Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security comparison

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

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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

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (12th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (6th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

154

Ranking in other categories

Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (5th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 21.5%, down from 24.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	21.5%
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security	2.1%
Other	76.4%

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

Martin Raška

Senior Security Engineer & Instructor at Arrow Electronics

Unification of security features strengthens network protection

The overall network security is good. It's big-picture, all in one bundle. It's valuable to have everything in one place instead of spreading across different products. Unified security management positively affects a company's security operations. They have one unified view of the security. I can connect multiple gateways to the management and have it in one place. I can have reporting and views in a single pane of glass on the consolidated platform. It's easy to use. The management is the best on the market. It's very easy to work with, read, understand, and navigate. It helps increase our customer's security posture. We can see in some cases CloudGuard improves our customers' posture overall.

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 found the solution to be stable."

"The real bonus is the fact that we can secure applications, all the way down to the individual services, on each host. It's actually more granular security than we can get out of a traditional firewall."

"Application Ring-Fencing and Deception Server, which is basically like a honeypot, are pretty useful features."

"The interface and dashboard are amazing."

"The solution is very scalable, especially when connected to the cloud resources."

"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."

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

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

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pros

"The SSL spectrum proved to be the most valuable for our incoming connections."

"The solution is reliable."

"Check Point CloudGuard is quick to deploy and easy for the customer to use."

"Some retail customers find the scale-up and scale-down features valuable, particularly with scale sets. This is useful for handling increased loads on devices and utilizing firewalls, similar to on-premises setups with active standby configurations."

"It's a high-performance device. The network performance is also really good. We check how much time it takes for the servers. Our network performance has increased since using this solution."

"It plays a vital role in protecting both our customer-facing and internal company infrastructure."

"I like the firewall and the virtual machine. I also like that it's compatible with Amazon Web Services and Azure."

"We get good insights into security, and we are more secure because we have more insights than we would get from other products."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pros

Cons

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

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

"Incident tagging could be improved. Other vendors offer semi-automatic tagging, which Guardicore doesn't yet have."

"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."

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

"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 dashboard needs improvement. It should be more flexible so that I can easily see what I want or need to see."

"Clients would like to see that the security policies of GuardiCore can continue to be comparable to all the major firewall players out there."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation cons

"I want the upgrades of their CloudGuard solution to major versions to be easier. We have had a few small hiccups. They have different types of cloud clusters called Geo Clusters, and those just cannot be upgraded past a certain point, which is a hurdle that we are currently experiencing."

"Sometimes, if you aren't familiar with the solution, it can be a bit complex, but it does become easier to use with time. However, every time they launch a new version, it becomes more complex and you need to take time to get familiar with all the changes. For every version that they upgrade, you need to upskill yourself."

"The convergence time between cluster members is still not perfect. It's far away from what we get in traditional appliances. If a company wants to move mission-critical applications for an environment to the cloud, it somehow has to accept that it could have downtime of up to 40 seconds, until cluster members switch virtual IP addresses between themselves and start accepting the traffic. That is a little bit too high in my opinion. It's not fully Check Point's fault, because it's a hybrid mechanism with AWS. The blame is 50/50."

"There are some usability issues we'd like to see improved."

"It's meeting our needs at this time. If I could make it better, it would be by making it more standalone. That would be beneficial to us. I say that because our current platform for virtualization is VMware. The issue isn't any fault of Check Point, it's more how the virtualization platform partners allow for that partnership and integration. There has to be close ties and partnerships between the vendors to ensure interoperability and sup-portability. There is only so far that Check Point, or any security vendor technology can go without the partnership and enablement of the virtualization platform vendor as it relies on "Service Insertion" to maintain optimal performance."

"While today we can manage some scopes, there are still some segments in the OSI layer we cannot manage."

"The product needs to improve support. They don't consider my case the number one priority even though I want a quick resolution."

"The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security cons

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 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 pricing is too high."

"The customer would complain about the cost."

"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."

"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."

"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."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pricing and cost advice

"The price could be better."

"We pay approximately ‎€150,000 ($166,000 USD) per year."

"Generally, it has been fine for me. I can find my way around the price list, and it is pretty simple."

"CloudGuard Network Security's pricing is fine."

"The price of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very high compared to other solutions, such as Fortinet FortiMail. For the over 2,000 mailboxes we use with the solution it is very expensive."

"The product's licensing costs are yearly."

"Every project needs different pricing. I believe that when we talk with the particular guys, we will find a price for the customer. They are flexible in terms of that because we need to be flexible, and we have many companies who are aggressive with discounts."

"We explored both pay-as-you-go and build-your-own-licensing models, and found both to be competitive."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

21%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	59
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	75

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 do you like most about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

The tool's most valuable feature is its management console.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is that it was good.

What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

I think Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is an ideal product, so I see no improvements needed. If I had to think of one area where it could be improved or made easier, I would say that suppo...

Illumio vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Comparisons

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

Trend Micro Deep Security vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 3% of the time

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation Competitors

Fortinet FortiGate vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 15% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 10% of the time

Trend Micro Deep Security vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 7% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 3% of the time

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Competitors

Product Reports

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Download Akamai Guardicore Segmentation product report

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Download Check Point CloudGuard Network Security product report

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security report

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Overview

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

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers centralized management, robust threat prevention, and seamless integration with major public clouds, ensuring consistent security for cloud and on-premises environments. It combines ease of use with flexibility across diverse IT infrastructure.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides comprehensive protection for IT infrastructures in AWS, Azure, and hybrid environments. It ensures firewall security, managing traffic and securing cloud infrastructures while maintaining network protection and compliance enforcement. Organizations benefit from its centralized security governance, enhanced visibility, and threat prevention for both perimeter and internal security. It offers seamless integration with leading cloud platforms, allowing for efficient deployment and scalability, aligning with modern cloud requirements.

What are the key features of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Ease of Setup and Use: Provides a user-friendly setup process and intuitive operation.
Robust Threat Prevention: Offers advanced capabilities to safeguard against potential threats.
Auto-Scaling: Adjusts resources dynamically to meet demand without manual intervention.
Centralized Management: Ensures uniform security policies across cloud and on-premises environments.
Integration with Major Public Clouds: Seamlessly works with AWS, Azure, and other leading platforms.
Intuitive ACL Menu: Simplifies access control list management with an easy-to-navigate interface.
Customizable Policy Options: Allows for personalized security settings suited to specific requirements.

What benefits should companies look for in Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Through automation and comprehensive reporting, organizations streamline operations.
Consistent Security Management: Offers uniform policies across different environments, reducing complexity.
Improved Threat Detection: Increases the ability to identify and respond to threats quickly.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing or changing infrastructure needs without compromising security.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and tech, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is vital for protecting sensitive data, managing compliance, and safeguarding daily operations. Its robust integration capabilities support diverse infrastructure setups, assisting companies in maintaining high-security standards efficiently.

Check Point Software Technologies

Sample Customers

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

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security