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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs Oracle Advanced Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Database Security (1st)
Oracle Advanced Security
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Encryption (12th), Data Masking (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Database Development and Management Tools solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is designed for Database Security and holds a mindshare of 28.0%, down 32.8% compared to last year.
Oracle Advanced Security, on the other hand, focuses on Endpoint Encryption, holds 2.8% mindshare, up 1.4% since last year.
Database Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection28.0%
Imperva Data Security Fabric26.7%
Oracle Audit Vault10.8%
Other34.5%
Database Security
Endpoint Encryption Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Advanced Security2.8%
Microsoft BitLocker20.1%
ESET Endpoint Encryption9.8%
Other67.3%
Endpoint Encryption
 

Featured Reviews

DP
Chief Executive Officer at Kipustec
Ensures data security and compliance with reliable alerts and protections
The manuals should be clearer. There needs to be an online course or tutorial for faster management training. The maintenance was slightly complicated. I had to read the manuals carefully and even failed the Guardium certification exam due to insufficient information or time. Improving the tool learning process would be beneficial.
reviewer1458726 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Good support, stable, and offers encryption at both the column and table level
The most valuable feature is the data encryption option for columns and tables. We are also getting the benefit of detection data. If I want to share data with another Oracle user then the data sharing is automatically detected. We don't need to modify anything. This is a complete security solution and all of the features that we are using are available off the shelf.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Satisfies audit requests, to give us an idea if anybody is accessing our privileged user IDs without our knowledge."
"Our main focus for IBM Guardium is to support security initiatives and compliance policies within our organization. We use the DPD product for monitoring, especially for GDPR, SOX regulations and, of course, the vulnerability assessment that we use to make sure we're keeping up with our patches, making sure things are configured, making sure we're following the best practices."
"Ability to define reports based on SQL query, especially when you have complex report criteria."
"Ease of deployment is a valuable feature."
"The maturity of the agent is the most valuable feature of the solution"
"Accelerators is one of the big functions they have out there. It gives you canned reports that you don't have to make yourself, they're out there by being part of the patch. You just have to fill your information in to some of the already built groups, for your environment, and it automates a lot of that. That has definitely helped improve things."
"Guardium is easily integrated with other IBM solutions, a significant advantage and a key reason we chose Guardium. Both platforms share the IBM infrastructure, enhancing compatibility and integration. Additionally, Guardium offers a vulnerability analyzer, which is another compelling feature of the platform."
"It protects sensitive data and blocks unauthorized access to the data."
"The most valuable feature is the data encryption option for columns and tables."
"The features that are the most used by the customers and partners are, at the moment, for GDPR, so obviously data encryption and data reduction. Our customers also like the partitioning option."
 

Cons

"There are features like end-to-end and S-TAP mapping, and the ability to install policies for your configuration builder. They're not there, but we'd like to see them in the next version."
"The solution could be improved for NoSQL databases."
"The one thing that I would like to see improved, but I don't think it's going to be in the next release, is its reporting capabilities. I think that's been offloaded to another third-party product that I think IBM actually endorses for that."
"It would be helpful, and convenient to improve the Chat support."
"The documentation could be better."
"We have had some issues with patches breaking things unexpectedly in our environments."
"Sometimes the connectors to the databases need to be manually updated and we have to configure them again, which is something that should be improved."
"I would like to see AI and machine learning added in the future."
"It is really constrained as an environment because you cannot change something that would be useful. It is a very good product because it is very similar to what you have on-premises. Yes, it is constrained, but it is expected because it is a platform as a service so it has to be constrained."
"Having a single command to encrypt a table would be an improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a very costly product."
"One of the deployments that I know of had three databases, and the yearly fees are approximately $50,000 USD."
"The price of the solution could be better."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is very high price, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Guardium's pricing is quite high, but it gives good value for money for all sizes of enterprises, especially for partners."
"Reasonable cost but could be lower."
"Its cost is good. With the new metric of licensing, such as PDO not being available now, customers are expecting a good price for the solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise44
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does IBM Guardium Data Protection compare with Imperva SecureSphere Database Security?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a solution for database security from IBM that gives complete visibility, control, and analysis to secure sensitive data and comply with regulations. IBM S...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Guardium Data Protection?
I don't remember the exact prices, but Guardium is an expensive tool because it is targeted towards corporate enterprises.
What do you like most about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
The features I like are the robust policies, which allow us to create customized monitoring based on specific activities.
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Also Known As

InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
IBVI, illycaffe, Scottish water, trueblue, AirAsia
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Imperva, Oracle and others in Database Security. Updated: February 2026.
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