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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Cloud and Data Center Security (4th), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (4th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th), Compliance Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 2.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 7.9%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 13.6%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew W - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Matthias Kropf - PeerSpot reviewer
The tool's most valuable feature is visibility but needs improvement in Kubernetes
We use the product in the production environment of server infrastructure.  The tool's most valuable feature is its visibility.  Kubernetes is not installed in the way we need it.  I have been using the product since October.  We faced some minor issues, but overall, the product is stable. I…
Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution helped free other staff to work on other projects or other tasks. We basically just had to do a bunch of upfront configuring. With it, we do not have to spend as much time in the console."
"Our organization is growing steadily, so our infrastructure is expanding, and we're managing more technical resources. Singularity Cloud Security helps us track our resources so that we don't get lost in the overwhelming volume of things and ensures we follow best practices. The solution gives us better visibility into our resources and enables faster resolution."
"The visibility is the best part of the solution."
"They're responsive to feature requests. If I suggest a feature for Prisma, I will need to wait until the next release on their roadmap. Cloud Native Security will add it right away."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to gain deep visibility into the workloads inside containers."
"Singularity Cloud Workload Security provides us with better security detection and more visibility. It is another resource that we can use to detect vulnerabilities in our company's systems. For example, it can help us detect new file processes that we are not familiar with, which could be used by attackers to exploit our systems. Singularity Cloud Workload Security can also help us diagnose and analyze data to determine whether it is malicious or not. Singularity Cloud Workload Security is like another pair of eyes that can help us protect our systems from cyberattacks."
"The cloud misconfiguration feature and Offensive Security Engine, as well as their alerting process, are valuable."
"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 tool's most valuable feature is its visibility."
"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."
"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility of processes and connections."
"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."
"Application Ring-Fencing and Deception Server, which is basically like a honeypot, are pretty useful features."
"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."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a nine out of 10."
"When we started out, our secure score was pretty low. We adopted some of the recommendations that Security Center set out and we were able to make good progress on improving it. It had been in the low thirties and is now in the upper eighties."
"The solution is used for risks, vulnerabilities, and compliance."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the remote workforce capabilities and the general experience of the remote workforce."
"The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark."
"Provides a very good view of the entire security setup of your organization."
"Using Security Center, you have a full view, at any given time, of what's deployed, and that is something that is very useful."
"The solution is quite good and addresses many security gaps."
 

Cons

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has limited legacy system support and may not fully support older operating systems or legacy environments."
"One area for improvement could be the internal analysis process, specifically the guidance provided for remediation."
"The SentinelOne customer support needs improvement, as they are sometimes late in responding, which is critical in a production issue."
"They can add more widgets to its dashboard. A centralized dashboard with numerous metrics would improve user understanding."
"In version 2, a lot of rules have been deployed for Kubernetes security and CDR, which makes a lot of issues of critical severity, whereas they are not critical or of high severity. There is a mismatch of severities."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSPM tool, but its CWPP features need improvement, and there is scope for more application security posture management features."
"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."
"A vulnerability alert would appear, and we'd fix it, but then the same alert would return the next day."
"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."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"Guardicore Centra should incorporate automation so that we don't require to write custom scripts and APIs. The tool also has limitations on rules where it allows only sixty thousand rules. Our clients have also commented that there are too many manual clicks and effort to do changes. I think that the incorporation of automation can help our clients make changes with confidence and without the possibility of human error."
"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."
"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."
"Kubernetes is not installed in the way we need it."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"I would rate the stability a six out of ten, where one is low and ten is high stability."
"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."
"With the new Copilot functionality available everywhere, it is challenging to pinpoint areas for improvement. If I put in a lot of thought, I might identify things, but right now, nothing significant pops into my mind, but there is always room for more transparency, especially in pricing."
"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."
"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost. The costs are really a complex calculation, e.g., to calculate the monthly costs. Azure is calculating on an hourly basis for use of the resource. Because of this, we found it really complex to promote what will be our costs for the next couple of months. I think if Azure could reduce the complex calculation and come up with straightforward cost mapping that would be very useful from a product point of view."
"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."
"Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do."
"After getting a recommendation, it takes time for the solution to refresh properly to show that the problem has been eliminated."
"The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While I'm slightly out of touch with pricing, I know SentinelOne is much cheaper than other products."
"It is cheap."
"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."
"Its pricing was a little less than other providers."
"Its pricing is okay. It is in line with what other providers were providing. It is not cheap. It is not expensive."
"PingSafe's pricing is good because it provides us with a solution."
"SentinelOne is quite costly compared to other security platforms."
"It is not that expensive. There are some tools that are double the cost of PingSafe. It is good on the pricing side."
"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."
"The pricing is too high."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"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."
"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."
"The customer would complain about the cost."
"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."
"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."
"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"Although I am outside of the discussion on budget and costing, I can say that the importance of security provided by this solution is of such importance that whatever the cost is, it is not a factor."
"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."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
The price is on the higher side. The dashboard can be more detailed.
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The cost is generally reasonable. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Plan 2 costs $15 per server, per month. For a normal c...
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.