Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

Akamai and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. Akamai is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.8, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. Akamai holds a 6.8% mindshare in CWPP, compared to Microsoft’s 14.3% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Microsoft Defender for Cloud compete in the security and compliance category. Guardicore appears to have the upper hand with its micro-segmentation and telemetry capabilities, offering more granular control and visibility across platforms.

Features: Guardicore offers micro-segmentation, rich telemetry, and deception features that enhance active defense strategies. It provides compatibility with multiple platforms and offers comprehensive visibility into traffic. Microsoft Defender for Cloud focuses on threat detection, security posture improvement, and integration with the Azure ecosystem, delivering comprehensive protection across multi-cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Akamai Guardicore Segmentation could improve integration with major vendors, enhance policy management, and offer more flexible user-level control. Microsoft Defender for Cloud could work on reducing false positives, improving real-time monitoring, and offering better integration with external tools while clarifying its pricing model.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Akamai Guardicore Segmentation supports robust on-premises and hybrid cloud deployment, with technical support praised for its responsiveness. Microsoft Defender for Cloud excels in public and hybrid cloud deployments with strong Azure integration, though some customers note a need for more responsive support in high-stakes environments.

Pricing and ROI: Akamai Guardicore is considered expensive but offers substantial ROI through improved security and resource efficiency. The flexible licensing adapts to client needs, leading to long-term savings. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has competitive pricing for those already in the Microsoft ecosystem, offering value through subscription-based pricing, though some find specific costs steep. Both solutions enhance security and compliance, with Guardicore providing immediate operational benefits and Defender leveraging its ecosystem for cost-effectiveness.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

July 2025

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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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.6%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 6.8%, up from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 14.3%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	14.3%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security	3.6%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	6.8%
Other	75.3%

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

Andrew W

VP - Information Technology at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues

Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.

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Uday Varma

Solution Architecht at Inspira Enterprise

Offers granular control and ease of policy creation with features like telemetry and micro-segmentation but incident tagging is missing

Our customers use the solution for micro-segmentation within the data center or cloud environments. One customer uses it for their on-premises infrastructure, deployed at the code level across their massive network. Another customer uses it in a data center to monitor microsegmentation for their 500-node workload. Moreover, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation has helped our customers manage and secure traffic between different applications or workloads. Earlier, they were using VMware NSX-v, which offered good logging for distributed services on an analytical level. However, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation provides them with better overall visibility and granular control over-segmentation, even for inter-application and inter-routing traffic.

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Vibhor Goel

Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse

A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps

Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like CSPM the most. It captures a lot of alerts within a short period of time. When an alert gets triggered on the cloud, it throws an alert within half an hour, which is very reasonable. It is a plus point for us."

"Cloud Native Security is a tool that has good monitoring features."

"The UI is responsive and user-friendly."

"Singularity Cloud Security's most valuable features are its ease of scalability and comprehensive security measures."

"It used to guide me about an alert. There is something called an alert guide. I used to click on the alert guide, and I could read everything. I could read about the alert and how to resolve it. I used to love that feature."

"We use the infrastructure as code scanning, which is good."

"I would rate SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security a nine out of ten."

"Singularity Cloud's ability to create custom correlation searches and reduce noise is highly valuable."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pros

"Its deception features are great, providing a rich telemetry of lured origins, and are a great resource for any active defense strategy."

"The most valuable feature is the visibility of processes and connections."

"Guardicore makes its own rule set automatically, so we can work fast when creating a rule set."

"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."

"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."

"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 microsegmentation as distributed services."

"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."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pros

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has significantly enhanced our overall security posture by approximately 20 to 25 percent."

"DSPM is the most valuable feature."

"My favorite part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the compliance features. Defender covers a wide range of workloads, on par with competing products on the market."

"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."

"The solution's coordinated detection and response across devices and identities is impressive because it is complete."

"This is a platform as a service provided by Azure. We don't need to install or maintain Azure Security Center. It is a ready-made service available in Azure. This is one of the main things that we like. If you look at similar tools, we have to install, maintain, and update services. Whereas, Azure Security Center manages what we are using. This is a good feature that has helped us a lot."

"It works seamlessly on the Azure platform because it's a Microsoft app. Its setup is similar, so if you already have a Microsoft account, it just flows into it."

"Defender for Cloud provides a prioritized list of remediations for security issues, reducing risk and improving security operations."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

Cons

"I would like to see the map feature improve. It's good, but it isn't fully developed. It lets us use custom resources and policies but does not allow us to perform some actions. I would also like more custom integration and runtime security for Kubernetes."

"While SentinelOne offers robust security features, its higher cost may present a challenge for budget-conscious organizations."

"When you find a vulnerability and resolve it, the same issue will not occur again. I want SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security to block the same vulnerability from appearing again. I want something like a playbook where the steps that we take to resolve an issue are repeated when that issue happens again."

"The Kubernetes scanning on the Oracle Cloud needs to be improved. It's on the roadmap. AWS has this capability, but it's unavailable for Oracle Cloud."

"The could improve their mean time to detect."

"The cost has the potential for improvement."

"While the future roadmap presented by SentinelOne appears promising, I hope the envisioned advancements are realistically achievable and that the gap between current offerings and long-term goals is not too significant."

"Singularity Cloud Security currently lacks a break-glass account function, which is a critical component for implementing Single Sign-On as it allows for regaining access in emergencies."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security 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."

"Sometimes, the speed needs improvement, especially when it comes to the generation of maps, where it can be a bit slow."

"Kubernetes is not installed in the way we need it."

"I would rate the stability a six out of ten, where one is low and ten is high stability."

"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."

"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."

"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."

"Customers would want to see the cost improved."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation cons

"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."

"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."

"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."

"The solution's portal is very easy to use, but there's one key component that is missing when it comes to managing policies. For example, if I've onboarded my server and I need to specify antivirus policies, there's no option to do that on the portal. I will have to go to Intune to deploy them. That is one main aspect that is missing and it's worrisome."

"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."

"An area where Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved is in getting away from having multiple menus that do the same thing, which seems imposing when looking at it."

"We haven't experienced issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud for our company size of about five hundred people. However, I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."

"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SentinelOne is quite costly compared to other security platforms."

"I am personally not taking care of the pricing part, but when we moved from CrowdStrike to PingSafe, there were some savings. The price of CrowdStrike was quite high. Compared to that, the price of PingSafe was low. PingSafe is charging based on the subscription model. If I want to add an AWS subscription, I need to pay more. It should not be based on subscription. It should be based on the number of servers that I am scanning."

"It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market."

"PingSafe is fairly priced."

"SentinelOne offers excellent pricing and licensing options."

"SentinelOne provided competitive pricing compared to other vendors, and we are satisfied with the deal."

"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's pricing is good."

"It's not expensive. The product is in its initial growth stages and appears more competitive compared to others. It comes in different variants, and I believe the enterprise version costs around $55 per user per year. I would rate it a five, somewhere fairly moderate."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security 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."

"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."

"The customer would complain about the cost."

"The pricing is too high."

"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 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 solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pricing and cost advice

"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."

"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."

"The tool is pretty expensive."

"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."

"The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."

"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."

"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."

"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	43
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	53

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	44

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?

The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?

I don't handle the price part, but it isn't more expensive than Palo Alto Prisma Cloud. It's not cheap, but it is wor...

See all answers

What needs improvement with PingSafe?

There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs ...

See all answers

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 t...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?

Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening acros...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The pricing is pretty standard.

See all answers

Comparisons

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 13% of the time

Wiz vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 12% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

Orca Security vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security Competitors

Illumio vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 45% of the time

VMware NSX vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 10% of the time

Cisco Secure Workload vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 9% of the time

Zero Networks vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 3% of the time

Xshield vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 2% of the time

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 27% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 1% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

August 2025

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security report

Download SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

September 2025

Download Akamai Guardicore Segmentation product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

August 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Also Known As

PingSafe

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

SentinelOne

Demo not available

Akamai

Microsoft

Overview

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers a streamlined approach to cloud security with intuitive operation and strong integration capabilities for heightened threat detection and remediation efficiency.

Singularity Cloud Security stands out for its real-time detection and response, effectively minimizing detection and remediation timelines. Its automated remediation integrates smoothly with third-party tools enhancing operational efficiency. The comprehensive console ensures visibility and support for forensic investigations. Seamless platform integration and robust support for innovation are notable advantages. Areas for development include improved search functionality, affordability, better firewall capabilities for remote users, stable agents, comprehensive reporting, and efficient third-party integrations. Clarity in the interface, responsive support, and real-time alerting need enhancement, with a call for more automation and customization. Better scalability and cost-effective integration without compromising capabilities are desired.

What are SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's standout features?

Ease of Use: Intuitive operation simplifies navigation across platforms.
Real-Time Detection: Quick identification and response to threats.
Automated Remediation: Streamlines recovery processes with integration capabilities.
Forensic Visibility: Aids in thorough threat analysis and prevention strategies.
Comprehensive Console: Offers full visibility and historical data tracking.
Platform Integration: Supports seamless operation across cloud and hybrid environments.

What benefits should users expect from SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automation and third-party integration improve threat response.
Improved Detection: Reduces mean time to detect and respond to threats.
Operational Support: Comprehensive visibility and forensic tools aid operational decisions.
Cost Efficiency: Affordable integration with scaling capabilities without high overhead.

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is deployed in industries needing robust cloud security posture management, endpoint protection, and threat hunting. Utilized frequently across AWS and Azure, it assists in monitoring, threat detection, and maintaining compliance in diverse environments while providing real-time alerts and recommendations for proactive threat management.

SentinelOne

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is a software-based microsegmentation solution that provides the simplest, fastest, and most intuitive way to enforce Zero Trust principles. It enables you to prevent malicious lateral movement in your network through precise segmentation policies, visuals of activity within your IT environment, and network security alerts. Akamai Guardicore Segmentation works across your data centers, multicloud environments, and endpoints. It is faster to deploy than infrastructure segmentation approaches and provides you with unparalleled visibility and control of your network.

Akamai

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

July 2025

Free Report: Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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