IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs Orca Security comparison

IBM and Orca Security are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. IBM is ranked #49, while Orca Security is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.6. IBM holds a 0.5% mindshare in VM, compared to Orca Security’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 50% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Orca Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment and Orca Security compete in the cybersecurity market with different focuses. Orca Security seems to have the upper hand due to its cloud-native security platform and efficiency, while IBM Guardium is favored for data protection.

Features: IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment provides robust database activity monitoring, strong data encryption capabilities, and ensures compliance to secure sensitive information. Orca Security offers comprehensive cloud security posture management, real-time risk analysis across various cloud services, and provides a broader security scope in cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: IBM Guardium could benefit from simplifying its deployment process, reducing infrastructure adjustment requirements, and enhancing real-time risk analysis capabilities. Orca Security might improve its database protection features, increase support documentation, and expand its offerings to cater more to on-premise solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Orca Security features an agentless deployment model, enabling faster integration without significant disruption, suitable for dynamic environments. IBM Guardium, though supported by comprehensive documentation, requires more infrastructure adjustments, which can slow deployment. Both offer strong customer service, but Orca's deployment model provides an edge in speed.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Guardium typically involves higher initial setup costs due to infrastructure needs, justified by its focus on data protection. Orca Security, with its cloud-centric model, tends to lower operational costs and enhance ROI for cloud-focused organizations with minimized deployment time and efficient administration.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs. Orca Security Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs. Orca Security

April 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

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.4%. The mindshare of IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment is 0.5%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Orca Security is 4.7%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at Novartis

Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions

I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.

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reviewer1714710

CTA\Owner at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Worthwhile from the regulatory requirements and analytics perspective, but is expensive and not easy to use

We are a full security base integration and application business. We help with implementation and deployments. I used Guardium to help with a cloud migration to check and do some validation for a client's data landscape and services so that they made sure that they were all secure in overall…

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CHINTAN MEHTA

Cloud Security Automation Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Consolidating security tools with comprehensive cloud visibility

The documentation for Orca Security could be improved. The compliance framework also needs enhancements, especially concerning integrations with other tools like ServiceNow's vulnerability modules, which are not as mature as expected. It should also increase its capability to ingest data from other security tools like CloudSight for endpoint detection and provide real-time monitoring.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"It helped with some of the regulatory requirements. It also helped with some of the security analytics and analysis. It was worthwhile from that perspective."

"The reporting features are good and there are many built-in reports that can be quickly configured."

"The most valuable feature is that it provides a simple English recommendation on actions that you need to take once a vulnerability is discovered."

"I find Orca Security's CIEM feature invaluable, as it focuses on entitlement and posture management, identifying assets with older OS versions, and asset misconfiguration."

"With its Cloud Security Posture Management capability, we have the ability to read across all of our cloud-based environments, which includes AWS and Azure. We have visibility into those environments. Seeing all vulnerabilities and configurations is really powerful for us, but ultimately, the ability to use the API to query across the fleet to understand what is the current state, what is the patch level, which ones are potentially exposed for a new CVE that just came out is even more valuable. It allows us to gather really specific intelligence through simple queries."

"Another valuable feature with Orca, something that's not talked about enough, is its ability to rank your gaps and your tasks... You can get visibility with agents and there are a lot of ways to do that. But the ranking and the context across the entire environment, that is what is unique about Orca."

"The visibility Orca provides into my environment is at the highest level... When I dropped them into the environment, from the very get-go I had more insight into the risks in my environment than I had had during the entire two and a half years I had been here."

"Orca Security has patented technologies. It's an agentless solution, so you don't need to install an agent. Instead, it contacts your account provider and fetches metadata, eliminating the need for snapshots or reserved space to copy client infrastructure."

"The most valuable feature of Orca Security is the automated scanning tool, user-friendliness, and ease of use."

"It's for protection. It's an agentless tool. We don't need to install anything at a customer's premises. We can just scan the entire assets in the cloud."

"I recommend Orca Security to others looking for a cloud security solution due to its seamless integration and side-scanning technology that does not hamper cloud asset performance."

More Orca Security pros

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"Building policies is not that easy. There are some things that are turned off by default, for example, displaying values."

"It was not as easy to use. The user-friendliness of it was somewhat lower than what I was expecting. It was also lacking in terms of the ease of the setup. There should be an automatic agent for deployment."

"The interface could be improved by having sub-groups of tests, ultimately making the process of collecting tests faster."

"Another improvement would be that, in addition to focusing on endpoint compliance, they would focus on general compliance."

"I think Orca could give me more alerts. It could give me a dashboard with all the specific types of alerts I want to see for the day. It should just be one click."

"In the future, I'd like to see Orca work better with third-party vendors. Specifically, being able to provide sanitized results from third parties."

"Orca Security can be improved as there should be some kind of central pane of glass. Similar to how cloud management works, Orca Security should have something comparable."

"The presentation of the data in the dashboard is a little bit chaotic."

"The main drawback in an agentless approach is that if the solution detects a virus or malware in the environment, we need to manually remove it. But from my experience with other production environments, it's not straightforward to install agents in the hope they will automatically remediate viruses, even from production environments... Ultimately, the ability to auto-remediate is something that I would like to see."

"I would be happy if they offered more automatic remediation options. They're working on that, but the more the better. For example, if they want you to harden a server, they would offer a hardening script that would be more aware of what's going on."

"We are PCI DSS compliant, so we need to scan our environment externally with tools vetted by the PCI DSS organization. Orca doesn't scan the environment externally. It only scans what's currently in the cloud."

More Orca Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"One thing not advantageous for it was that it was a little bit more expensive. I would rate it one out of five in terms of pricing."

"Orca Security charges are based on cloud workloads. So, it's based on workloads. If we look at one feature, it might be expensive."

"Its license is a bit expensive."

"I think their pricing model is aligned with market demand. Of course, Orca could probably better align their pricing model with the needs of smaller businesses as well as some larger-scale enterprises with millions of assets. But in all fairness, I think the Orca sales team has been accommodating and ensured that we're happy with the pricing."

"We have a total of 25 licenses for this solution. The solution is on a pay-and-you-use model."

"Overall, the pricing is reasonable and the discounts have been acceptable."

"The most expensive solution is Palo Alto. They claim to be very robust. The next most expensive is Wiz, followed by Orca and all the rest."

"While it's competitive with Palo Alto Prisma, I think Orca's list price is very high. I would advise Orca to lower it because, at that price, I might consider alternatives like Wiz, which also offers agentless services."

"The pricing depends on how many assets you have running in your cloud and how many environments you have. If you have a dev environment, test environment, and a production environment then it's really important that you have coverage for all of them."

More Orca Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

39%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

I find that the pricing for Zafran aligns well with the comprehensive features it offers. The asset and user-based li...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even ...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

Our primary use case for Zafran involves leveraging it to enhance our vulnerability risk scoring methodology. In toda...

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What do you like most about Orca Security?

It's for protection. It's an agentless tool. We don't need to install anything at a customer's premises. We can just ...

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What needs improvement with Orca Security?

Orca Security could improve its ticket creation process. Currently, it allows for creating tickets in only one bucket...

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What is your primary use case for Orca Security?

I am primarily using Orca Security for cloud security. Being part of the vulnerability management team, I utilize Orc...

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Comparisons

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 54% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 22% of the time

ServiceNow Security Operations vs Zafran Security

Compared 15% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

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Qualys VMDR vs IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment

Compared 37% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment

Compared 28% of the time

Tenable Nessus vs IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment

Compared 23% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment

Compared 13% of the time

More IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment Competitors

Wiz vs Orca Security

Compared 36% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Orca Security

Compared 9% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Orca Security

Compared 7% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs Orca Security

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Security Hub vs Orca Security

Compared 4% of the time

More Orca Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Vulnerability Management

April 2025

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment report

Download IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment product report

Buyer's Guide

Orca Security

March 2025

Download Orca Security product report

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment scans data infrastructures (databases, data warehouses and big data environments) to detect vulnerabilities, and suggests remedial actions. The solution identifies exposures such as missing patches, weak passwords, unauthorized changes and misconfigured privileges.

IBM

Orca Security is the pioneer of agentless cloud security that is trusted by hundreds of enterprises globally. Orca makes cloud security possible for enterprises moving to and scaling in the cloud with its patented SideScanning™ technology and Unified Data Model. The Orca Cloud Security Platform delivers the world's most comprehensive coverage and visibility of risks across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Kubernetes.

At Orca Security, we’re on a mission to make it fast, easy, and cost effective for organizations to address critical cloud security issues so they can operate in the cloud with confidence.

Key Platform Features:

Agentless: Complete, centralized coverage of the entire cloud estate, without the need for installing and configuring agents or layering together multiple siloed tools. Full visibility of cloud misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, workload protection, malware scanning, image scanning, file integrity monitoring and more.
Asset Inventory: Get a complete inventory of all your public cloud assets, including detailed information on installed OSes, software, and applications, as well as data and network assets such as storage buckets, Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), and Security Groups.

Attack Path Analysis: Visualize attack vectors to critical assets or crown jewels. See which assets are susceptible to lateral movement, assume roles, privilege escalation, and more.

Risk Prioritization: Prioritize the 1% of risks that matter the most, based on impact scores. Secure the vulnerabilities and misconfigured targets (critical assets) and eliminate the potential risks residing on the attack paths to those targets.
Cloud Threat Detection: Monitor for malicious activity within your entire cloud estate. Be aware of detected threats, user behavior anomalies and more.

Breach Forensics: Log every change and all activity into a central repository for investigation procedures to confirm or deny entry and compromises within the cloud estate.
Cloud To Dev (Shift Left): Orca’s built-in shift left capabilities enables DevOps to focus more security attention earlier in the CI/CD pipelines. Security teams are able to trace a production risk (misconfiguration or vulnerability) directly to the original source code repository from which it came, even down to the exact line of code that is at the root of the identified risk.
Compliance: Choose from over 60 preconfigured compliance frameworks, cloud security best practices, CIS Benchmarks, or design and build your own compliance framework for fast and continuous reporting.
Security Score: The Orca Security Score is found on Orca’s Risk Dashboard and is updated daily. The overall score is calculated based on performance in the following five categories - Suspicious Activity, IAM, Data at Risk, Vulnerable Assets, and Responsiveness. Since the scores are percentage based and not raw numbers, you can objectively make comparisons to other organizations within your industry or business units of different sizes. In addition to reporting to senior management, the Orca Security Score can help with internal self-monitoring, as a way of measuring risk mitigation efforts, to know where to focus efforts, and track progress.

Orca Security Benefits

Consolidate technologies to reduce costs and complexity:

“The more I can get out of this one solution, the better. I see Orca as the tool where we get all cloud-related security data.” - Joshua Scott, Head of Security and IT | Postman

Avoid costly breaches:

"I look at proactive asset discovery, configuration management, and vulnerability management as being able to find a vulnerability before the bad guys do and being able to deal with it before something exploits it. This is what Orca does for us." - Doug Graham, CSO & CPO | Lionbridge

Increase team productivity and efficiency by focusing on high-value activities and solving the 1% of risks that matter most:

"Orca is unique in that it locates vulnerabilities with precision and delivers tangible, actionable results – without having to sift through all the noise." - Aaron Brown, Senior Cloud Security Engineer | Sisense

Quick Time-to-Value with Immediate ROI:

"Orca told us we could have some visibility within 5 or 10 minutes, and I thought, ‘There’s no way.’ Well, I was wrong. They really did it." - Thomas Hill, CISO | Live Oak Bank

Reduce MTTR and remove operational friction:

“We can’t ask developers things like ‘Did you think about security? When you start a new VM on AWS, can you please let me know so I’m able to scan it? Can you please deploy an agent on that machine for me?’ We need a better way to work. Orca provides that better way by eliminating organizational friction.” - Erwin Geirnaert, Cloud Security Architect | NG Data

Orca Security

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

BeyondTrust, Postman, Digital Turbine, Solarisbank, Lemonade, C6 Bank, Docebo, Vercel, and Vivino

Buyer's Guide

IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs. Orca Security

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs. Orca Security

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs. Orca Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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