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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Illumio vs Symantec Data Center Security 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 15.2%, down from 24.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 16.1%, down from 25.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Data Center Security is 3.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation15.2%
Illumio16.1%
Symantec Data Center Security3.0%
Other65.7%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

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.
Irfan Sharfi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Professional at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Micro-segmentation has transformed endpoint protection and now isolates internal threats effectively
Illumio can be improved in several areas based on our feedback. Sometimes, the PCE experiences slowness, especially when deploying around 300,000 endpoint devices. When these devices communicate within the network, loading the map or connections can cause latency, which needs improvement for a more user-friendly and faster experience. Regarding improvements to the interface, I believe we can add more features to the graphical user interface, such as proper logs. While the logs currently indicate what was blocked or allowed, clicking on a specific log should provide more information, such as which extra-scope rule is causing a denial, offering better analysis for troubleshooting.
Muhammad Ejaz ul Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Continuous server hardening has protected critical legacy workloads and simplified security control
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As a user protecting your infrastructure, you need to sell the value to your management. Management buys the tool for preventing threats, and it works for them. However, you cannot sell it because every solution needs to show what happened in the last few years or how you will be protected in the future. Reporting is the most important thing for the CIO level, not the admin level. I have seen Symantec really lag in this area. I am creating my own tool to build a dashboard to share with the CIO level because they want to know what happened last week, last month, and last year. These reports will tell you about activities. Symantec changed the licensing when Broadcom acquired the company. The question of who will provide support became unclear. Support has now changed and they are making money. I have seen that most of the time when you ask implementation questions, they do not answer you. If you have a problem, they give you a low-level engineer at the first level. This delays resolution. Support has to be better.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers us large visibility in all our environments and helps us to understand network segmentation and traffic."
"The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is very scalable, especially when connected to the cloud resources."
"Guardicore is really top-tier in their customer support."
"In terms of agility, Guardicore Centra is massively easier to control and manage."
"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."
"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."
"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."
"Illumio definitely demonstrates its value in money-saving capabilities, enhancing our lateral environment inside the organization and providing effectiveness overall once integrated."
"Illumio serves as a single endpoint technology where I can implement various features, including a zero-trust network, north-to-south and east-to-west configurations, and micro-segmentation, all coming from one platform, which ultimately saves us time and money."
"I observe extensive return on investment with Illumio."
"One big outcome we saw after implementing Illumio was a notable drop in lateral movement incidents."
"I would recommend Illumio to all sizes of companies."
"Overall, Illumio is a powerful tool for micro-segmentation and zero trust security that provides strong visibility, flexible policy management, and effective threat containment, enhancing an organization's internal security posture."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"The ability to finely control permissions and restrictions on servers or assets through a customizable rule set is a key strength."
"The granularity of applying the policies is valuable."
"The console and tools are very user-friendly."
"We have not reduced manpower, the number of servers has gone up, but the number of incidents has tricked down to single digits."
"The tool will then detect any anomalies, such as an intruder who has breached the network, which can trigger the system lockdown feature if it's enabled and meets the defined threshold."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection system."
"The file integrity monitoring features are the most valuable features of this product."
"The most valuable feature is the centralized console, which can handle different products that we have."
 

Cons

"Customers would want to see the cost improved."
"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."
"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."
"Sometimes, the speed needs improvement, especially when it comes to the generation of maps, where it can be a bit slow."
"The integration with other tools could be improved."
"I think the pricing is very high."
"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."
"In our version, when using the terminal server, we cannot exclude user tasks for each session."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"Technical support could be better. When we get a reply from support engineers, it is not kind or empathetic."
"Illumio requires me to create policies for each type of traffic, and for new users, the policy design can be a bit complex."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems, for example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"We need more details on areas where there is an error or a traffic blockage. I would like the tool to offer a more detailed view."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"They need to develop a more flexible product that can be scaled such that it fits well into a small business or a bigger, enterprise-level solution."
"Agent management is a challenging task."
"The support is very bad. They're not fast at all."
"There is room for improvement in enhancing its graphical user interface for a more user-friendly experience."
"Symantec is lagging on the reporting side."
"It would be advantageous if Symantec or Broadcom, given the rebranding, could simplify the process, enabling users to leverage the antivirus functionality more easily."
"The product blocks certain processes, even after allowlisting them."
"This solution clashes with Microsoft defender, which results in performance degradation on the machine."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is too high."
"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."
"The solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"The customer would complain about the cost."
"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 subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."
"The product is a bit costly."
"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Guardicore Centra?
Regarding pricing and setup cost, I don't have information because I am from a consulting team and not from the sales...
What needs improvement with Guardicore Infection Monkey?
Reporting is one area where I think Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can be improved. They are working on it, but as of...
What is your primary use case for Guardicore Infection Monkey?
My main use case for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is related to Kubernetes instrumentation and visibility, although...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
It will be the same price as the Akamai price for Guardicore. It's expensive, that's true. But when you compare it to...
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
Illumio does not have much in terms of application dependency mapping features. They lack layer 7 process level segme...
What is your primary use case for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
Illumio's use case compared to Akamai is exactly the same. For the purpose of micro-segmentation, it is the same.
What needs improvement with Symantec Data Center Security?
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Center Security?
As a partner support, we handle all Symantec products for various clients. Currently, we work with DLP, Symantec Endp...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Data Center Security?
I am still a Symantec partner. Price rating is five out of ten. Symantec Data Center Security is a perfect solution, ...
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai, Broadcom, Illumio and others in Cloud and Data Center Security. Updated: May 2026.
896,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.