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Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

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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

Cisco Secure Client (includ...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (4th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (6th), ZTNA as a Service (12th)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (23rd), Microsegmentation Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is 9.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 5.9%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect)9.4%
Cisco Secure Workload5.9%
Other84.7%
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Manager - Projects at airtel
Offers work-from-anywhere flexibility but navigates occasional proxy confusion
The analytics I downloaded from your site as a free download did not carry the information that was actually required. I was looking at the market segmentation and market share, along with some USPs which differentiated them from each other. The free download had two issues: many things were repetitive, and it was designed to not release any relevant information. Only headers were present, so I was not able to determine whether the final report would be worthwhile. I have not worked with enterprise tools that I could share feedback on for website publication. I see benefits from using Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect). However, I would not recommend it because future adoptions will be towards Zscaler, as SSC is a better model than VPN. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 7.
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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very good and easy to configure, but the price could be reduced."
"For that task, it works well; it is stable, and we haven't had issues so far."
"It's a simple and reliable solution."
"What I like most about Cisco AnyConnect VPN is its reliability and stability."
"The product makes it easy to connect remotely to machines that are remote."
"Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is established in our network with no teething issues."
"Our company outsources our services to our customers, we use many different technologies, and from my experience, overall I find this solution to be quite good."
"The solution provides secure and easy access to corporate network resources."
"The product provides multiple-device integration."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"Overall, this is a really good product and I am happy with it."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"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."
"This product does everything that you need it to do and more and does a lot to provide visibility in a network environment, save time and money, and make the organization IT operate in a much more streamlined fashion."
"It's stable."
 

Cons

"I think, in general, most of the applications are slow, but this is everyday stuff. I think this is more related to the link speed — the links, the lossage, etc."
"The solution's performance and stability are average."
"Often, there are new versions to install and that can be annoying for our users."
"I think that the addition of single sign-on functionality would be helpful."
"If you're just turning on your laptop, it should connect automatically without keying in the credentials."
"When using Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client when my laptop goes into sleep mode the VPN wants me to enter the password again. I should not have to enter the information again. If the laptop is on and it is not switched off, the password should be in the VPN saved and secured."
"We don't have the correct visibility to see the quantity of licenses we are consuming or not consuming."
"All Cisco equipment tends to be expensive compared to newer options from other vendors."
"There's room for improvement when it comes to Cisco Secure Workload. A couple of internal areas could be refined a little bit. They are trying to solve it, depending on where you suppose the agent is. Suppose you have the agent on both the server and the client, which could be the front-end server or web server connecting to the. In that case, if those two are communicating on RPC, the server can look into its configuration. It could go down and find the configuration file on the FTP server and then set the policies to it. But there are a lot of different FTP servers out there. It's also a complex case for the tool to support all FTP servers."
"The problem is that we can only deploy the particular solution where we have the hardware with Cisco."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and there are few DC tools, it would be great 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 emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"The scalability of this solution needs to be improved."
"I'd like to see better documentation for advanced features. The documentation is fairly basic. I would also like to see better integration with other applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are in the North African region, and Cisco products are expensive for us. On a scale from one to ten with one being very affordable and ten being expensive, I'd rate the price at eight."
"Sometimes there is a problem with the number of licenses for the end-user. The number of concurrent users is limited due to a valid license."
"The solution is reasonably priced and costs $600 for a five-year license in our scenario."
"It costs around 80,000 Indian rupees for a hundred licenses, so approximately $1,020 USD."
"We pay for an annual subscription. Additionally to the subscription, we thought in order to connect this solution to the Active Directory we had to purchase a Cisco ACS, Access Control System. It turns out we did not actually need it."
"We have yearly licensing and it's very affordable."
"The price is okay."
"I would rate the pricing for the license of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client around four to five out of ten. It's not the cheapest option, but it's also not overly expensive."
"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."
"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is somewhat expensive compared to others such as Fortinet or Palo Alto, which provide free VPN when the firewall is purchased. Palo Alto and Fortinet prov...
What needs improvement with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
There are no features that I wish Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) had that it does not currently provide. If I could change one thing about it, I would have no changes to suggest.
What is your primary use case for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
I primarily use Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) for VPN connections and network-related activities. We have Cisco APIs and Cisco VPN that serve as the foundation for our operations. As a...
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Also Known As

Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
Cisco Tetration
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MST, Molina Healthcare, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, Arup, New South Wales Rural FireService
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs. Cisco Secure Workload and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.