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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Kubernetes Engine
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (11th)
Illumio
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (15th), 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%, down 2.5% compared to last year.
Illumio, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud and Data Center Security, holds 24.6% mindshare, up 23.2% since last year.
Container Management
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most beneficial feature is the ability to separate each project and manage permissions more effectively."
"Stability-wise, this solution is really good."
"I highly recommend it to others due to its comprehensive features and cost-effectiveness for various company sizes."
"The scalability is the best feature."
"Its functionalities, such as computing the namespaces, clusters, pods, and restart logs, are easy to use."
"Google Kubernetes Engine's most valuable feature is container deployment."
"The logs are important for detecting problems in our clusters."
"We hardly have a breakdown. It's been very stable."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"Customer support is excellent."
"The tool helps with my company's security posture."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The dependency map is most valuable feature."
"I would recommend Illumio to all sizes of companies."
"The solution helps to maintain logs and monitor activities. It also helps us with access management. The tool helps us to secure organizational data that include files."
 

Cons

"The monitoring part requires some serious improvements in Google Kubernetes Engine, as it does not have very good monitoring consoles."
"Google Kubernetes Engine is less stable in some highly complex deployments with many nodes."
"The product could be cheaper."
"The product's integration with third-party vendors needs improvement."
"The user interface is a bit confusing sometimes. You need to navigate between the various consoles we have. It's hard to figure out where things are. It's frustrating. The documentation could be a bit better."
"I would like the solution to integrate with another Kubernetes product. I would also like it to monitor other platforms. It needs to also include scale-up container in the tool's next release."
"The pricing could be more competitive. It should be cheaper."
"While the GKE cluster is secure, application-level security is an essential aspect that needs to be addressed. The security provided by GKE includes the security of communication between nodes within the cluster and the basic features of Kubernetes security. However, these features may not be sufficient for the security needs of an enterprise. Additional security measures must be added to ensure adequate protection. It has become a common practice to deploy security tools within a Kubernetes cluster. It would be ideal if these tools were included as part of the package, as this is a standard requirement in the industry. Thus, application-level security should be integrated into GKE for improved security measures."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
"I have not had the chance to experiment deeply with it."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes."
"We need more details on areas where there is an error or a traffic blockage. I would like the tool to offer a more detailed view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."
"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. The product is competitively priced."
"The pricing for GKE is dependent on the type of machine or virtual machine (VM) that is selected for the nodes in the cluster. There is a degree of flexibility in choosing the specifications of the machine, such as the number of CPUs, GPUs, and so on. Google provides a variety of options, allowing the user to create the desired cluster composition. However, the cost can be quite steep when it comes to regional clusters, which are necessary for high availability and failover. This redundancy is crucial for businesses and is required to handle an increase in requests in case of any issues in one region, such as jumping to a different region in case of a failure in the Toronto region. While it may be tempting to choose the cheapest type of machines, this may result in a limited capacity and user numbers, requiring over-provisioning to handle additional requests, such as those for a web application."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"Currently, it costs around $1000 per month which sorted our deployment. So once we get more clients, having a huge suffix, costs can go up."
"I would rate Kubernetes' pricing four out of five."
"It is competitive, and it is not expensive. It is almost competitive with AWS and the rest of the cloud solutions. We are spending around 3K USD per month. There are four projects that are currently running, and each one is incurring a cost of around 3K USD."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?
Google Kubernetes Engine solution is expensive, as are all cloud solutions in general. On a scale of one to ten for pricing, I would rate it between seven and eight.
What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?
I have no comment about the learning curve of Google Kubernetes Engine. Regarding AI integration and features in Google Kubernetes Engine, there are currently none available. I would appreciate see...
What do you like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging poli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is the cheapest solution in the security area.
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes.
 

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.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.