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Google Kubernetes Engine vs Illumio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.8
Google Kubernetes Engine offers cost efficiency and productivity, though additional service costs and competition may affect returns.
Sentiment score
7.4
Illumio provides East-West traffic visibility and log auditing, offering substantial value with cost-effectiveness and time efficiencies despite incomplete data.
By migrating from AWS to Google Cloud Platform, we have saved a lot of time and money.
Director at Taotesting
Illumio is known to be the cheapest solution among the security solutions we evaluated.
Senior Technical Analyst at Allianz
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
3.3
User satisfaction with Google Kubernetes Engine support is mixed, with some praising efficiency and others noting delays and challenges.
Sentiment score
1.0
Illumio's customer service is generally responsive with 24/7 availability, but experiences and satisfaction vary among users.
Even if we raise an issue on non-working days like Saturdays or Sundays, we receive prompt responses.
Senior Technical Analyst at Allianz
From my experience, they are very responsive.
Technical Associate at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.0
Google Kubernetes Engine excels in scalability, supporting dynamic scaling for enterprises and cloud platforms, ideal for diverse applications.
Sentiment score
7.6
Illumio effortlessly scales in large installations, supports diverse environments, and receives high user satisfaction across various professional roles.
The autoscaling capabilities of Google Kubernetes Engine have significantly impacted our operations.
Director at Taotesting
Scaling it to a large level is not an issue for us.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Google Kubernetes Engine is stable, with minimal downtime and consistent performance, appreciated for scalability and adaptability across environments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Illumio is praised for stability and reliability, using native firewalls with high user satisfaction and an 8.5 rating.
If I have 100 replicas of containers and the traffic suddenly pushes to 1,000 within a fraction of a second, the selected machine type must be fast.
Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient
Illumio is a stable solution with no glitches or bugs reported, making it a reliable product for us.
Senior Technical Analyst at Allianz
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest improvements in pricing, upgrades, interface, security, support, integration, backup, and performance visibility for Google Kubernetes Engine.
Illumio needs improved support, integration, OS compatibility, data security, detailed logs, interactive sessions, and tagging automation guidance.
When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved.
Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
I think they are already implementing Kubernetes itself, so they are the owners.
Solution Architect at Rutotech
It would be helpful if I could easily find log information in a particular namespace without needing to write certain labels.
Director at Taotesting
There could also be more examples of how the automations can be done using Illumio.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
That's why I'm looking for comparisons with other products.
Technical Associate at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades.
Senior Technical Analyst at Allianz
 

Setup Cost

Google Kubernetes Engine offers usage-based pricing with flexibility, but costs may rise with robust configurations and small deployments.
Illumio offers flexible pricing based on workloads, with mixed views on cost, subscribing every three years.
Instead, we only pay for the hardware we use, which results in cost-cutting.
Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient
The on-demand nodes are quite expensive.
Director at Taotesting
Google is considered cheaper compared to AWS, making it suitable for smaller to medium companies concerning cost.
Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
I know that Illumio is the cheapest solution in the security area.
Senior Technical Analyst at Allianz
I think it's not very expensive if we compare it with Guardicore.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Google Kubernetes Engine excels with auto-scaling, easy deployment, integration, security, and reduced complexity for seamless application management.
Illumio enhances security and usability with its Application Dependency Map, traffic analysis, and centralized policy management, aiding visibility and micro-segmentation.
The most valuable aspect of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is its managed nature, which significantly reduces the burden on our platform team.
Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
The best advantage of Google Kubernetes Engine is that it manages Kubernetes for you, making everything related to the master nodes managed for you with automatic updating and upgrading.
Solution Architect at Rutotech
What I find most valuable is the ability to focus solely on my product without worrying about the Kubernetes infrastructure itself.
Director at Taotesting
The most important feature is the traffic review analysis, where we use the draft view and the reported view that helps us understand how the application interacts with other applications in the environment, and based on that, we are able to define the policies.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.
Senior Technical Analyst at Allianz
The dependency map is the most valuable aspect.
Technical Associate at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Kubernetes Engine
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (8th)
Illumio
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (6th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (13th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Google Kubernetes Engine and Illumio aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Google Kubernetes Engine is designed for Container Management and holds a mindshare of 2.3%, up 2.2% compared to last year.
Illumio, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud and Data Center Security, holds 19.5% mindshare, down 25.0% since last year.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Google Kubernetes Engine2.3%
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform18.9%
Amazon EKS13.3%
Other65.5%
Container Management
Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Illumio19.5%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation18.8%
Cisco Secure Workload11.5%
Other50.2%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient
Managed solutions enable efficient handling of web applications and migration projects
Google Kubernetes Engine can be improved by enabling the in-place upgrade of the machine type of an existing node pool since I currently need to destroy and recreate it. There is no feature present where I can upgrade directly, and having more than 1,000 to 2,000 workloads in one node pool makes changing the node pool name difficult for all those workloads. I choose eight out of ten mainly because of the node pool upgrade challenge I mentioned, but also because of the existence of Anthos service mesh, which is the ingress controller available only for the enterprise Kubernetes Engine. It would be beneficial if it could be offered in the normal Kubernetes Engine with any limitations.
US
Cyber Security Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Have created granular security policies based on roles and application behavior
The best feature that Illumio offers is that we can easily understand how to label the applications, how to install Illumio agent on the client machines, how to install the agent on the servers, and how to do the ring-fencing. The log analysis is very simple, and we can map the traffic very easily, such as the traffic view and map view. We have many views to do that, and then we have a topology environment where we can expand the topology and understand how we want to prepare our policy based on the requirement. These are some of the very good use cases that Illumio provides, which none of the other vendors can offer in such an easy and usable way. The most important feature is the traffic review analysis, where we use the draft view and the reported view that helps us understand how the application interacts with other applications in the environment, and based on that, we are able to define the policies. It has increased the business for the organization. We are creating business by supporting the client. The client is getting more security and is more confident in their network because they now have the micro-segmentation feature in their environment. This is new technology and that's how it helps the organization as a whole. The clients we support are benefited, and at the same time, we are making money out of it. This is definitely a good approach. After implementing Illumio, there has been significant progress. Most of the app owners now understand what applications are communicating, how these applications interact with others, and we are more aware of which application is talking to what other servers and applications, and their roles. For instance, whether an application is talking to the DB server or an app server. We have a more granular understanding of the traffic view. Additionally, after implementing Illumio, there is greater segmentation, and fewer incidents are occurring. There have been times when an attack was halted from expanding laterally.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Google Kubernetes Engine is straightforward, as I previously indicated. The need for humans is reduced with GCP since there is no need for ...
What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?
The price could be a bit cheaper. I don't see anything with Google Kubernetes Engine that needs to be improved. I think they are already implementing Kubernetes itself, so they are the owners. Howe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
My experience was really good because I think it's not very expensive if we compare it with Guardicore. I believe that's a good product.
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
Illumio can be improved if we have more interactive sessions with the tech team. The support of Illumio can be better since it's a new tool, and people can explore it more. There could also be more...
What is your primary use case for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The main use case for Illumio is providing micro-segmentation where we don't want to segment the network based on IP addresses but rather segment them based on roles, applications, and environments...
 

Also Known As

GKE
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Illumio and other solutions. Updated: May 2020.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.