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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs VMware NSX 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
Ranking in Microsegmentation Software
3rd
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)
VMware NSX
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
3rd
Ranking in Microsegmentation Software
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (9th), Network Automation (5th)
 

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 VMware NSX is 12.1%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation23.2%
VMware NSX12.1%
Other64.7%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Uday Varma - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MagdyRaafat - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced security and streamlined management drive efficient connectivity
Open source is a standard solution where you take a gray box or white box and put the software from your end. You can do programming with Ansible and make the network work in the software-defined mode, providing automation and management capabilities. I am currently working with VMware. It integrates easily with everything and can work with any system. When discussing micro-segmentation, it enhances security, providing more secure data in your data center while allowing for extra layers of security outside your data center. If you have an ACI, there is communication between locations, keeping your data secure in your data center and throughout the path it takes, such as to SD-WAN or the cloud. I work with cloud solutions including AWS, Azure, GCP, and private cloud. My overall rating for VMware NSX is 8.5 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very scalable, especially when connected to the cloud resources."
"Guardicore makes its own rule set automatically, so we can work fast when creating a rule set."
"Guardicore Centra offers the best coverage specifically in backward compatibility with legacy operating systems."
"The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility of processes and connections."
"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the maps and ring fencing that help monitor events."
"The solution is easy to use and is good for management control."
"The microsegmentation is a good feature. You can segment details, products, or hardware information."
"The alert features are the most valuable."
"It's very important for them to have small footprints and have as much services in their servers, as possible."
"Any administrator with basic networking knowledge, in a couple of days, can be in full control of their networking without going through a networking engineer."
"NSX can reduce costs and has good service. It is easy for you and your users to use."
"Some of the key features I find most valuable are the highly graphical user interface, virtualization of networks, and Microsoft application compatibility. It has all the functionality that we require."
"The most powerful feature of VMware NSX is the micro-segmentation that allows us to separate the different protocols our application works with."
 

Cons

"It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud."
"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."
"Customers would want to see the cost improved."
"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."
"Sometimes, the speed needs improvement, especially when it comes to the generation of maps, where it can be a bit slow."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"Kubernetes is not installed in the way we need it."
"It would be very helpful for beginners if the solution had more windows to help with the terms inside instead of going to the documentation."
"We would like better integration with the standards on the market. For example, with OSPF, their integration in NSX is very low. It's not a full OSPF integration. It is too thin from a protocol perspective."
"Migrating from V to T is very tricky, complicated, and there are a lot of parameters to account for."
"There are sometimes mismatch in the control, the details and what you actually see on the transport note."
"The engineering team has room for improvement. They should have have more of a Knowledge Base about different case studies and should develop more advanced features. These kinds of improvements will change the way things get done."
"An area for improvement in VMware NSX is that it uses up more resources and is heavy on the network. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is more automation."
"It might be nice to have more AI in the future."
"The price is rather high."
"The price could be better. The non-enterprise version of the product should also be improved. I would like VMware to expand beyond the network and provide some VLAN technologies and more. I think we have one, but it's more on the distribution side because it's more on the upper side of the network. I'm looking forward to that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."
"The customer would complain about the cost."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"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 pricing is too high."
"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."
"All the institutions have to pay monthly for the services in the cloud. They have to pay $30,000 every month for this service every three years."
"The pricing is higher than other options from Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco because it is sold in a bundle."
"This solution requires a licence."
"We have saved man-hours and decreased our security exposure."
"We are using a perpetual license to use the solution and we have support."
"I'm unable to give information on the pricing or licensing cost of VMware NSX because I've never been someone who looks into the economic part of any security or virtualization solutions. That's handled by an entirely different team, and I don't even have the slightest idea about the costs associated with the solution, though I've heard pricing for VMware NSX is on the higher side."
"If five is a good price and one is a high price, I would rate the price a one out of five."
"The solution is very expensive."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise68
 

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 VMware NSX?
The product has valuable features for security and network extension.
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. VMware NSX and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
866,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.