Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

Check Point Software Technologies and Cisco are both solutions in the Cloud and Data Center Security category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6, while Cisco is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.5. Check Point Software Technologies holds a 1.7% mindshare in CDCS, compared to Cisco’s 13.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...

Read 140 Check Point CloudGuard Network Security reviews

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370 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Workload

Read 15 Cisco Secure Workload reviews

3,375 Views
2,273 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...

Cisco Secure Workload

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Cisco Secure Workload compete in the cybersecurity domain, each offering distinct strengths. Cisco Secure Workload appears to have the upper hand in several areas, underscoring its value despite higher pricing.

Features: Cisco Secure Workload offers mature workload protection, excellent micro-segmentation, and comprehensive visibility into network environments. It's known for its ability to streamline policy discovery and enforcement. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides extensive threat prevention, centralized management through MDM solutions, and supports auto-scaling based on traffic, making it highly adaptable to cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Workload could improve with simplified deployment processes, reduced complexity in policy management, and further integration options. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security would benefit from enhanced GUI navigation, better integration with third-party tools, and more efficient reporting capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security excels in its straightforward deployment and robust customer support, ideal for organizations seeking quick implementation. Cisco Secure Workload involves a more intricate setup, but its extensive support services effectively guide users through the process, appealing to those managing complex environments.

Pricing and ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is competitively priced and focuses on maximizing ROI, appealing to budget-conscious customers. Cisco Secure Workload, while requiring a higher initial investment, delivers significant returns through enhanced security and operational efficiency, attracting organizations prioritizing robust security over costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload

January 2025

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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

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

140

Ranking in other categories

Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (6th)

Cisco Secure Workload

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (16th), Microsegmentation Software (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 1.7%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 13.6%, up from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

Martin Raška

Senior Security Engineer & Instructor at Arrow Electronics

Unification of security features strengthens network protection

The overall network security is good. It's big-picture, all in one bundle. It's valuable to have everything in one place instead of spreading across different products. Unified security management positively affects a company's security operations. They have one unified view of the security. I can connect multiple gateways to the management and have the view. I can have reporting and walks in a single pane of glass on the consolidated platform. It's easy to use. The management is the best on the market. It's very easy to work with, read, understand, and navigate. It helps increase our customer's security posture. We can see in some cases CloudGuard improves our customer's posture 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

"The Capsule solution and application filters are the most valuable. It is pretty straightforward to implement, and it also has good stability and scalability. Their technical support is also really good."

"The tool's most valuable features are threat prevention and protection mechanisms."

"It makes securing our cloud workload super easy, and we are able to push any sort of policy changes we need pretty quickly"

"The ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model is valuable."

"CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-prem. It's very important because when I have unified security, I have better control of the situation. If there's an attack or something like that, we can react faster. It's easier for everyone in the organization to work with the Infinity platform."

"The most important feature is that we are able to use Check Point CloudGuard Firewall for our cloud security. We can make the deployment automated. We do not require manual intervention."

"The solution has been quite stable."

"This solution brings us closer to having a better security score, which helps us a lot in complying with information regulations based on security."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security 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."

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

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

"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."

"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."

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

"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. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."

"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"Sometimes, the support is good, and other times, we are a bit desperate."

"We did not use the AWS Transit Gateway, and that's one of the things that we're currently using. I believe we will be working with Check Point again, in the near future, to implement it, once they start having proper support for a single customer with multiple accounts. When we were using them, we had to install Check Point on each and every single account."

"There may be some latency."

"I believe that presentations on artificial intelligence indicate that analyzing logs via SmartEvent and SmartLog Security Event Information Management can offer insights into emerging trends and potential next steps. By correlating logs related to BYOD, BYOL, and Shadow IT, it will become easier to manage and hopefully mitigate or understand risks."

"With the incorporation of a lot of AI and machine learning, they can build some sort of a matrix for low-level threats or low-level things that require attention. There can be automation of those tasks so that we don't have to take more time and effort. There should be machine learning to eliminate level-one types of tasks."

"The memory and hard disk capability could be strengthened."

"While today we can manage some scopes, there are still some segments in the OSI layer we cannot manage."

"The solution lacks the capability to scale effectively."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security cons

"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."

"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."

"It has an uninviting interface."

"They should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem. The issue with the price comes from the fact that you have to have it with enormous storage and enormous computes."

"It is not so easy to use and configure. It needs a bunch of further resources to work, which is mainly the biggest downside of it. The deployment is huge."

"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."

"The product must be integrated with the cloud."

"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."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is fair. Its license covers all the features. There is a cost-benefit. The licensing for the cloud is better than on-premises because, with on-premises, you have to pay separately for different things."

"The tool's pricing is been higher than other solutions, but it seems like it's turning downwards."

"Pricing of CloudGuard is pretty fair when you have a single account. It's comparable with other cloud providers. But for our use case, it got really pricey when we had to deploy multiple CloudGuards on multiple accounts in different regions, because you can't have CloudGuard protecting multiple regions. That's the big thing."

"I quite like the way they priced it. It is very reasonable."

"We pay approximately ‎€150,000 ($166,000 USD) per year."

"I like the flexibility because I am pretty sure you can use the same license on Azure or AWS. I forgot the name of the license, but there is a specific type you can use that lets you interchange them, and that is pretty good. I like that."

"It's not very expensive. It isn't very cheap either. Its price is okay. It depends on how much money you have. It might be expensive for some companies. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The price of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very high compared to other solutions, such as Fortinet FortiMail. For the over 2,000 mailboxes we use with the solution it is very expensive."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."

"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."

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

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

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

"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."

"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

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

27%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

The tool's most valuable feature is its management console.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Pricing is high, over $25,000 USD annually. The package offered includes features we may not need, and more flexible licensing could be cheaper.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

The pricing is too high. We pay more than twenty-five thousand USD per year, which could be reduced. Moreover, Check Point does not initially support serverless architecture, requiring additional e...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?

The product provides multiple-device integration.

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 discovery. This raises questions about the resources required to discover and write po...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiGate vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 15% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 13% of the time

VMware NSX vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 9% of the time

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 3% of the time

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Competitors

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 20% of the time

Illumio vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 16% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 12% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 10% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

February 2025

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security report

Download Check Point CloudGuard Network Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

February 2025

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Cisco Tetration

Overview

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is designed to secure cloud assets, offering robust firewall capabilities and protection for both internal and external traffic across AWS, Azure, and on-premises environments.

Enterprises rely on Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for comprehensive network protection, threat prevention, and compliance enforcement. Supporting virtual machines and hybrid environments, it delivers advanced security measures including intrusion prevention and application control. Key functions include firewall security, network segmentation, and cloud environment protection, ensuring businesses maintain a secure and compliant IT infrastructure.

What are the most valuable features of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Flexible Architecture: Adaptable to diverse cloud and on-premises environments.
UTM Capabilities: Unified Threat Management delivering multi-layered security.
Advanced Threat Prevention: Includes IPS, application control, and anti-malware.
Auto-scaling: Automatically adjusts capacity based on traffic and demand.
Comprehensive Threat Prevention: Protects against known and unknown threats.
Ease of Use: Streamlined deployment and management processes.
Integration with Cloud Platforms: Seamlessly works with AWS, Azure, and other clouds.
Centralized Management: Single-pane-of-glass visibility and control.
User Identity Awareness: Enhances security policies based on user identities.
Zero-touch Deployment: Simplifies initial setup and deployment.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Email Protection: Shields email communications from threats.
Anti-malware: Guards against malicious software.
Single-pane-of-glass Visibility: Provides a unified view for better security management.
Scalability: Grows with the business needs.
Seamless Cloud Transition: Eases the move from on-premises to cloud environments.

In industries such as financial services, healthcare, retail, and education, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is implemented to safeguard sensitive data, ensure compliance, and protect critical infrastructure. Companies in these sectors benefit from its advanced threat prevention and flexible deployment options, meeting their stringent security requirements while enabling secure digital transformation.

Check Point Software Technologies

Cisco Secure Workload is a cloud and data security solution that offers a zero-trust policy of keeping an organization’s application workloads safe and secure throughout the entire on-premise and cloud data center ecosystems.

Cisco Secure Workload will consistently provide protection by discovering workload process anomalies, stopping threats immediately, minimizing the risk threat surface, and aborting any lateral movement.

Today’s ecosystems are very elastic, and in the application-focused dynamic of today’s aggressive marketplace, Cisco Secure Workload delivers a robust security solution that works effectively with today’s most popular applications. The solution uniquely surrounds each and every workload to ensure organizations are able to keep their data, network, and applications safe and secure at all times. Cisco Secure Workload ensures that enterprise organizations can maintain secure applications by consistently building firewalls around every workload level throughout the entire ecosystem. The solution can manage applications that are deployed on containers, virtual machines, or bare-metal servers.

Cisco Secure workload is able to meet an organization's busy needs and offers flexible options such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premises options. Using the Secure Workload SaaS options, users receive all the benefits of Cisco Secure Workload protection without the hassle of having to deploy and maintain the platform on premises. Users are responsible for acquiring the necessary software licensing and deploying software agents. Using SaaS, Secure Workload runs in the cloud and is operated and maintained by Cisco. This option offers the ability to scale easily and is a popular choice for SaaS-first and SaaS-only clients. Many organizations find they get the best TCO and achieve the best productivity and profitability using the SaaS options.

When choosing on-premises options, organizations choose between hardware-based appliance models (large or small form factors). Platform selection is dependent on scalability goals, the desired fidelity level of flow telemetry, and the actual number of workloads. When a user chooses to configure Cisco Secure Workload for a conversation-only flow telemetry for all workloads, each platform has the capability to scale up vertically twice the default platform scale. Additionally, with Secure Workload, it is possible for the platform to be scaled horizontally in order to satisfy the demands of extra large widely distributed enterprise environments using federation capabilities.

Cisco Secure Workload also provides a robust disaster recovery (DR) tool, which helps to make it a complete, comprehensive solution. The DR allows for continuous restore and backup capabilities that enable users to quickly remediate operations and data to a standby cluster in the event of a drastic failure or disaster.

Reviews from Real Users

“The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network. Other valuable features include vast support for annotations, flexible user applications, machine learning, automatic classification, and hierarchical policies.” - CTO at a tech vendor

Cisco

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload

January 2025

Free Report: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Workload

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