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Cisco IOS Security vs Threat Stack Cloud Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

Cisco IOS Security
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (21st)
Threat Stack Cloud Security...
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (38th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (29th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (34th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco IOS Security is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Threat Stack Cloud Security Platform is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

Karthik Venkataraman - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues
Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Threat Containment feature. Its deployment and configuration are straightforward. From a networking perspective, for instance, Cisco IOS incorporates time-tested security features. The zone-based firewall feature has significantly influenced our network security management. For instance, when managing multiple geolocations, it's essential to apply geographically appropriate policies. If a customer operates within the UK zone, I need to implement UK-specific policies. This approach is also applicable to customers in the Asia Pacific and UK regions. It enables me to tailor security policies based on the geographical location of my customers, such as adjusting policies for customers in China or Japan. This flexibility helps in creating a comprehensive zone list. Additionally, this feature allows for seamless service agreements between all zones from headquarters, providing access to all zones within the firewall we create. Essentially, it facilitates the creation of zones within the firewall.
SC
SecOps program for us, as a smaller company, is amazing; they know what to look for
They could give a few more insights into security groups and recommendations on how to be more effective. That's getting more into the AWS environment, specifically. I'm not sure if that's Threat Stack's plan or not, but I would like them to help us be efficient about how we're setting up security groups. They could recommend separation of VPCs and the like - really dig into our architecture. I haven't seen a whole lot of that and I think that's something that, right off the bat, could have made us smarter. Even as part of the SecOps Program, that could be helpful; a quick analysis. They're analyzing our whole infrastructure and saying, "You have one VPC and that doesn't make a lot of sense, that should be multiple VPCs and here's why." The architecture of the servers in whatever cloud-hosting provider you're on could be helpful. Other than that, they should continue to expand on their notifications and on what's a vulnerability. They do a great job of that and we want them to continue to do that. It would be cool, since the agent is already deployed and they know about the server, they know the IP address, and they know what vulnerability is there, for them to test the vulnerability and see if they can actually exploit it. Or, once we patch it, they could double-check that it can't be. I don't know how hard that would be to build. Thinking on it off the top off my head, it could be a little challenging but it could also be highly interesting. It would also be great if we could test a couple of other features like hammering a server with 100 login attempts and see what happens. Real test scenarios could be really helpful. That is probably more something close to what they do with the SOC 2 audit or the report. But more visualization of that, being able to test things out on our infrastructure to make sure we can or can't hit this box could be interesting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the product for firewalls."
"In Pakistan, we only use Cisco because they have good local support infrastructure. Huawei and Fortinet don't offer direct support in Pakistan."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco IOS Security is posturing."
"The Intrusion Firewall is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are DNS service and shell self-service within a network."
"Cisco products are very secure and integrate easily with other devices."
"I recommend Cisco IOS Security for other organizations."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"Every other security tool we've looked is good at containers, or at Kubernetes, is good at AWS, or at instance monitoring. But nobody is good at tying all of those things together, and that's really where Threat Stack shines."
"Threat Stack has connectivity."
"We're using it on container to see when activity involving executables happens, and that's great."
"There has been a measurable decrease in the meantime to remediation... because we have so many different tech verticals already collated in one place, our ability to respond is drastically different than it used to be."
"We like the ability of the host security module to monitor the processes running on our servers to help us monitor activity."
"The rules are really great. They give us more visibility and control over what's being triggered. There's a large set of rules that come out-of-the-box. We can customize them and we can create our own rules based on the traffic patterns that we see."
"The most valuable feature is the SecOps because they have our back and they help us with the reports... It's like having an extension of your team. And then, it grows with you."
"It is scalable. It deploys easily with curl and yum."
 

Cons

"There are the usual bugs that are inherent to some software upgrades. Sometimes this provides some unexpected issues, however, it happens with all brands all the time."
"Cisco is a scalable product, but it is expensive compared to other vendors."
"Signatures and other critical definitions need to be updated more frequently."
"I think setup could be one area for improvement, because sometimes we don't have people inside so we have to move to the place."
"I think they should bring back remote VPN for users."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see support for the 100BT and 7000 models."
"We cannot directly upgrade the system. The tool's deployment is also very difficult in legacy environments. The tool needs to have bigger ports as well."
"If they could increase the performance a little better because the device sometimes gets slow."
"It shoots back a lot of alerts."
"The one thing that we know they're working on, but we don't have through the tool, is the application layer. As we move to a serverless environment, with AWS Fargate or direct Lambda, that's where Threat Stack does not have the capacity to provide feed. Those are areas that it's blind to now..."
"Some features do not work as expected."
"The user interface can be a little bit clunky at times... There's a lot of information that needs to be waded through, and the UI just isn't great."
"I would like further support of Windows endpoint agents or the introduction of support for Windows endpoint agents."
"The reports aren't very good. We've automated the report generation via the API and replaced almost all the reports that they generate for us using API calls instead."
"They could give a few more insights into security groups and recommendations on how to be more effective. That's getting more into the AWS environment, specifically. I'm not sure if that's Threat Stack's plan or not, but I would like them to help us be efficient about how we're setting up security groups. They could recommend separation of VPCs and the like - really dig into our architecture. I haven't seen a whole lot of that and I think that's something that, right off the bat, could have made us smarter."
"The API - which has grown quite a bit, so we're still learning it and I can't say whether it still needs improvement - was an area that had been needing it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is okay. It is competitive. It costs more when you need get more features."
"The solution's pricing is very good."
"It is necessary to pay for a license in order to use the solution. It is on a yearly basis and the price is high."
"We need to pay for the license and it is expensive."
"The pricing is average and includes all features with support."
"The pricing for Cisco IOS Security is reasonable compared to other Cisco products."
"I rate Cisco IOS Security's pricing a ten out of ten."
"We can purchase its licenses as per specific business requirements."
"We find the licensing and pricing very easy to understand and a good value for the services provided."
"Pricing seems to be in line with the market structure. It's fine."
"It is very expensive compared to some other products. The pricing is definitely high."
"It came in cheaper than Trend Micro when we purchased it a few years ago."
"What we're paying now is somewhere around $15 to $20 per agent per month, if I recall correctly. The other cost we have is SecOps."
"It is a cost-effective choice versus other solutions on the market."
"I'm happy with the amount that we spend for the product that we get and the overall service that we get. It's not cheap, but I'm still happy with the spend."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco IOS Security?
Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Thr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco IOS Security?
Pricing can be reduced. I rate the current price for the product a four out of ten.
What needs improvement with Cisco IOS Security?
While I do not have specific recommendations for improvement, pricing can be reduced.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

IOS Security
Threat Stack, CSP,
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arup Group, Brunel University London, City of Biel, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, K&L Gates , New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Offshore Northern Seas, Transplace
StatusPage.io, Walkbase, Spanning, DNAnexus, Jobcase, Nextcapital, Smartling, Veracode, 6sense
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco IOS Security vs. Threat Stack Cloud Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.