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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (11th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (6th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (6th), Container Security (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is designed for Microsegmentation Software and holds a mindshare of 26.9%, up 25.7% compared to last year.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP), holds 14.5% mindshare, down 20.4% since last year.
Microsegmentation Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation26.9%
Illumio29.5%
VMware NSX16.3%
Other27.299999999999997%
Microsegmentation Software
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks14.5%
Wiz23.8%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud10.4%
Other51.300000000000004%
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Uday Varma - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Harsh_Vardhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides visibility and control that our customers need
Different modules are valuable for different customers. We are leveraging CSPM. It is one of the best solutions for comprehensive visibility into cloud resource configurations and compliance. It has a lot of out-of-the-box policies, and the visibility that we are getting is impressive. The DSPM module is valuable. This is the latest one that Palo Alto procured from Dig Security. No competitor provides this functionality in a single pane of glass. The support for Linux and container security is also very good. That is the beauty of Prisma Cloud. However, in terms of Windows security, Prisma Cloud is lacking because currently, there is no runtime protection available. The UI is very good. We get all the things within a single UI. It is easy to use. A new user can easily understand it. It is very user-friendly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."
"This tool greatly helps in understanding the footprint of the attacks."
"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."
"The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"I found the solution to be stable."
"Its deception features are great, providing a rich telemetry of lured origins, and are a great resource for any active defense strategy."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the maps and ring fencing that help monitor events."
"The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud for our clients is CSPM, as it helps clients gain visibility into all the assets with their cloud providers."
"The most valuable feature is the option to add custom queries using the RQL language that they supply so that we can customize the compliance frameworks to what we need to look for."
"The visibility on alerts helps you investigate more easily and see details faster."
"Prisma Cloud's most valuable asset is its ability to provide detailed visibility into container activity."
"The dynamic workload identity creation, attestation, and assignment is the best feature. In addition, the application dependency map across heterogeneous environments for compliance is a striking feature."
"CSPM is very useful because it gives us good policies and violation alerts."
"The client wasn't using all of the features, but the one that stood out was infrastructure-as-code (IaC). I built IaC use cases and was trying to get them to use it. I also liked cloud workload protection. I worked with the vulnerability management team to develop a process. It's a manual process, so it can be challenging to remediate many image or container issues. It was nice that we could build out a reporting process and download the reports. The reports are solid."
"The features of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks are overall satisfying, although I would like to verify some aspects."
 

Cons

"Clients would like to see that the security policies of GuardiCore can continue to be comparable to all the major firewall players out there."
"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."
"I would rate the stability a six out of ten, where one is low and ten is high stability."
"It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"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."
"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."
"The dashboard needs improvement. It should be more flexible so that I can easily see what I want or need to see."
"They charge seven workloads for monitoring one compute, and that is quite expensive. This makes it difficult to move fully with the compute part because of the workload."
"Support is an area that needs improvement."
"There needs to be a mechanism that allows me to manually configure compliance more easily."
"The Application Security dashboard was not as user-friendly as the Cloud Security dashboard."
"The automation capabilities are growing each day, but the problem is that the updates are not that frequent. There are some services on Amazon that have come out with updates, and Azure is also getting up to date. But Prisma takes some time to follow. There's a time gap that Prisma inherits from these clouds. I understand why it takes some time, but that time should be reduced."
"One thing that is missing is Cloud Run runtime security—serverless. That would be great to have in the tool. It's not that easy to have Cloud Run in specific environments."
"Sometimes we do get false alerts. That should be improved."
"Areas like the deployment of their defenders and their central control need manual intervention. They should focus more on automation. They have a very generic case for small companies. However, for bigger companies to work, we have to do a lot of changes to our system to accommodate it. Therefore, they should change their system or deployment models so it can be easy to integrate into existing architectures."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is too high."
"The customer would complain about the cost."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."
"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 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."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"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 for Prisma Cloud is high. Providing a pay-as-you-go model or pricing options tailored for medium and small enterprises could help attract more clients."
"The cost depends on the pricing model. Compared to other solutions, the cost isn't that bad."
"I find the pricing to be expensive."
"The cost was not on the higher side. Overall, the cost gets recovered with its implementation."
"Prisma Cloud is a high-end enterprise solution, making it quite expensive."
"Regarding Prisma Cloud's pricing, we started small, and then we just kept on growing."
"Prisma Cloud is cost-efficient, but the credits are on the higher end."
"In general, Prisma Cloud is much cheaper than cloud-native services."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

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 tools like Cisco or Illumio, and so I think they are in the middle.
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 and found that they really stood out from other vendors. It allows us to see mi...
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 a production interface and a server interface that are only for management. But...
What is your primary use case for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
Prisma Cloud helps support DevSecOps methodologies, making those responsibilities easier to manage.
What Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform do you recommend?
We like Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, since it offers us incredible visibility into our entire cloud system. We are able to easily see where our container vulnerabilities lie and and where cl...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.