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Cisco Secure Workload vs Illumio comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
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Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
4th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
7th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)
Illumio
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
2nd
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 14.0%, up from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 25.0%, up from 21.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew W - PeerSpot reviewer
Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues
Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As a frequently audited company, we value SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's compliance monitoring features. They give us a report with a compliance score for how well we meet certain regulatory standards, like HIPAA. We can show our compliance as a percentage. It's also a way to show that we are serious about security."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers several valuable features, most notably the rapid vulnerability notifications that provide timely alerts regarding our infrastructure."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is on top of protecting ephemeral workloads."
"I did a lot of research before signing up and doing the demo. They have a good reputation as far as catching threats early on."
"The real-time detection and response capabilities overall are great."
"The most valuable feature is the notification system, providing real-time alerts and comparisons crucial for maintaining security."
"We really appreciate the Slack integration. When we have an incident, we get an instant notification. We also use Joe Sandbox, which Singularity can integrate with, so we can verify if a threat is legitimate."
"SentinelOne stands out with its responsiveness to feature requests for Singularity Cloud Security."
"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 is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"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."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"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."
"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."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"The product provides multiple-device integration."
"The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"I would recommend Illumio to all sizes of companies."
"The tool helps with my company's security posture."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The solution helps to maintain logs and monitor activities. It also helps us with access management. The tool helps us to secure organizational data that include files."
"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."
 

Cons

"While it is good, I think the solution's console could be improved."
"I personally use the SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security daily, and I have noticed that the dashboard occasionally gets stuck, potentially due to internet issues. It could benefit from enhancements to be more robust and smoother."
"We use SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security and also SentinelOne. If SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security integrated some of the endpoint security features of SentinelOne, it would be the perfect one-stop solution for everything. We wouldn't need to switch between the products. At my organization, I am responsible for endpoint security and vulnerability management. Integrating both functions into one application would be ideal because I could see all the alerts, heat maps, and reports in one console."
"While the future roadmap presented by SentinelOne appears promising, I hope the envisioned advancements are realistically achievable and that the gap between current offerings and long-term goals is not too significant."
"I request that SentinelOne investigate this false positive, as SentinelOne has a higher false positive rate than other XDR solutions."
"We've found a lot of false positives."
"There can be a specific type of alert showing that a new type of risk has been identified."
"Sometimes the Storyline ID is a bit wacky."
"There was a controversy when Cisco reduced the amount of data they kept, and the solution became quite cost-intensive, which made its adoption challenging….Although they have modified it now, I preferred the previous version, and I wish all the functionality were back under the same product."
"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."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"The emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."
"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 should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades."
"We need more details on areas where there is an error or a traffic blockage. I would like the tool to offer a more detailed view."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While I'm slightly out of touch with pricing, I know SentinelOne is much cheaper than other products."
"We have an enterprise license. It is affordable. I'm not sure, but I think we pay 150,000 rupees per month."
"For pricing, it currently seems to be in line with market rates."
"PingSafe is affordable."
"It is not that expensive. There are some tools that are double the cost of PingSafe. It is good on the pricing side."
"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's pricing is good."
"PingSafe falls somewhere in the middle price range, neither particularly cheap nor expensive."
"Singularity Cloud Security by SentinelOne is cost-efficient."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"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 pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"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."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?
The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?
It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market.
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSPM tool, but its CWPP features need improvement, and there i...
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?
The product provides multiple-device integration.
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...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...
What do you like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is t...
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. Th...
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Cisco Tetration
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. Illumio and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.