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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Qualys VMDR 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

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (11th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (4th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
Qualys VMDR
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (6th), Vulnerability Management (1st), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Container Security (10th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is designed for Microsegmentation Software and holds a mindshare of 27.5%, up 24.4% compared to last year.
Qualys VMDR, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 7.4% mindshare, down 12.8% since last year.
Microsegmentation Software
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

KlavsThaarup - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers micro segmentation capabilities and easy to setup
It's micro-segmentation The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature. There are always areas for improvement. It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud. So that could be improved. In future releases, I would like to see more integration with other…
Ankesh Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time responses and reporting streamline vulnerability management
Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent. It allows us to see real-time graphs and reports for every asset, server, and more, which is very user-friendly. Our clients have given good feedback, and they are satisfied with the tool. We use it daily to fix vulnerabilities by connecting with infrastructure to remediate. The feedback from the client side is very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We like the centralized management of the firewalls. Until we installed Guardicore Centra, we managed all our firewalls individually, so making changes was complicated, difficult, and time-consuming."
"The tool is a complete package that offers many features like visibility. You can get a graph with real-time workflows and visibility into server-to-server communication. We get visibility into many things happening within our environment."
"Guardicore Centra offers the best coverage specifically in backward compatibility with legacy operating systems."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the maps and ring fencing that help monitor events."
"The interface and dashboard are amazing."
"Application Ring-Fencing and Deception Server, which is basically like a honeypot, are pretty useful features."
"I found the solution to be stable."
"That is primarily because I've seen increased rules. It's kind of caught us a little off guard. With GuardiCore, I have had to deal with their technical support and engineering team in Israel. They are amazing. They are very quick to adapt."
"I am impressed with the VMDR feature."
"Qualys VMDR provides us with a quick response to threat findings through regular scheduled scanning, which improves our security operations."
"Qualys VM had a recent upgrade and the newer version is supporting the cloud."
"There are many features. Its reliability, ease of installation, ease of use, and the richness of the information provided are the most valuable features."
"This is one of the best products I have worked with so far. I like the power of Qualys, and it's a better solution because you can scan a compact file, a BIT file, or batch files. The product already knows what's happening inside, and you don't need to expand the package. Tenable will do the same thing, but you need to have a package issuance claim. With Qualys, we can immediately understand the file, even a compact file. If there's some kind of discovery or incident, you will know what happened in the environment."
"Qualys VMDR is easy to understand and provides detailed reports."
"The most valuable features of Qualys VMDR include patch management and the use of virtual scanners to scan appliances and devices, especially those provided by vendors where we cannot manage them ourselves."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys Container Security is the detailed information in the reports and the remediation. This is done to make sure there are no vulnerabilities."
 

Cons

"Supports become difficult when it's for a big organization. For a small organization, medium organization, it still makes sense, however, for a big organization, it makes life difficult."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"It would be very helpful for beginners if the solution had more windows to help with the terms inside instead of going to the documentation."
"The long-term management of the security policies could be improved with some kind of automation platform, something like Chef or Puppet or Ansible, to help you manage the policies after day-one... to then manage the policies and changes to those policies, going forward, through some type of automation process is not turning out to be really easy."
"Kubernetes is not installed in the way we need it."
"The dashboard needs improvement. It should be more flexible so that I can easily see what I want or need to see."
"Incident tagging could be improved. Other vendors offer semi-automatic tagging, which Guardicore doesn't yet have."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly."
"While Qualys VMDR is comprehensive, improvements in asset management functionality would be beneficial."
"There's a need to upgrade or fix the potential vulnerability rate. Around 20,000 potential vulnerabilities were showing in Qualys VMDR, but none of the other tools showed them. When we checked, it wasn't the case. Support explained that even small issues were being counted as vulnerabilities, causing issues in our audit. So, the security features could be improved to identify vulnerabilities accurately."
"Finding things in management can be quite difficult."
"Qualys VM could improve by having more skilled support personnel."
"It's not very user-friendly at times and requires in-depth understanding. So, a layman or someone new to Qualys won't be able to easily understand it. You need education to use the solution."
"Certain integration factors between different options could be improved."
"Integration could be better. When you think about scanning, it's not used just with this product alone but with other Qualys products. If you think about the bundle, the product itself is good. But integration with other products and packages has space for improvement. They should also offer a better price for bundles."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is the same as other products in the market. There's no price argument to choose one or the other product, it will cost the customer approximately the same."
"The solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"The pricing is too high."
"GuardiCore has made some new changes to the license now. We've seen monthly and annual licenses based on a subscription. We have a few clients that pay anywhere from $25,000 a year."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."
"Guardicore Centra provides better value for money than NSX, was the other solution that we looked at, which was too expensive for what it does."
"There is a license for the use of this solution. We pay annually instead of monthly to receive a better discount on the price."
"Qualys is cheaper and more affordable than other solutions."
"Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance isn't expensive right now. But the price for their product bundles could be better."
"It is different for every company, but for us, it's every three years."
"The tool's pricing is expensive and I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"In Nigerian Naira, we spend about roughly four to five million to use this solution and this is expensive compared to solutions like Nessus."
"Qualys VM is quite expensive. It's a subscription-based license, and it's yearly. Right now, it's open for me, and I don't have any limitations or caps on the licenses. They are seeing if the product is viable for 4500 users. I can add as much as I want, and at the end of the subscription, they'll let me know how many licenses were actually used and bill me accordingly. On a scale from one to five, I would give their pricing a three. It's still expensive."
"It is more expensive than other products on the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Guardicore Centra?
I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. I know other micro-segmentation tools like Cisco or Illumio, and so I think they are in the middle.
What do you like most about Guardicore Infection Monkey?
Initially, I liked the telemetry part. But later, we used the microsegmentation features that we were able to deploy and found that they really stood out from other vendors. It allows us to see mi...
What needs improvement with Guardicore Infection Monkey?
When we have more than one interface, we can only have one policy for both interfaces. Normally, you have assets with a production interface and a server interface that are only for management. But...
What do you like most about Qualys VMDR?
I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagging system is good for tagging. We can still use QualysAgent task ID tools even ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
There were some issues later with Qualys VMDR regarding security, specifically with numerous false positive reports.
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Agrokor Group, American Specialty Health, American State Bank, Arval, Life:), Axway, Bank of the West, Blueport Commerce, BSkyB, Brinks, CaixaBank, Cartagena, Catholic Health System, CEC Bank, Cegedim, CIGNA, Clickability, Colby-Sawyer College, Commercial Bank of Dubai, University of Utah, eBay Inc., ING Singapore, National Theatre, OTP Bank, Sodexo, WebEx
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware, Illumio, Akamai and others in Microsegmentation Software. Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.