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Cisco Secure Workload vs Symantec Data Center Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 14, 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 Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (14th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Symantec Data Center Security
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 11.5%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Data Center Security is 2.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Workload11.5%
Symantec Data Center Security2.5%
Other86.0%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Muhammad Ejaz ul Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Continuous server hardening has protected critical legacy workloads and simplified security control
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As a user protecting your infrastructure, you need to sell the value to your management. Management buys the tool for preventing threats, and it works for them. However, you cannot sell it because every solution needs to show what happened in the last few years or how you will be protected in the future. Reporting is the most important thing for the CIO level, not the admin level. I have seen Symantec really lag in this area. I am creating my own tool to build a dashboard to share with the CIO level because they want to know what happened last week, last month, and last year. These reports will tell you about activities. Symantec changed the licensing when Broadcom acquired the company. The question of who will provide support became unclear. Support has now changed and they are making money. I have seen that most of the time when you ask implementation questions, they do not answer you. If you have a problem, they give you a low-level engineer at the first level. This delays resolution. Support has to be better.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"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."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"Symantec Data Center Security, as a name, represents the perfect solution if you want to harden your servers."
"The most valuable feature is the centralized console, which can handle different products that we have."
"The console and tools are very user-friendly."
"The real strength lies in its straightforward approach, offering just two key policies: prevention and detection."
"Good file integrity monitoring features."
"We use the product to prevent unauthorized access to data, systems, and servers. It provides essential features for data center security."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection system."
"The advantage of Data Center Security is its ease of use and that it serves as a single unified platform, where I can apply all my security policies to protect that server."
 

Cons

"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"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."
"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"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."
"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 emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"They need to develop a more flexible product that can be scaled such that it fits well into a small business or a bigger, enterprise-level solution."
"This solution clashes with Microsoft defender, which results in performance degradation on the machine."
"It would be advantageous if Symantec or Broadcom, given the rebranding, could simplify the process, enabling users to leverage the antivirus functionality more easily."
"There is plenty of room for improvement with this product, and it could start with platform metrics."
"Agent management is a challenging task."
"Could have better reporting capabilities and better support."
"Adding more compatibility with common products like Microsoft would be a plus."
"The support is very bad. They're not fast at all. Trend Micro's support is much better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"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 based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
"The product is a bit costly."
"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."
"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

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 discovery. This raises questions about the resources required to discover and write po...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
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, provid...
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Also Known As

Cisco Tetration
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. Symantec Data Center Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.