Cisco Secure Workload vs VMware NSX comparison

Cisco and VMware are both solutions in the Cloud and Data Center Security category. Cisco is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.5, while VMware is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.8. Cisco holds a 13.8% mindshare in CDCS, compared to VMware’s 12.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Cisco Secure Workload

Read 15 Cisco Secure Workload reviews

3,257 Views
898 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware NSX

Read 105 VMware NSX reviews

3,788 Views
1,331 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Workload

VMware NSX

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

VMware NSX and Cisco Secure Workload compete in network virtualization and security domains. VMware NSX emphasizes robust security features, while Cisco Secure Workload excels in threat detection and compliance, presenting it as a compelling option for organizations prioritizing these aspects.

Features: VMware NSX excels in network segmentation and micro-segmentation, enhancing security and easing operational efficiency. Its ability to easily manage network traffic and extend virtual networks simplifies network management. Cisco Secure Workload offers advanced threat protection and workload analytics, prioritizing real-time threat detection with comprehensive compliance capabilities, making it ideal for security-focused environments.

Room for Improvement: VMware NSX could improve by enhancing its threat monitoring capabilities and simplifying security policy management. Additionally, integrating more compliance features would offer a competitive edge. Cisco Secure Workload, while providing excellent analytics, might benefit from streamlining its setup and expanding its integration capabilities with third-party solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware NSX offers a simplified deployment process with a focus on ease of use and efficient support for quick implementation. Cisco Secure Workload, though more complex in setup, compensates with comprehensive support services, ensuring effective integration and management by thoroughly guiding users.

Pricing and ROI: VMware NSX presents competitive pricing and is recognized for offering a favorable return on investment through its virtualization capabilities. Cisco Secure Workload, while potentially more expensive, justifies its costs with substantial ROI thanks to its superior security features, fitting the needs of enterprises prioritizing security and compliance.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Workload vs. VMware NSX Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. VMware NSX

May 2025

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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

Cisco Secure Workload

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

8th

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (13th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)

VMware NSX

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

2nd

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Network Virtualization (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (7th), Network Automation (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 13.8%, up from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware NSX is 12.4%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

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

MagdyRaafat

Services Presales Solutions Architecture - UAE & Gulf at Dell Technologies

Enhanced security and streamlined management drive efficient connectivity

Open source is a standard solution where you take a gray box or white box and put the software from your end. You can do programming with Ansible and make the network work in the software-defined mode, providing automation and management capabilities. I am currently working with VMware. It integrates easily with everything and can work with any system. When discussing micro-segmentation, it enhances security, providing more secure data in your data center while allowing for extra layers of security outside your data center. If you have an ACI, there is communication between locations, keeping your data secure in your data center and throughout the path it takes, such as to SD-WAN or the cloud. I work with cloud solutions including AWS, Azure, GCP, and private cloud. My overall rating for VMware NSX is 8.5 out of 10.

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 feature of this solution is security."

"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."

"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."

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

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

"The product provides multiple-device integration."

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

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

"The most powerful feature of VMware NSX is the micro-segmentation that allows us to separate the different protocols our application works with."

"NSX extends Layer-2 scalability on Layer 3, covering the vRO and extending the capability on Layer 3 by decapsulating using a new mechanism. NSX-V was designed to use with VMware products and Success 360, providing more flexibility toward different levels of cloud, containers, and components. NSX-T gives you the ability to stretch your network across different view locations. If you have multiple sites, you can connect them using NSX-T."

"It's very important for them to have small footprints and have as much services in their servers, as possible."

"We like that everything is integrated."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The installation is straightforward, it took a couple of hours."

"Has a great firewall."

"I have found the system to be very intuitive, functional, and they have great technology."

More VMware NSX pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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 integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."

"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."

"It has an uninviting interface."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

"We would to have a reverse proxy. This would add great value to the solution."

"The reporting functionality could be better, and there could be an easier way of forwarding events. There's room for improvement in the product."

"There is room for improvement in VMware NSX's workload management, particularly in the orchestration layer and in managing workloads across multiple clouds."

"It still needs to grow. There are still some features that it doesn't do, like it doesn't do multicasting."

"The solution could benefit from improvements in its pricing and scalability."

"The feature it can improve is essentially application-based load balancing with intelligent load distribution for applications that require redundancy and high availability."

"The setup is complex and should be made easier."

"It's a good product, but the way that it has got so many multiple levels that need to be purchased makes it expensive and cumbersome."

More VMware NSX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

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

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

"All the institutions have to pay monthly for the services in the cloud. They have to pay $30,000 every month for this service every three years."

"We haven't had to hire a dedicated network engineer because NSX handles 90 percent of it. The reduced overhead in terms of managing networks has been the biggest plus."

"It is an expensive product, but cheaper than some competing solutions."

"The solution is reasonable at the local level."

"This solution requires a licence."

"The price of VMware NSX is optimal. Additionally, the price of the solution can be negotiated with the vendor. Many areas of the solution can impact the cost, such as features, time for onboarding, and support needed."

"The licensing fees are expensive and we pay on a yearly basis."

"VMware NSX isn't cheap."

More VMware NSX pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

24%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?

There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...

See all answers

What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?

Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware NSX?

The product has valuable features for security and network extension.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 23% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 17% of the time

Illumio vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 16% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

Illumio vs VMware NSX

Compared 20% of the time

Nutanix Flow Network Security vs VMware NSX

Compared 18% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs VMware NSX

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco ACI vs VMware NSX

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs VMware NSX

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware NSX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

June 2025

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware NSX

June 2025

Download VMware NSX product report

Also Known As

Cisco Tetration

VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender

Overview

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

VMware NSX is a sophisticated solution utilized for micro-segmentation, network security, software-defined networking, and private cloud construction. It aids in the transition from physical to virtual infrastructure, ensuring efficient network virtualization and security of production workloads.

VMware NSX empowers organizations to manage network functions, implement distributed firewalls, and enhance security within virtual environments. Crucial for disaster recovery and load balancing, it supports cloud-native application development and enterprise clients. Its ease of use, scalability, and seamless integration with existing VMware solutions ensure streamlined network management and swift deployment. Despite its extensive features, areas like pricing, routing functionality, and compatibility with certain platforms require attention.

What are the key features of VMware NSX?

Ease of Use: Simplifies network management with an intuitive interface.
Scalability: Adapts to growing infrastructure needs seamlessly.
Micro-Segmentation: Enhances security by dividing networks into smaller, manageable segments.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing VMware solutions and third-party applications.
Dynamic Routing: Optimizes network traffic efficiently.
Security Options: Offers robust firewall features and security measures.
Automation: Facilitates quick deployment through comprehensive automation capabilities.
High Bandwidth: Ensures high-performance network operations.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Enhanced Network Security: Superior protection for virtual environments.
Efficient Disaster Recovery: Reliable support for business continuity.
Reduced Deployment Time: Fast implementation and configuration.
Improved Network Management: Centralized and streamlined control of network resources.

VMware NSX is widely implemented across industries such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. Organizations in these sectors utilize it to bolster security, enhance network efficiency, and support cloud-native applications. By extending on-premise networks into provider spaces and managing virtual access networks, VMware NSX significantly optimizes infrastructure operations.

VMware

Sample Customers

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. VMware NSX

May 2025

Free Report: Cisco Secure Workload vs. VMware NSX

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