No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Fortra's Cobalt Strike comparison

 

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

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Ranking in Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (10th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
Fortra's Cobalt Strike
Ranking in Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
7th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) category, the mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 2.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Cobalt Strike is 2.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation2.1%
Fortra's Cobalt Strike2.7%
Other95.2%
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
 

Featured Reviews

Vibin Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
Zero-trust micro-segmentation has strengthened security and improves east-west traffic visibility
While Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is a very powerful solution, there are a few areas where it could be improved. One of the main challenges is the initial deployment and policy design complexity. In large environments, understanding all application dependencies and creating the right policies can take time and requires close coordination with application teams. The user interface and policy management can also be improved. As the number of policies grows, managing and organizing them becomes slightly complex. A more simplified or intuitive policy structure would help operational teams. Another area is integration with other security tools such as SIEM or SOAR platforms. While integration is possible, making it more seamless and easier to configure would add value. Additionally, the reporting and dashboard could be enhanced to provide more customizable and business-level insights, especially for management and reporting. One small improvement I would suggest for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is having more automation capabilities for policy creation and recommendation. For example, AI-driven suggestions based on observed traffic patterns would help reduce manual effort during the initial policy design. It would also help to have more predefined templates for common use cases, especially for industries such as banking, to speed up deployment. Another area is enhanced reporting customization where we can easily generate business-level dashboards for management and compliance teams without any additional effort.
reviewer2519427 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Compact, versatile, creates shell codes for bypassing antivirus and built-in report templates streamline the process
Probably its delivery methods could be improved. It might need some improvements on its spear phishing module. You can clone a web page, and then you can spear phish a target, and the target connects to your beacon. I believe that it needs to be more modernized to the current standards of multi-factor authentication bypass. Although there are already tools that actually do that, like Evilginx that’s been used as a proxy server, I truly believe Cobalt Strike could do something like that. I believe if Cobalt modernize this specific feature to try to bypass multi-factor authentication, it’s gonna be something. I’m not aware if it’s actually a feature in the latest Cobalt Strike updates, but from my version, I don’t see that it’s possible right now. I don’t think AI is at the stage where it can conduct such complex operations. AI is mostly being used to create phishing templates, very simple stuff. AI is not mature enough to do something more complex, although I truly believe that in a few years, it might have such capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"After implementing Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, I can say that for most customers with whom we implement Guardicore, we see once we do micro-segmentation for an application that the possible connections that can be established on that application usually drop by 80%."
"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."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation has impacted my organization positively because we find it difficult to remove the legacy systems, so it was very important to segment them from the rest of the network to protect them and protect the rest of our network."
"The impact of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is very important because it reduced risk for my corporation and organization."
"The real bonus is the fact that we can secure applications, all the way down to the individual services, on each host. It's actually more granular security than we can get out of a traditional firewall."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility of processes and connections."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the maps and ring fencing that help monitor events."
"It also made a lot of post-exploitation activities easier."
"Cobalt Strike offers significant customization capabilities."
 

Cons

"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can be improved because keeping it up to date is difficult since it is SaaS-based and updates are not on a regular schedule; I have to reach out to my contact to ask them to update to a newer version, and it would be helpful if updates were on a regular cadence so that I would not have to remember to ask them."
"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."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"What we hear most from customers is that it requires a kernel module."
"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"Customers would want to see the cost improved."
"Probably its delivery methods could be improved."
"The stability of the tool can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"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."
"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is too high."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"It's expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) solutions are best for your needs.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Transportation Company
11%
Healthcare Company
11%
Hospitality Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Guardicore Centra?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is great. It has a fair cost for our business.
What needs improvement with Guardicore Infection Monkey?
While Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is a very powerful solution, there are a few areas where it could be improved. One of the main challenges is the initial deployment and policy design complexity...
What is your primary use case for Guardicore Infection Monkey?
Our main use case for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is to implement micro-segmentation and Zero Trust security across hybrid environments, including both on-premises and cloud workloads. We primar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
While not inexpensive, Cobalt Strike is a comprehensive platform. Its pricing reflects the capabilities and flexibility it offers. The solution can be cost-effective when utilizing its full potenti...
What needs improvement with Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
The stability of the tool can be improved. There are some limitations, but they tend to be more from outside of the tool rather than within it. The limitations often come from operators who may lac...
What is your primary use case for Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
I use Cobalt Strike to emulate threat actor activities.
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Fortra's Cobalt Strike and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.