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ACF2 vs IBM Security Guardium Data Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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

ACF2
Ranking in Database Security
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Mainframe Security (4th)
IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Ranking in Database Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Database Security category, the mindshare of ACF2 is 2.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is 27.0%, down from 29.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection27.0%
ACF22.1%
Other70.9%
Database Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1077621 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Examiner at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A reliable, scalable product for security and auditing of our mainframe environment
It is a good product. It has been used for years. As long as it is configured correctly, it is a very stable product. It depends on how an institution or a company configures it. It depends on an institution's risk appetite. You need to make sure it is configured as per the concept of least privilege, and the logging features, detection and control mechanism, and other things like that are enabled. If you configure it to give access to the public, then there could be compromises. You should also have someone who independently checks it to make sure that it is configured keeping security in mind. If it has been configured for a while, when there are enhancements to the product or when you enhance it, you need to make sure that security is also looked at, and it is configured according to an institution's security policies. I would rate it a nine out of 10.
HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized monitoring has improved audit readiness and streamlines investigations of data access
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where I think it could be improved. One area is alert tuning and prioritization. Large environments can generate a significant number of alerts, and while the platform provides good visibility, reducing noise and automatically highlighting the highest-risk events would help security teams work more efficiently. Another area is ease of administration. As environments become more complex with cloud, hybrid, and on-premises databases, managing policies and configurations can require significant effort. Simplifying some of those workflows could reduce the operational overhead for administration. I would also like to see deeper automation and more advanced analytic capabilities. The security industry as a whole is moving toward faster threat detection and automated response, and having more built-in intelligence to identify unusual behavior with less manual tuning would be valuable. A couple of additional areas come to mind regarding needed improvements for IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. Integration is one of them. IBM Security Guardium Data Protection integrates with a variety of security tools, but as organizations adopt more cloud-native platforms and multicloud environments, smoother integration and simpler deployment processes would be beneficial. Many security teams are managing dozens of tools today, so reducing integration complexity can save a lot of operational effort. From a usability perspective, some administration and reporting tasks could be more intuitive, especially for new users. The platform is feature-rich, which is a strength, but it can also create a learning curve. Regarding support, my experience has generally been positive, but complex issues can sometimes require coordination across multiple teams before they are fully resolved. One feature I appreciate about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is the detailed audit trail that IBM Security Guardium Data Protection maintains. When investigating an issue, having a historical record of database activity can save a lot of time and provide the context needed to understand what happened. That is especially useful for compliance and forensic investigations. As for a wish-list item, I would like to see even more intelligent alert correlation and risk prioritization. A challenge across the security industry is that teams often deal with a large number of alerts from different tools, and determining which ones require immediate attention can still be time-consuming. Although IBM Security Guardium Data Protection already provides strong monitoring capabilities, more automated context and prioritization could help security teams focus on the highest-risk events faster.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use this tool to quickly assign privileges to different users as soon as they come in."
"Excellent real-time reporting that saves time and resources."
"Without the product, extracting this information may take us as much as several days; instead, we can get it in real time."
"I love their support. The support is great. They are number one."
"Logging and monitoring are most valuable. It is for the mainframe environment, and it is at the forefront for security and resilience."
"I am deeply impressed with the quality and depth and breadth of security and functionality in CA’s ACF2 and Top Secret products."
"The most valuable feature is strict and reliable access control to CICS Resources."
"It is a good product."
"The tool helps detect invalid login attempts within a specific time frame."
"In general, deploying this solution will cost very little compared to the cost of losing data."
"One of the greatest benefits for using Guardium is our ability to monitor sensitive data."
"We are using IBM Guardium Data Protection for activity monitoring, blocking users, entitlement for knowing the privilege for users, and Guardium data features."
"We succeeded at hardening our customer databases by defining policies for alerting and blocking access to prohibited and restricted data."
"We now have the ability to begin to understand how people, applications, and service accounts are interacting with data to better protect it."
"The solution has definitely saved us time, because if you want to monitor this kind of vast environment of different products, it's going to take a lot of time. Let's say one database server has 100 database instances running on it; I don't need to install 100 data instances, I just need to install on the one database server and that will cover all of my instances on that particular database."
"Satisfies audit requests, to give us an idea if anybody is accessing our privileged user IDs without our knowledge."
 

Cons

"I would like my team and me to be able to use simple browsers, like Chrome, to be able to access mainframe data and provision users using the browser.​"
"It needs longer rules. The max rule is 32K."
"Initial setup could be complex if you rely on contractors to help with implementation."
"They can work on its ability to work in a distributed environment."
"The user access review could also be improved. It produces a lot of false positives."
"They can work on its ability to work in a distributed environment. It's a mainframe product. As many companies move to the cloud, depending on what cloud models they choose, such as a public, hybrid, or private cloud, it should be deployable. I am not sure if it can be deployed on those platforms. It has been there since the '50s or '60s, and it's still scalable. It has survived all these years, and it's scalable to many platforms, but I don't know about the cloud."
"Reporting can sometimes include false positives."
"I would like to see streamlining of some of the agent features, some of the patches; make it a little bit more user-friendly on the documentation."
"Sometimes the performance is not good, and also sometimes we have sudden bugs causing difficulties."
"Flexibility could be improved."
"We did find some difficulty in deploying IBM Guardium Data Protection here in Pakistan because of the lack of resources."
"Support is where the problem is. Since IBM is not in this country, in terms of technical support and also skill sets in the market, there is not much help available to handle Guardium Data Protection."
"Using the data in native Guardium is difficult, at best."
"Initially it did not have support external applications like, say, Tableau, ServiceNow, Remedy, and the like. They have started growing into it, but I would like to have more and more integration with outside applications."
"Since we are resellers we do not have enough information about the technical aspects and the areas of improvement. However, one consistent report that we receive from our customers is that IBM does not offer timely support due to the size of the organisation. It would be great if they could improve their response time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"The biggest challenge is the cost associated with the product, and the cost of maintaining. Everything is not translated directly to the benefits we see. There are benefits, yes, but if I were writing the check, would I buy Guardium? No."
"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."
"Guardium's pricing is quite high, but it gives good value for money for all sizes of enterprises, especially for partners."
"The product's pricing is reasonable and affordable. It is in the moderate range."
"The price is good for the quality of the solution."
"The cost depends on the number of databases. You can purchase advanced licenses, but the standard license is calculated based on the number of databases you have to onboard."
"The price of the solution could be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

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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 needs improvement with IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where I think it could be improved. One area is alert tuning and prioritization. Large environments can generat...
 

Also Known As

CA ACF2
InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sky, Rogers Communications
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about ACF2 vs. IBM Security Guardium Data Protection and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.