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Cyera vs IBM Security Guardium Data Protection comparison

 

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

Cyera
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (12th), Data Governance (24th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (8th), AI Data Analysis (17th), AI Security (11th), Data Security Platforms (DSP) (3rd)
IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Database Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cyera and IBM Security Guardium Data Protection aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cyera is designed for Data Security Platforms (DSP) and holds a mindshare of 18.9%, down 28.1% compared to last year.
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection, on the other hand, focuses on Database Security, holds 27.4% mindshare, down 32.2% since last year.
Data Security Platforms (DSP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cyera18.9%
BigID Next19.4%
Securiti12.1%
Other49.6%
Data Security Platforms (DSP)
Database Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection27.4%
Imperva Data Security Fabric24.2%
Oracle Audit Vault8.2%
Other40.2%
Database Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2795301 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, Compliance at a manufacturing company with 1-10 employees
Data discovery has accelerated and now drives faster classification and compliance mapping
The best features Cyera offers include agentless discovery and sampling as well as AI ML-based classifications. I find myself relying on the sampling the most, which makes everything really fast, but also the auto-classification and ML-based functionalities. The main thing that stands out to me and my team about the features is the speed of integration and how fast it does the discovery on the data. Once it discovers the data, it also maps it back to a ton of compliance frameworks and best practices that I can use to operationalize. Cyera has positively impacted my organization by allowing me to identify the highest risk areas but also provide better classification of data, which then leads to better data pillar maturity. Cyera has accomplished all three outcomes: saving time, reducing risk, and improving compliance scores, as the speed at which it discovers data was significantly faster.
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

"The data discovery, data classification, and CSPM features are most valuable."
"I like how they model the data. They find data in different places that we didn't know, and they can give us a good idea if it's sensitive or not. They understand whether or not something is in the right region because, with the cloud posture management tool, we could see certain things in the infrastructure, but the way they dig into the data is what we like."
"Cyera has an inbuilt set of policies implemented towards data security, especially cohering with Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)."
"Cyera has positively impacted my organization by allowing me to identify the highest risk areas but also provide better classification of data, which then leads to better data pillar maturity."
"Cyera has positively impacted my organization because we have become more compliant."
"We are using it to do a lot of data discovery from a data classification for structured data."
"Guardium does a great job of capturing data and having the ability of trying to pull it out and make sense of it. Using it for business applications is its biggest capability."
"The most valuable feature is the GUI, the interface. It also interfaces well with REST API, if you want to automate some of the commands."
"It's one of the first to encrypt DB2 databases."
"The Data Activity Monitor is the most valuable feature of this product."
"We succeeded at hardening our customer databases by defining policies for alerting and blocking access to prohibited and restricted data."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The benefit is that it's made database monitoring more visible to the business, creating more conversations about how we should do it better."
 

Cons

"I would advise others looking into using Cyera to not do so."
"The licensing initially was tricky because it is based on storage as well as user count."
"They need to add a few things in the UI from an enterprise perspective. It's more along the lines of being able to self-service, have integrations, build alerts, and things like that. Outside of that, they work with us on the API and getting alerts into our SIEM and things like that. There's always a way to do something, and they're always available, which is nice."
"As a startup company, there is a long way for them to go in terms of scalability."
"There is room for improvement in making Cyera more user-friendly. Some parts were difficult to navigate, especially for those new to the IT industry."
"Support is where the problem is. Since IBM is not in this country, in terms of technical support and also skill sets in the market, there is not much help available to handle Guardium Data Protection."
"The improvement needed relates to encryption capabilities. Currently, it doesn't use encryption for IBM i, because it's impossible."
"The FAM module needs to be improved."
"It needs an integration with Optum."
"Right now, we're in the development phase for IBM Guardium Data Protection, so I don't have any recommendations about additional features and room for improvement in the solution. We're very excited to work on IBM Guardium Data Protection because we are new to the solution, and we're still exploring product features. We're very excited about integrations and use case creation, and it's only after six to eight months that I'll be able to share my recommendations in terms of additional features the solution should have. We did find some difficulty in deploying IBM Guardium Data Protection here in Pakistan because of the lack of resources."
"We also have a problem with this solution because the IBM aggregator isn't working very well."
"The documentation could be better."
"The support is not as good as it should be, and when it comes to backup or restoration activity, they can take months to respond."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to the competitors, they are very reasonable."
"I don't know how much exactly it costs, but I know that it's a yearly thing. It's something that will cost money for any company because they're storing all this information. They're doing all this machine learning, and there are a lot of services on their backend that they got to pay for. I'm sure it gets translated back to the customers unless you have everything completely on-prem. If you're not doing much in the cloud, then I could see how it'd be cheaper, but if you have anything that's cloud-hosted and does all the work for you, there's going to be a cost associated with it."
"Guardium's pricing is quite high, but it gives good value for money for all sizes of enterprises, especially for partners."
"Guardium is most suitable for large scale enterprises because the pricing model is better if you are implementing a large number of databases."
"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."
"IBM solutions have fair price strategy, and operates on a yearly basis. If it's a SaaS solution, then you can opt for yearly basis."
"One of the deployments that I know of had three databases, and the yearly fees are approximately $50,000 USD."
"For IBM Guardium, licensing is very simple and straightforward. There are no issues I can speak of."
"I would suggest to review the type of data, need for security, and if the organizational structure needs the options IBM Guardium provides."
"We haven't talked much about pricing and licencing. But it is not cheap for sure"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cyera ?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cyera was that the licensing initially was tricky because it is based on storage as well as user count. I use Cyera to actually identify ho...
What needs improvement with Cyera ?
I think the area for improvement in Cyera is probably around integration, particularly with other platforms and third-party tools. For example, I see some integration areas with leading DLP solutio...
What is your primary use case for Cyera ?
My main use case for Cyera includes data visibility, data tagging, data classification, AI assessments, and policy governance, risk, and compliance policy. For data classification, I import structu...
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

No data available
InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cyera's customers include the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (Cboe), Granicus, Takeda, LifeLabs, United Talent Agency, ACV Auctions, and Armis
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BigID, Securiti, Cyera and others in Data Security Platforms (DSP). Updated: July 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.