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 9.0, while Cisco is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 10.4% mindshare in CWPP, compared to Cisco’s 2.1% 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 June 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS GuardDuty is 10.4%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.1%, down from 3.0% 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	10.4%
Qualys TotalCloud	1.5%
Cisco Secure Workload	2.1%
Other	86.0%

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.

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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

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I found the initial setup user-friendly."

"I appreciate Qualys TotalCloud's ability to onboard any type of device with ease, including containers."

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."

"TotalCloud's best feature is the integration of cloud accounts. It helps with the risk and security posture management of our cloud infrastructure."

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its ability to link clusters of assets, providing a clear model of deployments, vulnerabilities, and statuses."

"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."

"I would definitely recommend it because it is easy to handle any cloud resources."

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."

More Qualys TotalCloud pros

"The out-of-band malware detection from the EBS volumes. It's really cool. No agents or anything needed, it automatically finds and correlates based on malware."

"The way it monitors accounts is definitely a very important feature."

"Amazon GuardDuty is a very good service, and we are not planning to change it any time soon."

"GuardDuty's comprehensive threat detection does not only monitor data - it also detects a wide range of security threats."

"We generally use AWS GuardDuty for detection of zero-day vulnerabilities and automatic threat responses; it serves as a SOAR, an orchestrated and automated response solution for us in the AWS platform."

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

"We use the tool for threat detection. AWS includes AI features as well. AWS GuardDuty gives us reports."

"The most valuable features are the single system for data collection and the alert mechanisms."

More AWS GuardDuty pros

"By using Tetration insight, we are able to get the latency on our level accounts and we can determine whatever the issue is with the application latency itself."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."

"It's stable."

"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."

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

"By using Tetration insight, we are able to get the latency on our level accounts and we can determine whatever the issue is with the application latency itself."

"The only use case I can see that makes sense is micro-segmentation. I think there are other use cases for it. The main purpose of the product is to do micro-segmentation by collecting IP. That could be done by installing an agent, and then you have all the communication coming in and out. You could also use some flow sensors installed in the network that receive a copy of the traffic and then report that back to the system."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"The support process is inefficient due to the excessive number of replies required when submitting tickets."

"The onboarding process is a bit difficult. In the initial phase, it is very difficult to understand the features, what the dashboard contains, and what criteria they are using."

"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."

"There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."

"I would like the ability to disable certain default built-in policies as they can be misleading when creating dashboards. That is the top one."

"The patching process with Qualys Patch Management, which is part of TotalCloud, does not cover installing certain prerequisites on the servers or workstations."

"A feature improvement could be the inclusion of Windows OS support for container security, as it is currently only supported for Linux."

"In a future release, I suggest that zero-day vulnerabilities should be predicted in advance using AI technologies. The system is not 100% secure yet, so proactive threat hunting could be enhanced to be more proactive than the current system."

More Qualys TotalCloud cons

"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."

"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."

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

"Because it's a threat detection service, they need to keep up with the various threat factors because new threat factors and attack factors come up all the time."

"We currently find Lacework to be much better at detecting vulnerabilities than AWS GuardDuty. The engines of AWS GuardDuty have to be improved."

"The solution has to be integrated with new services that AWS adds like QuickSight, Managed Airflow, AppFlow and MWAA."

"It is evolving, and at the moment, I will just need it on a larger scale. Then, it will satisfy my demand, initially."

"There is currently no consolidated dashboard for AWS GuardDuty. It would be helpful if they could provide a dashboard based on severity levels (high, medium, low) and offer insights account-wise, especially for users utilizing automation structures."

More AWS GuardDuty cons

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

"The product must be integrated with the cloud."

"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."

"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."

"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."

"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."

"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's room for improvement when it comes to Cisco Secure Workload. A couple of internal areas could be refined a little bit. They are trying to solve it, depending on where you suppose the agent is. Suppose you have the agent on both the server and the client, which could be the front-end server or web server connecting to the. In that case, if those two are communicating on RPC, the server can look into its configuration. It could go down and find the configuration file on the FTP server and then set the policies to it. But there are a lot of different FTP servers out there. It's also a complex case for the tool to support all FTP servers."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."

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

"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."

"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."

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

"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."

More Qualys TotalCloud pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

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

"Pricing is determined by the number of events sent."

"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."

"We use a pay-as-you-use license, which is competitively priced in the market."

"The pricing model is pay as you go and is based on the number of events per month."

More AWS GuardDuty pricing and cost advice

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

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

"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 cost for the hardware is around 300k."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing 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 12% 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 66% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs AWS GuardDuty

Compared 4% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security 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 4% 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

TrendAI Deep Security vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 5% 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

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