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 #6 with an average rating of 8.6, while Cisco is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.5. Check Point Software Technologies holds a 1.5% mindshare in CDCS, compared to Cisco’s 14.0% 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 148 Check Point CloudGuard Network Security reviews

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359 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Workload

Read 15 Cisco Secure Workload reviews

3,469 Views
2,333 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

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

148

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

7th

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 March 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 1.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 14.0%, up from 12.4% 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 it in one place. I can have reporting and views 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 customers' 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

"Its blades and VSLS (Virtual System Load Sharing) work fine."

"The most valuable feature for us is the scale set, which allows us to scale horizontally, vertically and dynamically depending on the traffic load."

"Its integration and use of features, such as advanced threat prevention, have helped us a lot with malware prevention and also with avoiding exposure to false positives."

"We have unified management. It is one of the advantages of this product."

"The complexity managed by Check Point developers is amazing."

"It improves the availability of engineers to carry out projects."

"The product has allowed us to develop applications from the cloud - even with large environments and well-segmented security lines."

"The scalability is very good; again, very user-friendly. I wouldn't even say "user-friendly" because, as long as you deploy it properly, you can kill an EC2 and it will spin up another one right away, within about a minute and a half. And it will be ready for production right away."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pros

"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."

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

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

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

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

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"The solution's integration with cloud providers has seen significant development in the past months, but there is room for improvement for better integration."

"VPN troubleshooting can certainly be improved."

"The stability of the solution could be improved, but this is the problem of all the solutions in the market. This isn't just a problem specific to Check Point."

"We are at the place where we are looking at better integration with the management system. We use an MDS today, and it is self-deployed. We want to get to the Smart-1 Cloud, but we do not know what that looks like today because it does not support a multi-domain setup. Smart-1 should either be able to do multi-domain or there should be some form of taking a multi-domain environment and putting it in Smart-1."

"Regarding CloudGuard Network Security's integration with various resources like application gateways and application-based security groups, there's room for exploring dynamic access in those areas. A significant concern is the upgrade process. Unlike an in-place upgrade, upgrading the tool in Azure requires deploying a new resource, which can be hectic and less reliable. We have to spend something new to have the tool's latest version."

"The initial setup is difficult. It took me three tries to get it right. The setup took two or three hours."

"There is room for improvement in how it handles deployment itself, but I am not sure. It could be due to Azure's limitations, not Check Point's."

"There is room for improvement in the integration with PaaS services from the public cloud. It would be very helpful."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security cons

"It has an uninviting interface."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"The product must be integrated with the cloud."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Although I don't have specifics for pricing, based on my overall experience, I can conclude that Check Point provides the best pricing when comparing to other vendors."

"We have a pretty good partnership with Check Point. We have a global subscription and agreement. They give us a pretty good corporate discount."

"It is more expensive than other solutions and would be more competetive in the market if it came down in price."

"It is not expensive, but it is a little bit above the middle range. There are other solutions that are a little more expensive than this, but they also have some interesting features."

"The tool's pricing is reasonable."

"CloudGuard Network Security's pricing is fine."

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

"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."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

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?

The setup cost is okay. The cost overall is somewhat high compared to other vendors, whether firewalls or cloud-native solutions. Check Point may be on the pricier side, however, in the long run, i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

The reporting needs enhancement. Currently, we are not always aware of the gateways' status, like CPU and RAM usage. It would be beneficial to have a report that manages everything and gives an ove...

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 19% 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 14% of the time

VMware NSX vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 8% 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

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 18% of the time

Illumio vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 11% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

March 2025

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security report

Download Check Point CloudGuard Network Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

March 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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