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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco ACI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (11th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (4th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
Cisco ACI
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 23.2%, down from 23.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco ACI is 5.2%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

KlavsThaarup - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers micro segmentation capabilities and easy to setup
It's micro-segmentation The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature. There are always areas for improvement. It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud. So that could be improved. In future releases, I would like to see more integration with other…
Rahul Khandelwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables streamlined data center management with automation and application-centric design
The main features of Cisco ACI that I really appreciate are the application-centric and network-centric designs, allowing you to create your network according to your application. That's helpful, and it's good for one-time implementation. The automation capabilities are really helpful. We deployed one data center using Terraform, and after deployment, many automation features are available, which can be very helpful. Based on my experience, Cisco ACI provides substantial capability; you can design your network accordingly and it's part of the SDN family, providing many benefits to the organization, especially when moving from traditional network infrastructure. Many organizations are actually using the old traditional Nexus infrastructure or some old data center devices. It gives you significant control and one-time implementation capabilities, and it also provides better performance and security. Functionality-wise, Cisco ACI provides integration using automation. We implemented it through Terraform, which was easy. Those features are available, so I don't think any new features are needed right now; something new could come up, but they have implemented many improvements over the years.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Guardicore Centra offers the best coverage specifically in backward compatibility with legacy operating systems."
"The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"I found the solution to be stable."
"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."
"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."
"Guardicore makes its own rule set automatically, so we can work fast when creating a rule set."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility of processes and connections."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the Call Manager."
"One area where it has an advantage... is that you're able to reuse a specific integration. If you add another server, you can use a specific integration and assign it to another port."
"The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution."
"It improves security and automation."
"The efficiency in terms of the data center latency has been reduced by around 20-30%. Our applications function a lot better. We get a lot of intuitive data to know how our application stack is performing."
"You can integrate Cisco ACI well with VMware."
"Automation features have been most beneficial for managing complex networks."
"One of the most valuable features is centralized management. The other is the ability to create policies by routing."
 

Cons

"I would rate the stability a six out of ten, where one is low and ten is high stability."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud."
"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."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"In our version, when using the terminal server, we cannot exclude user tasks for each session."
"They can maybe improve their customer service just because they are kind of a small organization, and customer service isn't as big as others such as VMware."
"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."
"I believe there's room for improvement in terms of ACI's integration with various technologies."
"We have had two calls with technical support. They are not the best. We opened a case to diagnose issues and it's taken weeks to get someone on the case and to move forward."
"It is still not mature and has room to grow. As with any product out there, it requires time to develop."
"It would be great if ACI would include the next generation firewall feature."
"It needs more integration with public clouds, like Azure and AWS."
"I would like to see a lot more integrations with the rest of the Cisco portfolio."
"The product needs to be more visible on the Internet and have the ability to be integrated into more software developments."
"Training for this product is available from institutions but it is not available online where you can get users trained easily."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"The pricing is too high."
"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."
"The customer would complain about the cost."
"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."
"The licensing cost for ACI is expensive - I would rate its price 2.5 out of five."
"It saves time and resources."
"The pricing and licensing are both high, particularly if you want a high level of functionality. It would be great if the price and licensing cost could be decreased."
"Cisco's pricing is very expensive."
"We used Cisco Professional Services for the deployment. They were outstanding, but very expensive."
"Cisco is much more expensive than other vendors, especially when it comes to the licensing."
"The price could be improved. It is expensive, but then again, it is Cisco. The price is worth what you pay for."
"The pricing, including both hardware and licenses, is reasonable."
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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
20%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...
What do you like most about Cisco ACI?
The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution.
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Cisco ACI and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.