ransomware attacks not only target prime critical infrastructures but also the supply chain system."
"The price is very expensive, actually."
"I sometimes have difficulty detecting or uninstalling certain versions of applications, which I have to do manually."
"Their support could be improved."
"Some major banks and insurance companies require an on-premises solution for comprehensive vulnerability management, which TotalCloud does not offer."
"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."
"The response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved."
"Enhancing clarity regarding its compliance capabilities would be beneficial, as the current scope is limited in geographic coverage."
"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."
"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."
"The scalability of this solution needs to be improved."
"A feature that I was looking for was emailed alerts and notifications so we'd get them right away."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"The problem is that we can only deploy the particular solution where we have the hardware with Cisco."
"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"Cisco Tetration needs more flags and system alerts that we should get with network capture."
"The interface can be a bit cranky and sometimes takes a lot of time to load."
"Customer support is very poor, in my opinion, because when I have a few problems, the customer support says your solution is bad or it is easier."
"It's not all clouds that they are currently onboarded with. For instance, they are not yet with public cloud and many other private clouds."
"We are PCI DSS compliant, so we need to scan our environment externally with tools vetted by the PCI DSS organization. Orca doesn't scan the environment externally. It only scans what's currently in the cloud."
"A notable limitation with Orca Security is its scanning feature. The automatic scan only runs every 24 hours, and if an alert is remediated within an hour, it still remains until the next scheduled scan."
"Orca Security can be improved by adding more connectivity and more integrations because the world is moving so fast that having integrations is really poor compared to other vendors."
"Orca needs improvement in snoozing or dismissing specific alarms. Currently, snoozing dismisses all future vulnerabilities related to a CVE."
"The solution could improve by making the dashboards more elaborative and more descriptive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"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."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"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 pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"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."
"The pricing depends on how many assets you have running in your cloud and how many environments you have. If you have a dev environment, test environment, and a production environment then it's really important that you have coverage for all of them."
"The most expensive solution is Palo Alto. They claim to be very robust. The next most expensive is Wiz, followed by Orca and all the rest."
"Its license is a bit expensive."
"The price is a bit expensive for smaller organizations."
"Orca Security charges are based on cloud workloads. So, it's based on workloads. If we look at one feature, it might be expensive."
"We have a total of 25 licenses for this solution. The solution is on a pay-and-you-use model."
"Overall, the pricing is reasonable and the discounts have been acceptable."
"I think their pricing model is aligned with market demand. Of course, Orca could probably better align their pricing model with the needs of smaller businesses as well as some larger-scale enterprises with millions of assets. But in all fairness, I think the Orca sales team has been accommodating and ensured that we're happy with the pricing."
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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
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...
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...
What needs improvement with Orca Security?
Regarding how Orca Security can be improved, I think there is not much; it is fully completed and it is great.
What is your primary use case for Orca Security?
My main use case for Orca Security is to secure infrastructure, course, and service. A specific example of how I use ...
What advice do you have for others considering Orca Security?
My advice to others looking into using Orca Security is to practice and study the platform in test scenarios. My impr...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Cisco Tetration
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
BeyondTrust, Postman, Digital Turbine, Solarisbank, Lemonade, C6 Bank, Docebo, Vercel, and Vivino
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. Orca Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.