AWS GuardDuty vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cisco are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.9, while Cisco is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 11.3% mindshare in CWPP, compared to Cisco’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 12, 2024

Cisco Secure Workload and AWS GuardDuty are competitors in the workload security space. AWS GuardDuty appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced threat detection capabilities and overall perceived value.

Features: Cisco Secure Workload is recognized for robust security measures, integration capabilities, and competitive pricing. AWS GuardDuty is favored for advanced threat detection, ease of use, and seamless AWS integration.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Workload requires better scalability, enhanced reporting features, and improved flexibility in its scaling options. AWS GuardDuty needs advancement in integration options, reduction in false positives, and improvement in integration flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Secure Workload provides smooth deployment processes and responsive customer support. AWS GuardDuty offers straightforward integration with AWS environments but lacks personalized customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Workload is noted for competitive pricing and solid ROI. AWS GuardDuty, despite higher costs, is often seen as offering better value through its effective threat detection and capability to deliver strong ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload

April 2026

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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

Qualys TotalCloud

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS GuardDuty is 11.3%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.2%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
AWS GuardDuty	11.3%
Qualys TotalCloud	1.3%
Cisco Secure Workload	2.2%
Other	85.2%

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

Robert Orłowski

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.

Read full review

ShantanuKhare

Senior IT Auditor at Ernst & Young

Has provided automated threat detection and daily malicious activity insights while supporting seamless orchestration with existing dashboards

I would assess the integration of AWS GuardDuty with Threat Intelligence as majorly positive; no threat intelligence is 100% accurate, and there are a few false positives, but as a security engineer, this must be accepted, and overall, the response and service is good for us. We do not directly use AWS GuardDuty dashboard by itself, as we have our own integrated security dashboard; AWS GuardDuty gives the feed to that dashboard, and it's giving us a satisfactory view of how the security landscape looks. We use metrics such as zero-day threats, any malicious traffic, and any traffic which originates from OFAC countries to measure its effectiveness, as we are majorly into a financial institution, as any traffic that is from a malicious IP or a rogue device. I don't see any significant negative points regarding AWS GuardDuty; it's a good product to have if you're a cloud consumer. I rate AWS GuardDuty nine out of ten overall.

Read full review

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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users because it is cost-efficient and has a good return on investment."

"If someone were to ask me to review Qualys TotalCloud, I would summarize it as an end-to-end solution for cloud security with visibility and governance-grade controls without needing to manage multiple disconnected tools."

"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 features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."

"I appreciate TotalCloud's real-time protection and remediation features. The remediation options include automated one-click remedies and custom changes that help manage vulnerabilities efficiently."

"Generally, Qualys is very good at detections, whether on cloud or on-prem, and the agent allows deployment on both infrastructures, providing continuous monitoring of your assets, which is a key selling point for us."

"I would rate Qualys TotalCloud ten out of ten."

"Qualys TotalCloud has improved our security posture."

More Qualys TotalCloud pros

"The solution will detect abnormalities in the AWS workload and alert us so that we can monitor and take action."

"Since our environment is cloud based and accessible from the internet, we like the ability to check where the user has logged in from and what kind of API calls that user is doing."

"What we found most valuable in Amazon GuardDuty is its threat detection feature, especially because we were monitoring a huge number of AWS accounts, so we needed a solution that would monitor for any kind of malicious activity. The monitoring aspect of the solution was great because it gave us timely notifications if and when anything happened, and Amazon GuardDuty helped keep us on our toes to make sure we took action right away."

"AWS GuardDuty is a great solution; I appreciate it because it's native for the Cloud provider, and I don't need to acquire other tools from another vendor."

"What I like most about Amazon GuardDuty is that you can monitor your AWS accounts across, but you don't have to pay the additional cost."

"Deployment is great, and we didn't face any big challenges."

"The correlation back end is the solution's most valuable feature."

More AWS GuardDuty pros

"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."

"The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage; the telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent, it's complete, and you see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network."

"This product does everything that you need it to do and more and does a lot to provide visibility in a network environment, save time and money, and make the organization IT operate in a much more streamlined fashion."

"The most valuable feature right now is to do with having visibility on the network — especially on our servers — and to be able to enforce some type of security measures."

"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."

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

"It's stable."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"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."

"The patching process with Qualys Patch Management, which is part of TotalCloud, does not cover installing certain prerequisites on the servers or workstations. This shortcoming means we must rely on SCCM when any service stack updates or additional prerequisites are needed."

"In my opinion, what can be improved in Qualys TotalCloud includes pricing and container scanning."

"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."

"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."

"Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its accuracy for non-Windows operating systems."

"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."

"TotalCloud could improve its scanning of niche devices like Wi-Fi dongles and USB modems because they are often untested. It covers everything else, like laptops, mobile devices, and Bluetooth IoT devices. They can improve on the small IoT devices because hackers and testers use these."

More Qualys TotalCloud cons

"I work in a bank, and it would be good if AWS GuardDuty could be integrated with other monitoring and detection tools we use."

"GuardDuty is limited to AWS environments."

"Comparing AWS GuardDuty to similar products from Microsoft, Microsoft has a product called Sentinel, which is a completely integrated solution that basically does everything from vulnerability management to managing log analytics. This is something which AWS GuardDuty doesn't have since it's a separate service."

"I would like to see more integration with other AWS provided services."

"For the next release, they could provide IPS features as well."

"AWS GuardDuty needs to be more customer-oriented."

"Amazon GuardDuty could be better enriched in threat intelligence data."

"I think that some detections in container environments such as container runtime, and on services such as AWS container service, Fargate service or EKS service could be improved."

More AWS GuardDuty cons

"The product must be integrated with the cloud."

"The product should be easy to use, but it is not. Comparing it to other products, it was very complex."

"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."

"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and I need to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."

"They should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem."

"A feature that I was looking for was emailed alerts and notifications so we'd get them right away."

"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."

"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and there are few DC tools, it would be great to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."

"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."

"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."

"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."

"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."

"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."

"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."

"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."

More Qualys TotalCloud pricing and cost advice

"The platform is inexpensive."

"The price of the solution is exactly right."

"The tool's licensing model is pay-as-you-go."

"In terms of the costs associated with Amazon GuardDuty, it was $1 per GB from what I recall. Pricing was based on per gigabyte. For example, for the first five hundred gigabytes per month, it'll be $1 per GB, so it'll be $500. If your usage was greater, there's another bracket, for example, the next two thousand GB, then there's an add-on cost of 50 cents per GB. That's how Amazon GuardDuty pricing slowly goes up. I can't remember if there was any kind of additional cost apart from standard licensing for the solution. Nothing else that at least comes to mind. What the service was charging was worth it. That was one good thing when using Amazon GuardDuty because my company could be in a certain tier for a certain period. My company wasn't under a licensing model where it could overestimate its usage and under-utilize its usage and pay much more. This was what made the pricing model for Amazon GuardDuty better."

"GuardDuty only enables accounts in regions where you have an active workload. If there are places where you don't have an active workload, you wouldn't even enable them. That's one area where they could allow you to cut down your cost."

"I prefer to have something on demand for myself. That's why I haven't been paying for GuardDuty specifically. AWS provides a wide range of offerings, especially in the security area."

"It can get very expensive. If you turn on every feature, it can turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"80 percent of the customers are using AWS GuardDuty, and we recommend it due to its low cost, especially for small customers, ranging from five to ten dollars a month. In our policies, we enforce the usage of this service, making it a recommended practice for security."

More AWS GuardDuty pricing and cost advice

"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 pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."

"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."

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

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

"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	28

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?

The price is very expensive, actually.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?

Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon GuardDuty?

AWS GuardDuty is an expensive feature, and while you can't expect the price to be low, it can be lower because it's p...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon GuardDuty?

AWS GuardDuty is a good product; it's doing its job right now, and I don't see any additional improvements needed. Co...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon GuardDuty?

We generally use AWS GuardDuty for detection of zero-day vulnerabilities and automatic threat responses; it serves as...

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 discov...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Workload?

When we onboarded Cisco Secure Workload, the usual use case was to discover internal application dependencies and cre...

See all answers

Comparisons

Wiz vs Qualys TotalCloud

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Qualys TotalCloud

Compared 9% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Qualys TotalCloud

Compared 6% of the time

Nucleus Security vs Qualys TotalCloud

Compared 5% of the time

JupiterOne vs Qualys TotalCloud

Compared 5% of the time

More Qualys TotalCloud Competitors

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 67% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 4% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 4% of the time

Wiz vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 4% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 3% of the time

More AWS GuardDuty Competitors

Illumio vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 14% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 13% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 6% of the time

TrendAI Deep Security vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Qualys TotalCloud

May 2026

Download Qualys TotalCloud product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty

May 2026

Download AWS GuardDuty product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

May 2026

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan

No data available

Cisco Tetration

Overview

Qualys TotalCloud enhances security posture across cloud environments with continuous monitoring, vulnerability management, and risk visualization, ensuring efficient threat assessment and automated remediation for improved cyber risk reduction.

Qualys TotalCloud offers a robust suite of security tools essential for organizations managing multi-cloud infrastructures. By integrating cloud accounts and automating workflows, it supports AWS, Azure, and GCP, offering comprehensive vulnerability management and zero-day detection. The platform's user-friendly design, combined with its extensive risk management and unified threat assessment capabilities, enables organizations to prioritize and remediate vulnerabilities effectively. TruRisk Insights provides clear insights on cyber risks, while the automation options streamline patch management and scanning processes. API integration across IaaS and SaaS environments further enhances resource allocation efficiency and saves time, addressing misconfigurations across cloud environments.

What are the most important features of Qualys TotalCloud?

Accurate Vulnerability Reports: Delivers precise and actionable insights for risk mitigation.
Zero-Day Detection: Identifies and addresses zero-day vulnerabilities proactively.
Unified Threat Assessment: Offers comprehensive evaluation of threats across the environment.
Extensive Risk Management: Manages risks effectively with advanced insights and prioritization.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides non-stop surveillance for vulnerabilities and threats.
Cloud-Native Automation: Streamlines processes and reduces manual efforts using automation.
FlexScan for Internet-Facing VMs: Scans external VMs efficiently to detect vulnerabilities.
Dashboard Risk Visualization: Clear visualization helps prioritize vulnerabilities.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Security Posture: Enhances threat detection and response across clouds.
Time Savings: Automation reduces time spent on manual vulnerability management.
Resource Efficiency: Better allocation of resources through streamlined workflows.
Enhanced Risk Prioritization: Focus on critical vulnerabilities for effective mitigation.
Integrated Cloud Accounts: Facilitates seamless cloud management and security.

Qualys TotalCloud is deployed in sectors needing rigorous vulnerability management, such as finance and healthcare. Companies utilize it to secure multi-cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and GCP, focus on compliance, and integrate security into CI/CD pipelines to detect and remedy threats pre-deployment.

Qualys

AWS GuardDuty is a security service providing threat detection and continuous monitoring, integrating seamlessly with AWS services and third-party tools. Enhanced by machine learning, it offers comprehensive protection against unauthorized access and malicious activity within AWS environments.

GuardDuty offers behavior analysis and automated responses, utilizing multiple data sources like CloudTrail and VPC Flow Logs for thorough threat analysis. Its scalability and cost-effectiveness simplify the process of identifying suspicious activities, thereby protecting AWS environments from security threats. While users appreciate these features, there's room for improvement in expanded integrations, a more intuitive dashboard, and detailed threat intelligence. Key capabilities include facilitating compliance and enhancing cloud security by monitoring accounts, services, and detecting unusual patterns in real-time.

What are the key features of AWS GuardDuty?

Threat Detection: Identifies potential threats using behavior analysis and anomaly detection.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides round-the-clock surveillance of AWS environments.
Integration: Connects with AWS services and third-party tools for extended functionality.
Automated Responses: Facilitates immediate action against detected threats.

What benefits and ROI should users expect from AWS GuardDuty reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Offers scalable solutions without significant overhead costs.
Ease of Use: Simplifies threat detection and monitoring processes.
Scalability: Adapts to growing security needs efficiently.
Comprehensive Security: Protects AWS environments from unauthorized access and malicious activities.

Industries utilize AWS GuardDuty for robust security management, detecting threats and analyzing potential risks within AWS environments. This is crucial for sectors needing strict compliance and security, such as finance and healthcare, enabling these sectors to respond effectively to security events and maintain integrity.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Cisco Secure Workload offers advanced auditing, micro-segmentation, and network visibility, automating policy presentation for improved security. It enhances application dependency mapping and provides comprehensive telemetry with strategic policy enforcement.

Cisco Secure Workload specializes in automating micro-segmentation, data center management, and traffic analysis. Its capabilities facilitate application dependency mapping and enhance internal micro-segmentation, providing invaluable network visibility. Users find its automation in policy presentation and strategic enforcement beneficial, along with granular control and scalability, despite needing improvements in scalability and integration capabilities. Enhanced notification features, troubleshooting options, and an efficient interface are desired for seamless deployment, along with stronger multi-tenancy, redundancy, and monitoring functions. Broader platform support and integrated cloud connectivity are desired for unified management across tools.

What are the most important features?

Auditing: Provides in-depth network analysis and security auditing capabilities.
Micro-Segmentation: Enhances network security by automating segmentation at a granular level.
Application Dependency Mapping: Visualizes connections and interactions between applications.
Network Visibility: Delivers comprehensive insight into network activities and dynamics.
Policy Discovery: Streamlines policy creation through automation and reduces manual intervention.
Comprehensive Telemetry: Offers complete coverage and insights for better security assessment.

What benefits and ROI should be evaluated?

Enhanced Security Measures: Offers robust features for network security improvement.
Automated Processes: Reduces manual efforts through automation, increasing efficiency.
Scalability: Adapts to growing network demands with flexible scalability options.
Granular Control: Allows detailed control over network policies and enforcement.

Entities in finance, gas, and oil sectors utilize Cisco Secure Workload for networking site management and compliance maintenance. It integrates into extensive Cisco infrastructure, aiding routers, switches, and endpoints, thus supporting auditors in network synchronization and auditing needs.

Cisco

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

autodesk, mapbox, fico, webroot

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload

April 2026

Free Report: AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS GuardDuty vs. Cisco Secure Workload and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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