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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs BMC Helix Cloud Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (6th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
BMC Helix Cloud Security
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (38th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 3.3%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix Cloud Security is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.5%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation3.3%
BMC Helix Cloud Security1.2%
Other94.0%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
Vibin Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Team Lead - 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.
DG
Portfolio Manager/ Helix Administrator at Frontier Communications
A highly scalable and straightforward solution with a knowledgeable support team
We work on a third-party shared environment. It wouldn’t have been feasible for a smaller company. My company was actually the first one to do it. Just like any cloud security, it pays to do your research and have complimentary security involved. The product can’t be the be-all and end-all tool for your security. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly reduced our workload in terms of managing risks, helping us to be more efficient and save substantial resources."
"One of Qualys' best features is its categorization, which allows us to see the types of assets, their security postures, and the AI-powered version of the tool."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its agent versatility."
"Generally, Qualys is very good at detections, whether on cloud or on-prem, and the agent allows deployment on both infrastructures, providing continuous monitoring of your assets, which is a key selling point for us."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view of risk, reducing the workload associated with consolidating multiple sources for risk prioritization."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."
"I would rate Qualys TotalCloud ten out of ten."
"TotalCloud offers a comprehensive suite of features, including EDR, XDR, and TrueRisk, providing a centralized platform for managing vulnerabilities and security risks."
"The interface and dashboard are amazing."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers us large visibility in all our environments and helps us to understand network segmentation and traffic."
"At the moment, when I use this product it's great."
"The impact of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is very important because it reduced risk for my corporation and organization."
"The change control in GuardiCore has improved our efficiency by over 75% in terms of implementing security policies, and the efficiency of the security team was improved by over 100% in terms of analytics, monitoring, and responding to incidents."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is the tool that makes me sleeping well every day."
"Guardicore is really top-tier in their customer support."
"This tool greatly helps in understanding the footprint of the attacks."
"The best feature is time to value. With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud. If you have Azure and AWS deployments, you might have multiple subscriptions in Azure and usually multiple accounts in AWS. You may even be doing some GCP work (around Google Cloud Platform). It's very difficult to manage a common set of policies, even less reporting, across multiple subscriptions, accounts, and cloud environments. What BMC Helix Cloud Security does is provide a unified view or single pane of glass as to your baseline. Then, it also facilitates the ability for Level 1 or 2 operations support to take action and report on security vulnerabilities."
"The cool feature of Helix Cloud Security is that you can do all that — understand and remediate issues — in one dashboard, based on the different policies that are available for security, out-of-the-box."
"With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud."
"The features that I've found most valuable are its container security aspect. I also like its vulnerability management tools."
"The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities."
"Role-based security is a valuable feature."
"It's also multi-cloud. You can look at several cloud providers: AWS, Azure, or GCP."
"It is a good tool to make sure that your containers are safe and sound."
 

Cons

"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"Overall, we are satisfied with it. However, the response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved. It is not yet in place according to requirements; it is not completely available even though the module has been released."
"The patching process with Qualys Patch Management, which is part of TotalCloud, does not cover installing certain prerequisites on the servers or workstations. This shortcoming means we must rely on SCCM when any service stack updates or additional prerequisites are needed."
"Their support could be improved."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"The response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved."
"I think Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its handling of zero-day vulnerabilities and supply chain management because modern ransomware attacks not only target prime critical infrastructures but also the supply chain system."
"From a downside perspective, the UI is not user-friendly and feels dated compared to other tools like Prisma Cloud."
"The integration with other tools could be improved."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"Reporting is one area where I think Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can be improved."
"The customer service rating I would give is a four out of ten."
"The dashboard needs improvement. It should be more flexible so that I can easily see what I want or need to see."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"Clients would like to see that the security policies of GuardiCore can continue to be comparable to all the major firewall players out there."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can be improved because keeping it up to date is difficult since it is SaaS-based and updates are not on a regular schedule; I have to reach out to my contact to ask them to update to a newer version, and it would be helpful if updates were on a regular cadence so that I would not have to remember to ask them."
"I think its TOA interfaces are still not that comfortable. The UI could be more user-friendly, easier to use."
"We've had some with issues connectors. The connectors have seemed to have caused a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment. The only time I've had to reach out to tech support was for that. It seems it may not have been scanning correctly or I wasn't seeing data within a specific time. But we've set up a couple of connectors in the past couple of weeks and they actually scanned the AWS environment and we had data within about 10 minutes. It's working a lot faster and I think they're making improvements as they go."
"Every organization out there doesn't rely on just one control body. They use FISMA control. They may use HIPAA, CIS, PCI, or SOX, then blend them. One of the things that is now in big demand for BMC Helix Cloud Security is content. That's the next journey in its lifespan, making it easier for the community to share and collaborate on content for security controls that can be measured and remediated."
"The biggest challenge now, which is a good problem to have, with BMC Helix is content."
"I want the role-based security feature to be improved."
"We've had some issues with connectors; the connectors have seemed to cause a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment."
"BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features."
"The UI could be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"The pricing is too high."
"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."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"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."
"It is a subscription model with term licensing that is usually yearly. This includes, not only the product, but support and maintenance. It is based on cloud assets. Therefore, if you have 100 cloud assets, those cloud assets are measured based on evaluation or transactions. For example, if I'm evaluating that cloud asset for CIS compliance, PCI compliance, and AWS best practices, that asset gets evaluated three times, as those are three transactions. However, the license model is based on peak asset usage. So, over a year, if you deploy 100, 1000, 500, and then 2000 assets, you will be charged for the 2000 peak of assets managed by Helix Cloud Security."
"The pricing is based on an annual subscription, upfront, and it's based on cloud assets. Whether your assets are in Azure and AWS combined, the tool tells you how many assets are being scanned and that's the number used for pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Construction Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
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...
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Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
TrueSight Cloud Security, SecOps Policy Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
NHS, Vodafone, Kansas City Life, SKY Italia, Cybera
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. BMC Helix Cloud Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.