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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Illumio vs Rapid7 Metasploit 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.3
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation enhances security, cuts costs, boosts efficiency, and offers real-time threat intelligence despite integration challenges.
Sentiment score
6.4
Illumio is praised for its cost-effectiveness, operational value, East-West traffic visibility, and time-saving benefits.
Sentiment score
4.3
Rapid7 Metasploit efficiently identifies vulnerabilities and saves costs but is average for experienced users or those using Qualys/Nessus.
I have not seen a return on investment in terms of specific metrics like time saved or reduced risk, but I can say that reduced risk is significant.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
I observe extensive return on investment with Illumio.
Senior Security Consultant at Orange Cyberdefense
Illumio is known to be the cheapest solution among the security solutions we evaluated.
IT Specialist at Allianz
Metasploit has helped save time, especially with testing websites or VIPD projects.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
The ROI can be very rapid for organizations using vulnerability assessment for the first time.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation's customer service is praised for responsiveness, knowledge, and effective problem resolution, though response times vary.
Sentiment score
1.0
Illumio's customer support is generally satisfactory with 24/7 availability, though some report delays and varying helpfulness levels.
Sentiment score
5.9
Rapid7 Metasploit support has mixed reviews, with helpful resources but varying response times and effectiveness compared to Cisco.
Even if we raise an issue on non-working days like Saturdays or Sundays, we receive prompt responses.
IT Specialist at Allianz
From my experience, they are very responsive.
Technical Associate at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
Rapid7 sometimes struggles with queries from non-security people, whereas Tenable is more patient.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
The customer support is excellent
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers seamless scalability and versatility for managing and rapidly expanding across large distributed environments.
Sentiment score
6.5
Illumio excels in scalability, supporting cloud expansions and large installations, receiving positive ratings from diverse users and teams.
Sentiment score
5.1
Rapid7 Metasploit's scalability opinions vary, some see limitations, others appreciate flexibility; performance varies by project and infrastructure.
It scales very well, and I can keep adding agents and scale as much as needed.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Scaling it to a large level is not an issue for us.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Metasploit can handle big projects and is already prepared for them.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
Rapid7 Metasploit is highly scalable.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Rapid7 Metasploit has limited scalability based on my experience, as the customer receives the full functionality of the product with the license.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is reliable with stability, frequent updates, and requires label-centric thinking, scoring 7-9/10.
Sentiment score
7.7
Illumio is considered stable and reliable, with users praising its SaaS option and rating stability 8.5 out of 10.
Sentiment score
7.8
Rapid7 Metasploit's stability is highly praised, with recent versions improving and rated 8-9/10, despite occasional network issues.
Illumio is a stable solution with no glitches or bugs reported, making it a reliable product for us.
IT Specialist at Allianz
I have never faced any technical issues or downtimes.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
I find Metasploit to be very stable, and I would rate its stability as a nine out of ten.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
 

Room For Improvement

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation needs improvements in dashboard, integration, reporting, policy management, automation, and cost management for better usability.
Illumio requires better support, integration, security, and flexibility, with improved upgrades, visibility, and interactive tech sessions for users.
Rapid7 Metasploit needs faster updates, improved tools integration, better UI, enhanced features, and updated evasion capabilities for modern defenses.
In large environments, understanding all application dependencies and creating the right policies can take time and requires close coordination with application teams.
Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
I think it is really valuable to take a course on Akamai Guardicore Segmentation because many things are not obvious in terms of how to do them correctly.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
The price of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is very expensive, but it is important to the enterprise.
Cybersecurity at Embracon
They need to install an agent in the container world, while Akamai Guardicore does not need to install an agent, so they have native support that Illumio lacks.
Senior Security Consultant at Orange Cyberdefense
There could also be more examples of how the automations can be done using Illumio.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Another improvement might be around scalability, ensuring that as organizations grow, Illumio can handle even larger, more complex environments seamlessly.
DevOps at a marketing services firm with 51-200 employees
While you can check the vulnerability, and the system will tell you there is no vulnerability, usually, a human can change one, two, or three parameters and using the same technique and the same scripts can break the system.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The database is not always updated with the latest vulnerabilities or zero-day exploits.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
The time taken to fetch reports based on the number of events can be extensive.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers competitive pricing with significant value and flexible licensing compared to other options like Illumio.
Illumio's pricing is competitive and flexible, varying by workload and duration, appealing to enterprises over traditional firewalls.
Rapid7 Metasploit's pricing ranges from free to $20,000, with varied opinions on its affordability compared to competitors.
The pricing was flexible, and it has worked out well with our budget.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
I know that Illumio is the cheapest solution in the security area.
IT Specialist at Allianz
But when you compare it to firewalls, then it may not be that expensive.
Senior Security Consultant at Orange Cyberdefense
I think it's not very expensive if we compare it with Guardicore.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The cost is approximately $15 per device.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Metasploit is cheaper than Nessus and offers a more robust community edition that provides a good experience for studying Metasploit.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
After that, they usually purchase the commercial part of the solution due to its deep integration with InsightVM.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation enhances security with micro-segmentation, real-time threat detection, and centralized firewall management for comprehensive risk control.
Illumio enhances security and operational efficiency with centralized rule management, traffic analysis, and secure micro-segmentation features.
Rapid7 Metasploit excels in penetration testing with strong integration, comprehensive features, and efficient management in a unified platform.
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation reduced risk because it blocked malicious ransomware and uninspected traffic.
Cybersecurity at Embracon
We can create a policy based on labels such as application, environment, or role, allowing only required communication and blocking everything else, which significantly reduces the lateral movement risk.
Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
The best features Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers make it simple to see all of the connections that are being made to each of the endpoints, and they can be controlled by process and port.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.
IT Specialist at Allianz
The most important feature is the traffic review analysis, where we use the draft view and the reported view that helps us understand how the application interacts with other applications in the environment, and based on that, we are able to define the policies.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The dependency map is the most valuable aspect.
Technical Associate at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
Rapid7 offers comprehensive features within one platform, eliminating the need to integrate multiple tools to see all alerts in one place.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
InsightVM searches for potential threats and vulnerabilities of the infrastructure, and after that, Rapid7 Metasploit validates whether we can break the system using this vulnerability or threat, serving as a validator component of the InsightVM solution.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The most valuable features of Metasploit include its powerful capabilities for exploitation and scanning.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
 

Mindshare comparison

Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation22.7%
Illumio26.5%
VMware NSX15.7%
Other35.099999999999994%
Microsegmentation Software
Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Illumio18.4%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation17.6%
Cisco Secure Workload10.7%
Other53.3%
Cloud and Data Center Security
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Rapid7 Metasploit1.7%
Wiz6.4%
Tenable Nessus4.9%
Other87.0%
Vulnerability Management
 

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.
US
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Have created granular security policies based on roles and application behavior
The best feature that Illumio offers is that we can easily understand how to label the applications, how to install Illumio agent on the client machines, how to install the agent on the servers, and how to do the ring-fencing. The log analysis is very simple, and we can map the traffic very easily, such as the traffic view and map view. We have many views to do that, and then we have a topology environment where we can expand the topology and understand how we want to prepare our policy based on the requirement. These are some of the very good use cases that Illumio provides, which none of the other vendors can offer in such an easy and usable way. The most important feature is the traffic review analysis, where we use the draft view and the reported view that helps us understand how the application interacts with other applications in the environment, and based on that, we are able to define the policies. It has increased the business for the organization. We are creating business by supporting the client. The client is getting more security and is more confident in their network because they now have the micro-segmentation feature in their environment. This is new technology and that's how it helps the organization as a whole. The clients we support are benefited, and at the same time, we are making money out of it. This is definitely a good approach. After implementing Illumio, there has been significant progress. Most of the app owners now understand what applications are communicating, how these applications interact with others, and we are more aware of which application is talking to what other servers and applications, and their roles. For instance, whether an application is talking to the DB server or an app server. We have a more granular understanding of the traffic view. Additionally, after implementing Illumio, there is greater segmentation, and fewer incidents are occurring. There have been times when an attack was halted from expanding laterally.
reviewer1247523 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Extensive exploit database and seamless integration enhance penetration testing capabilities
The automated approach in the audits or in the hacking testing with Rapid7 Metasploit could be improved because even the same attack you provide today will go in different ways another day. I prefer when the auditor or pen-tester provides the attack in a non-automated mode. For some, it might be a valuable option, but I'm not sure it's valuable for us, as after the attack has been provided, we should release a report detailing how it transpired and what the customer should improve to block this way of attack. If the attack was provided in an automated mode, you cannot receive sufficient information that helps with this final report for the customer. While you can check the vulnerability, and the system will tell you there is no vulnerability, usually, a human can change one, two, or three parameters and using the same technique and the same scripts can break the system. Rapid7 Metasploit could be improved in areas concerning the experience with finding particular scripts pre-installed in the solution. Customers, administrators, and pen-testers spend considerable time trying to locate the specific component they need by the name of the technique or the name of the attack, so any improvements in making it easier to find those predefined components by name or timeframe would be beneficial. Search filters could be a correct improvement.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Guardicore Centra?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that overall everything worked out really well. The pricing ...
What needs improvement with Guardicore Infection Monkey?
I think the pricing is very high. It is a big cost. The price of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is very expensive, bu...
What is your primary use case for Guardicore Infection Monkey?
I use Akamai Guardicore Segmentation to block lateral movement of malicious software like ransomware. This is very im...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
My experience was really good because I think it's not very expensive if we compare it with Guardicore. I believe tha...
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
Illumio can be improved if we have more interactive sessions with the tech team. The support of Illumio can be better...
What is your primary use case for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The main use case for Illumio is providing micro-segmentation where we don't want to segment the network based on IP ...
What do you like most about Rapid7 Metasploit?
I use Rapid7 Metasploit for payload generation and Post-Exploitation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 Metasploit?
The pricing of Rapid7 Metasploit is quite affordable. It has a free version that many customers start with, and after...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 Metasploit?
The automated approach in the audits or in the hacking testing with Rapid7 Metasploit could be improved because even ...
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
Metasploit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
City of Corpus Christi, Diebold, Lumenate, Nebraska Public Power District, Prairie North Regional Health, Apptio, Automation Direct, Bob's Stores, Cardinal Innovations Healthcare Solutions, Carnegie Mellon University
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Illumio, Akamai and others in Microsegmentation Software. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.