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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco ACI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (4th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
Cisco ACI
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 25.2%, up from 20.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco ACI is 5.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

KlavsThaarup - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers micro segmentation capabilities and easy to setup
It's micro-segmentation The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature. There are always areas for improvement. It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud. So that could be improved. In future releases, I would like to see more integration with other…
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides scalability, ease of migration for future DC moves, multi-tenancy and programmability
Cisco's MSO (Multi-Site Orchestrator) or NDO has room for improvement. Cisco monitors ACI through a product called NDI. I find it very frustrating that Cisco has multiple monitoring platforms. It has DNAC for monitoring Cisco NX-OS, campus switches, and any other routers and switches you would have in the environment. That same thing does not work for Cisco ACI monitoring. MEraki cloudbasd platform for Meraki which will get extended to Campus monitoring, to be honest Cisco never got Monitoring 100% right from days of CiscoWorks to Prime to current platforms. To monitor and manage Cisco ACI, you need to have another platform called NDI and Cisco Dashboard Insights. What frustrates me about Cisco is that it never has a central, single pane of glass platform for all its solutions. It has one thing for Cisco ACI and another thing for campus switches. I would really appreciate it if Cisco came up with something centralized to monitor everything. I haven't thought about anything since the Cisco NDO is quite advanced, and you can deploy your cloud networking through it. I don't know how many people use it. I might explore it as my cloud orchestration tool in the future. We do a lot of cloud automation using our scripts like TerraForm, but I would like to see people using NDO more. We could have more case studies on how many people use NDO for their cloud orchestration. That might be a much easier journey for people when they move from an on-premises data center into a cloud and move from one cloud to another cloud. That is where I personally see an orchestrator being effectively used for multiple deployments.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface and dashboard are amazing."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the maps and ring fencing that help monitor events."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility of processes and connections."
"I found the solution to be stable."
"Its deception features are great, providing a rich telemetry of lured origins, and are a great resource for any active defense strategy."
"Guardicore makes its own rule set automatically, so we can work fast when creating a rule set."
"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."
"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."
"The ability to integrate with other systems is the most valuable feature."
"Cisco ACI's multi-tenancy has been most beneficial for our network management."
"The routing of traffic is one of our main focuses when utilizing Cisco ACI."
"Once we have it running, it should be easier for us to program our IT rather than going case-by-case, by switches and different elements, or program it by hand."
"The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution."
"It is very stable. It works 100 percent of the time."
"It is easy to use because you have all the information coming from the same technology."
"One area where it has an advantage... is that you're able to reuse a specific integration. If you add another server, you can use a specific integration and assign it to another port."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Customers would want to see the cost improved."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud."
"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."
"Clients would like to see that the security policies of GuardiCore can continue to be comparable to all the major firewall players out there."
"The learning curve is long. It's very difficult to learn Cisco ACI. As a result, our customers usually have difficulty working with this solution."
"There should be an alternative "ACI Light" solution for smaller-sized enterprises."
"In the new version of 4.0, the management groups for updating the software is not the best way to do it. It was better in 3.2."
"I believe there's room for improvement in terms of ACI's integration with various technologies."
"The error messages should be improved. Sometimes we want to remove an error message so we acknowledge an error and we would then like to remove it but there's no real way of doing that. If we need to do it, we need to open a tech case. That could use improvement."
"For Multipod we need Layer 3 devices that support multicast. Customers ask: "Why can't ACI do that? Why do we need a dedicated Layer 3 device for this?" If they go for Multi-Site there is no need for that, ACI can do it. So Cisco needs to increase the Multipod features in ACI."
"So far we've had very few issues, a couple of routing things that were glitches within ACI."
"The user interface should be made easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."
"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."
"Cisco's pricing is very expensive."
"The product is not cheap."
"It's expensive but the product is very good. I have never found another partner like Cisco with a solution like this and with great support."
"Cisco ACI costs depend on how many sites you have. One simple site with a simple installation, including two leaves, two spines, and some fibers, would cost $200,000 to $300,000 for the licenses. The solution is a bit expensive, but it's a good investment if you want your data centers to work without interruption."
"The good thing about Cisco is that you can trade in your old products to replace them with ACI."
"It saves time and resources."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The cost is fine."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Cisco ACI?
The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution.
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Cisco ACI and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.