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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs Protegrity’s Data Protection Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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

IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Ranking in Database Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Protegrity’s Data Protectio...
Ranking in Database Security
10th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (30th), Data Masking (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database Security category, the mindshare of IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is 26.4%, down from 33.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Protegrity’s Data Protection Platform is 2.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection26.4%
Protegrity’s Data Protection Platform2.6%
Other71.0%
Database Security
 

Featured Reviews

DP
Chief Executive Officer at Kipustec
Ensures data security and compliance with reliable alerts and protections
The manuals should be clearer. There needs to be an online course or tutorial for faster management training. The maintenance was slightly complicated. I had to read the manuals carefully and even failed the Guardium certification exam due to insufficient information or time. Improving the tool learning process would be beneficial.
Vinoth Raj Prabhakaran - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Architect at Tata Consultancy Services
Beneficial data security, good support, and straightforward initial setup
The initial setup of Protegrity Data Security was straightforward. However, we had a few problems, it's not multi-tenanted. It does not have a hierarchy of roles and differential priorities. To have the initial sandbox version of Protegrity Data Security up and running, took approximately one week. However, it needed to be set up in a resilient way because if it fails, then it is going to be a challenge bringing back the lost information. We have to be particular in terms of architecting it correctly which is taking us a bit of time. We are anticipating anywhere between four to six weeks to be finished.

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 I have found is the performance of client monitoring. The other competitors are unable to do this."
"It tests security to support SOX compliance."
"The reporting side is also very, very good, especially its flexibility which allows you to tailor the reports to whatever information you want."
"The most valuable feature for me, in my role as systems DBA, is the expediting of internal and external audits."
"Efficiency is key and IBM Guardium provides information in a heartbeat, but protects the data with military grade encryption."
"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."
"We now have the ability to begin to understand how people, applications, and service accounts are interacting with data to better protect it."
"From the perspective of analysis and prevention, this product is pretty accurate."
"The most valuable feature of Protegrity Data Security is the reduction of information being exposed."
"The product is stable."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"Its technical support team is helpful."
 

Cons

"I would like to be able to upgrade appliances within major versions without needing to rebuild the appliance."
"The price of this solution is quite high for smaller organizations, so they should release a version that is affordable for small and medium-sized businesses."
"An improvement would be to make the pricing relative in terms of regions."
"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."
"Performance and the ability to use resources could be improved."
"Flexibility could be improved."
"I am struggling getting through to social."
"It would be helpful, and convenient to improve the Chat support."
"The solution's UI could be better."
"Protegrity Data Security could improve by having more integration."
"Protegrity is using a different OS which has some bugs. Sometimes it's causing an initialization error."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One of the deployments that I know of had three databases, and the yearly fees are approximately $50,000 USD."
"My company purchased IBM Guardium Data Protection in a package, so I'm unable to give its exact licensing cost, but for the package of three IBM solutions, it wasn't very expensive. I'd rate the pricing for all three solutions three out of five. When my team deployed IBM Guardium Data Protection, all features were included."
"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 price is good for the quality of the solution."
"It is a very costly product."
"Guardium is most suitable for large scale enterprises because the pricing model is better if you are implementing a large number of databases."
"​If you are researching this type of solution, work with IBM."
"We haven't talked much about pricing and licencing. But it is not cheap for sure"
"We pay for a few additional services apart from its licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
33%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise45
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
The features I like are the robust policies, which allow us to create customized monitoring based on specific activities.
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Also Known As

InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
Protegrity Data Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
A $4 billion retail conglomerate and holding company
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs. Protegrity’s Data Protection Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.