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Cleanup vs IBM Security Guardium Data Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cleanup
Ranking in Database Security
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Mainframe Security (11th)
IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Ranking in Database Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Database Security category, the mindshare of Cleanup is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is 26.6%, down from 29.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection26.6%
Cleanup1.8%
Other71.6%
Database Security
 

Featured Reviews

it_user350628 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
It looks forward in the database, so if it’s not showing any activity, you can get rid of that profile. But, if I give someone access to it, I can’t control the scope of what they can see.
It presents problems. The problem is, if I give someone access to it, I can’t control the scope of what they can see. They can see everything. I want to make the information available and more integrated with other security components, and I want it to be more reliable. It also needs acknowledgement that clean-up data can come from temporary cloned environments that somehow need to be incorporated into enterprise view of usage.
HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized monitoring has improved audit readiness and streamlines investigations of data access
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where I think it could be improved. One area is alert tuning and prioritization. Large environments can generate a significant number of alerts, and while the platform provides good visibility, reducing noise and automatically highlighting the highest-risk events would help security teams work more efficiently. Another area is ease of administration. As environments become more complex with cloud, hybrid, and on-premises databases, managing policies and configurations can require significant effort. Simplifying some of those workflows could reduce the operational overhead for administration. I would also like to see deeper automation and more advanced analytic capabilities. The security industry as a whole is moving toward faster threat detection and automated response, and having more built-in intelligence to identify unusual behavior with less manual tuning would be valuable. A couple of additional areas come to mind regarding needed improvements for IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. Integration is one of them. IBM Security Guardium Data Protection integrates with a variety of security tools, but as organizations adopt more cloud-native platforms and multicloud environments, smoother integration and simpler deployment processes would be beneficial. Many security teams are managing dozens of tools today, so reducing integration complexity can save a lot of operational effort. From a usability perspective, some administration and reporting tasks could be more intuitive, especially for new users. The platform is feature-rich, which is a strength, but it can also create a learning curve. Regarding support, my experience has generally been positive, but complex issues can sometimes require coordination across multiple teams before they are fully resolved. One feature I appreciate about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is the detailed audit trail that IBM Security Guardium Data Protection maintains. When investigating an issue, having a historical record of database activity can save a lot of time and provide the context needed to understand what happened. That is especially useful for compliance and forensic investigations. As for a wish-list item, I would like to see even more intelligent alert correlation and risk prioritization. A challenge across the security industry is that teams often deal with a large number of alerts from different tools, and determining which ones require immediate attention can still be time-consuming. Although IBM Security Guardium Data Protection already provides strong monitoring capabilities, more automated context and prioritization could help security teams focus on the highest-risk events faster.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is good, and they're great once they agree there’s a problem."
"The ability to audit across multiple data environments led to a greater understanding of the data traffic and the potential weaknesses in the access controls."
"Our ability to see when users are accessing sensitive data."
"Our primary use case for IBM Guardium Data Protection is audit logging, and we monitor transactions and access particular tables in the database with it."
"It has made us more responsive and more productive, more efficient."
"We also use IBM Guardium to support security initiatives and compliance policies. For example, our audit area can verify if someone has access to information that they shouldn't have, for their regular job functions."
"IBM Guardium Data Protection improved our organization by providing visibility into our database functions."
"The maturity of the agent is the most valuable feature of the solution"
"Guardium is helping customers to get insights into who is accessing company data, when they are doing it, and from which location."
 

Cons

"Use it as an indication of data, not as gospel. Don’t take action based solely on it."
"The solution should allow the data to shift to a centralized repository with elastic servers and big data infrastructure"
"The maintenance and support aspects of the product need improvement."
"The technical support is very poor."
"Since we are resellers we do not have enough information about the technical aspects and the areas of improvement. However, one consistent report that we receive from our customers is that IBM does not offer timely support due to the size of the organisation. It would be great if they could improve their response time."
"Initial setup is very complex. Once you start interacting with people's databases, they get very hesitant. Then, the amount of social tasks to socialize the solution ensuring people are comfortable with it became a much heavier lift."
"While Guardium is great at structured monitoring (DAM), the product is lacking features on the file activity side (FAM)."
"Needs easier integration with custom applications."
"The most important requirements for us are integration with new database solutions and the ability to manage things like Jailbreak or something like that. Its reduction feature can also be improved. It has a functionality called reduction, which is like masking data, but it is just a replacement of characters. Sometimes the customer needs more than this. It would be good if it was more advanced or complete. We also have a problem with this solution because the IBM aggregator isn't working very well. IBM has created big data intelligence for Guardium, and occasionally, customers need three or four months of data, but they can't run it from the collectors. It can have a better dashboard and more pre-defined use cases for those customers who don't have any idea about data protection or don't have expert personnel in this area. For example, they can include five use cases for banks and five use cases for retail."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of Guardium is higher than the main competitor, Imperva. In addition, it's complex as the calculation of the licensing is done by Processor Value Unit (PVU). However, before purchasing a DAP solution, it is important to analyze specific points to evaluate the cost-benefit of each tool. For example: Does the environment to be monitored have mainframes? If so, it's a point for Guardium. If not, a point for Imperva. Note: IBM is looking into a new licensing policy and reducing the price of Guardium."
"It is not an expensive product. We purchase its yearly license."
"IBM Guardium Data Protection charges you based on the number of users, e.g. based on the number of licenses, and it's either on a per-license or a per-data basis."
"Guardium has not saved us time or money."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The cost depends on the number of databases. You can purchase advanced licenses, but the standard license is calculated based on the number of databases you have to onboard."
"​If you are researching this type of solution, work with IBM."
"For IBM Guardium, licensing is very simple and straightforward. There are no issues I can speak of."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

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How does IBM Guardium Data Protection compare with Imperva SecureSphere Database Security?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a solution for database security from IBM that gives complete visibility, control, and analysis to secure sensitive data and comply with regulations. IBM S...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Guardium Data Protection?
I don't remember the exact prices, but Guardium is an expensive tool because it is targeted towards corporate enterprises.
What needs improvement with IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where I think it could be improved. One area is alert tuning and prioritization. Large environments can generat...
 

Also Known As

CA Cleanup
InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Standard Bank of South Africa
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Imperva, Oracle and others in Database Security. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.