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Cyera 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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Cyera
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), Data Governance (23rd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (9th), AI Data Analysis (16th), AI Security (7th)
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

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cyera8.2%
Wiz11.4%
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks10.4%
Other70.0%
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
Database Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection26.7%
Imperva Data Security Fabric24.8%
Oracle Audit Vault9.3%
Other39.2%
Database Security
 

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.
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

"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other customers."
"Its excellent graphical interface makes the scanning process simple."
"TruRisk Insights is the most important innovation they've released this year."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its agent versatility."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment for IaaS and SaaS and a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce my workload by not having to combine multiple sources."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution."
"With TotalCloud, we can scan through the API. If we are not able to deploy cloud agents on the machine, we can use the API."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its ability to link clusters of assets, providing a clear model of deployments, vulnerabilities, and statuses."
"Cyera has an inbuilt set of policies implemented towards data security, especially cohering with Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)."
"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 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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for the customers is the monitoring and full log of the database activity of privileged users."
"This is a textured product and the brand equity of IBM means it's reliable."
"Guardium lets you centrally manage aggregators and collectors."
"Database Activity Monitoring fulfills the international standard security requirements, such as PCI DSS, and is very transparent on all of the query access controls of the monitored databases."
"We are able to identify who does what, when, and we are able to go back to them and say, "Is this an authorized activity? Is it not an authorized activity?""
"The maturity of the agent is the most valuable feature of the solution"
"The tool helps detect invalid login attempts within a specific time frame."
"All the features are useful for the customer and they have many use cases, especially for DB protection."
 

Cons

"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"In TotalCloud, I would suggest improvements in policy checks to cater to various inventory types like VPCs, subnets, S3 buckets, or IAMs. There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"There is room for improvement in vulnerability scanning, particularly for PaaS environments. Currently, Qualys does not have full access to these instances, which limits its effectiveness."
"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"Regarding technical support from Qualys, they respond, but the response time can be too long. Sometimes we need to wait weeks for solutions to simple questions."
"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."
"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."
"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."
"The licensing initially was tricky because it is based on storage as well as user count."
"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."
"It was difficult implementing it, configuring it, getting it up and running and in production. However, since then, I believe it has stabilized."
"The analysis part of this product could be improved."
"Guardium could be improved in the area of data encryption."
"We also have a problem with this solution because the IBM aggregator isn't working very well."
"The main issue I have with IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is the support. It's not good."
"The installation should be a bit easier."
"More predictive, using Watson AI would be good."
"An area for improvement would be the user interface - currently, it takes around two to three months to become comfortable using it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"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."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"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."
"The product's pricing is reasonable and affordable. It is in the moderate range."
"Guardium is most suitable for large scale enterprises because the pricing model is better if you are implementing a large number of databases."
"I would suggest to review the type of data, need for security, and if the organizational structure needs the options IBM Guardium provides."
"One of the deployments that I know of had three databases, and the yearly fees are approximately $50,000 USD."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is very high price, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"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."
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"Guardium won mostly because of our scope and scale. It was able to perform at the scale that we wanted to use it. ​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
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 i...
What needs improvement with Cyera ?
I think the area for improvement in Cyera is probably around integration, particularly with other platforms and third...
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 go...
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, co...
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 enterpr...
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 impro...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, Varonis and others in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.