Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Google Kubernetes Engine vs Illumio 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
6.1
Google Kubernetes Engine delivers positive ROI by reducing costs and improving efficiency, despite being costly for some services.
Sentiment score
7.4
Illumio enhances operations with traffic visibility and logs, offering cost-effective security and high ROI, despite early measurement stages.
By migrating from AWS to Google Cloud Platform, we have saved a lot of time and money.
Illumio is known to be the cheapest solution among the security solutions we evaluated.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
3.7
Google Kubernetes Engine support varies; some users rely on forums, while others suggest improvements in response time and professionalism.
Sentiment score
1.0
Illumio customer service experiences mixed reviews, with inconsistent responsiveness and empathy, suggesting a need for improvement in support.
Even if we raise an issue on non-working days like Saturdays or Sundays, we receive prompt responses.
From my experience, they are very responsive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.0
Google Kubernetes Engine is praised for its scalability, efficient for microservices, with dynamic auto-scaling adjusting to organizational needs.
Sentiment score
7.6
Illumio scales effectively for global clusters, supporting diverse team sizes and cloud expansions without significant issues.
The autoscaling capabilities of Google Kubernetes Engine have significantly impacted our operations.
Scaling it to a large level is not an issue for us.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Google Kubernetes Engine is highly stable, effectively managing demands with regular updates and scalable architecture for reliable operations.
Sentiment score
8.0
Illumio is highly stable, with users rating its reliable performance and SaaS option around 8.5 out of 10.
A suitable option would be N2D or beyond, which can onboard all the workloads quickly.
Illumio is a stable solution with no glitches or bugs reported, making it a reliable product for us.
 

Room For Improvement

Google Kubernetes Engine needs enhancements in security, user interface, scalability, pricing, and third-party integration for optimal performance.
Illumio needs better support, enhanced integration, security improvements, detailed guidance, OS compatibility, automation, and comprehensive firewall management.
When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved.
Log observability could be made easier so someone from high school can use it without having technological expertise.
It would be helpful if I could easily find log information in a particular namespace without needing to write certain labels.
There could also be more examples of how the automations can be done using Illumio.
That's why I'm looking for comparisons with other products.
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades.
 

Setup Cost

Google Kubernetes Engine uses pay-as-you-go pricing, competitive with AWS, considering machine specs, compute resources, and optional GPUs.
Illumio's pricing varies by workloads, with annual costs of 10,000-15,000 USD, often considered expensive or cost-effective.
Instead, we only pay for the hardware we use, which results in cost-cutting.
The on-demand nodes are quite expensive.
Google is considered cheaper compared to AWS, making it suitable for smaller to medium companies concerning cost.
I know that Illumio is the cheapest solution in the security area.
I think it's not very expensive if we compare it with Guardicore.
 

Valuable Features

Google Kubernetes Engine offers seamless autoscaling, multi-cloud support, robust security, and easy cluster management for enhanced performance and reliability.
Illumio offers application mapping, traffic monitoring, and policy enforcement, enhancing security with network flow visibility and protocol blocking.
The most valuable aspect of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is its managed nature, which significantly reduces the burden on our platform team.
What I find most valuable is the ability to focus solely on my product without worrying about the Kubernetes infrastructure itself.
GKE is easier to understand and use than Elastic Kubernetes Service.
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.
Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.
The dependency map is the most valuable aspect.
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Kubernetes Engine
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (10th)
Illumio
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (6th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (13th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Google Kubernetes Engine and Illumio aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Google Kubernetes Engine is designed for Container Management and holds a mindshare of 2.1%, down 2.4% compared to last year.
Illumio, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud and Data Center Security, holds 22.8% mindshare, down 24.1% since last year.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Google Kubernetes Engine2.1%
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform19.5%
Amazon EKS11.9%
Other66.5%
Container Management
Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Illumio22.8%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation21.5%
Cisco Secure Workload13.2%
Other42.5%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T - PeerSpot reviewer
Managed solutions enable efficient handling of web applications and migration projects
Google Kubernetes Engine can be improved by enabling the in-place upgrade of the machine type of an existing node pool since I currently need to destroy and recreate it. There is no feature present where I can upgrade directly, and having more than 1,000 to 2,000 workloads in one node pool makes changing the node pool name difficult for all those workloads. I choose eight out of ten mainly because of the node pool upgrade challenge I mentioned, but also because of the existence of Anthos service mesh, which is the ingress controller available only for the enterprise Kubernetes Engine. It would be beneficial if it could be offered in the normal Kubernetes Engine with any limitations.
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Management solutions are best for your needs.
871,408 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Google Kubernetes Engine is straightforward, as I previously indicated. The need for humans is reduced with GCP since there is no need for ...
What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?
Google Kubernetes Engine can be improved by enabling the in-place upgrade of the machine type of an existing node pool since I currently need to destroy and recreate it. There is no feature present...
What do you like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging poli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is the cheapest solution in the security area.
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes.
 

Also Known As

GKE
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Illumio and other solutions. Updated: May 2020.
871,408 professionals have used our research since 2012.