Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Symantec Data Center Security comparison

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Symantec Data Center 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)

Symantec Data Center Security

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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 Symantec Data Center Security is 1.8%, down from 2.3% 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%
Symantec Data Center Security	1.8%
Other	76.7%

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.

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Shahram Dehghani

Security Technical Manager at Modaberan Fanavari Pasargad

A robust solution that provides comprehensive protection for data centers, offering agentless security, powerful intrusion prevention, and a wide range of security features

The primary focus of data center security often revolves around serving customers who offer services to other clients within the data center. For example, if I operate a data center and provide security services, third-party customers might purchase virtual machine products within my data center. These products are automatically deployed, and we safeguard these virtual machines using intrusion prevention system features. This aspect is considered the most valuable part because when we set up these security policies, it's as if we're fortifying the entire infrastructure. It's not just about having good technical support; it's about having a robust IPS and comprehensive DOS prevention system on those operating systems. The advantage of Data Center Security is its ease of use and that it serves as a single unified platform, where I can apply all my security policies to protect that server.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"The most valuable features of the solution are the maps and ring fencing that help monitor events."

"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."

"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 interface and dashboard are amazing."

"The tool is a complete package that offers many features like visibility. You can get a graph with real-time workflows and visibility into server-to-server communication. We get visibility into many things happening within our environment."

"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."

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

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pros

"The ability to finely control permissions and restrictions on servers or assets through a customizable rule set is a key strength."

"The real strength lies in its straightforward approach, offering just two key policies: prevention and detection."

"The granularity of applying the policies is valuable."

"The advantage of Data Center Security is its ease of use and that it serves as a single unified platform, where I can apply all my security policies to protect that server."

"The monitoring in the management console allows us to find out what is going wrong, and it gets reports even before the user reports it."

"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection system."

"We use the product to prevent unauthorized access to data, systems, and servers. It provides essential features for data center security."

"The tool will then detect any anomalies, such as an intruder who has breached the network, which can trigger the system lockdown feature if it's enabled and meets the defined threshold."

More Symantec Data Center Security pros

Cons

"In our version, when using the terminal server, we cannot exclude user tasks for each session."

"Sometimes, the speed needs improvement, especially when it comes to the generation of maps, where it can be a bit slow."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation cons

"There is room for improvement in enhancing its graphical user interface for a more user-friendly experience."

"Agent management is a challenging task."

"Adding more compatibility with common products like Microsoft would be a plus."

"They need to develop a more flexible product that can be scaled such that it fits well into a small business or a bigger, enterprise-level solution."

"This solution clashes with Microsoft defender, which results in performance degradation on the machine."

"A user or administrator making the policy in the DCS should have a very thorough knowledge of the operating system or policy making. You have to be very specific about the data structure."

"The product blocks certain processes, even after allowlisting them."

"There is plenty of room for improvement with this product, and it could start with platform metrics."

More Symantec Data Center Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."

"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."

"The solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"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 customer would complain about the cost."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pricing and cost advice

"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."

"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."

"The product is a bit costly."

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868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

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	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

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 Symantec Data Center Security?

The granularity of applying the policies is valuable.

What needs improvement with Symantec Data Center Security?

Agent management is a challenging task. We cannot do it from the console. We will have to use other tools.

What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Center Security?

One key use case for data center security is protecting files within the data center. This is especially important for Linux systems, where locking down specific files is essential to prevent unaut...

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

Trend Micro Deep Security vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 69% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 21% of the time

VMware NSX vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 10% of the time

More Symantec Data Center Security Competitors

Product Reports

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Download Akamai Guardicore Segmentation product report

Symantec Data Center Security

Download Symantec Data Center Security product report

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore

No data available

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

Docker containers make it easy to develop, deploy, and deliver applications where containers can be deployed and brought down in a matter of seconds. This flexibility makes it very useful for DevOps to automate deployment of containers. Symantec Data Center Security: Server Advanced provides agentless Docker container protection that allows you to achieve the performance benefits of Docker without sacrificing security. Full application control enables administrator privilege de-escalation, patch mitigation, and protection against zero day threats in today's heterogeneous data centers.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Symantec Data Center Security