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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Fortinet FortiOS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (12th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (4th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
Fortinet FortiOS
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is designed for Microsegmentation Software and holds a mindshare of 26.6%, up 21.9% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiOS, on the other hand, focuses on Firewalls, holds 0.9% mindshare, up 0.9% since last year.
Microsegmentation Software
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Matthias Kropf - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 16, 2024
The tool's most valuable feature is visibility but needs improvement in Kubernetes
We use the product in the production environment of server infrastructure.  The tool's most valuable feature is its visibility.  Kubernetes is not installed in the way we need it.  I have been using the product since October.  We faced some minor issues, but overall, the product is stable. I…
Saleem Ullah Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 2, 2022
Easy to set up, reliable, and good for traffic management
We are not scaling it right now. We bought it sometime back and we didn't need to scale it. We bought a higher end for our use case, which is still sufficient for another few years. We have 200 or so users of different levels and positions on it. We do not have plans to increase usage. This firewall is quite a capable firewall - even up to 1000 users. Due to that, we didn't find any requirement to expand it or replace it somehow. It has helped us build our software-defined WAN, LAN, et cetera. It is sufficient for us. It gives us Gbps throughput, which is good enough. The firewall itself is 32Gbps capable, which is more than what we need.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the maps and ring fencing that help monitor events."
"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."
"Its deception features are great, providing a rich telemetry of lured origins, and are a great resource for any active defense strategy."
"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."
"The interface and dashboard are amazing."
"Guardicore Centra offers the best coverage specifically in backward compatibility with legacy operating systems."
"Firewall and overall management are valuable features."
"The most important feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the IPS."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are its simplicity, highly user-centric, and performs well. The line speed and for heavy traffic, is helpful for us."
"The classification of the websites is helpful."
"For ten to 12 years it has been quite secure."
"FortiOS' most valuable features are management, security, and easy updates with no downtime."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the granular control and their interoperability is good."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ability to block and make white and black lists. Additionally, the filtering of user access to websites is useful."
 

Cons

"Customers would want to see the cost improved."
"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."
"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"The dashboard needs improvement. It should be more flexible so that I can easily see what I want or need to see."
"I would rate the stability a six out of ten, where one is low and ten is high stability."
"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."
"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."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"The solution's firmware updates have significant bugs and issues."
"The main challenge with Fortinet FortiOS is integration with third-party solutions. I don't see any other areas for improvement. Nowadays, all products work well for 50-60 percent of needs. We must only fulfill 60-70 percent of client requirements because they don't use 100 percent of product features. Banks and financial sectors might need more security features. I don't work much in banking, but they often use multiple products for different security layers, not just firewalls. They might use various products or APIs for different purposes. In the end, clients use the products that suit their needs."
"The reporting for this solution could be improved. It could also be more stable and offer better pricing."
"The solution could improve by making the dashboard easier to use."
"A switch should be introduced."
"Could be improved by supporting an allocation of quota base management regarding user data."
"It should also manage the local DSCP network."
"Sometimes, Fortinet FortiOS changes its CLI (command line interface) with new versions, which leads to internal incompatibility. When this happens, you need to update the configuration to match the new format, as the commands aren’t always the same. This can create some confusion and extra work because, unlike other vendors where the CLI commands remain primarily consistent with updates, Fortinet often changes the syntax between versions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"The customer would complain about the cost."
"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 solution is reasonably priced and I would rate it a six out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"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."
"It would be better if it were cheaper. We have the firewall in our office, and the license is expiring in 20 to 25 days. We got a quote for almost 80,000 Pakistani Rupees, which is a little costly."
"It is not cheap."
"The best solution in the category including the price in Thailand is Fortinet FortiOS."
"We had a three-year license to use Fortinet FortiOS and we are going to renew it this year."
"The software costs roughly half what the hardware costs. Overall, the product is expensive."
"The Fortinet solutions can be a bit expensive."
"Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription renewals can be quite expensive. The renewal costs are high, even though the initial purchase might include discounts."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, central management is intuitive for the end-users. We had a lot of questions about central management, and sometimes they didn't use it and did their firewall management directly on FortiGate instead of using Fortinet FortiOS."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Guardicore Centra?
Guardicore Centra offers the best coverage specifically in backward compatibility with legacy operating systems.
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 needs improvement with Guardicore Centra?
Customers would want to see the cost improved.
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?
The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription renewals can be quite expensive. The renewal costs are high, even though the initial...
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
No data available
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware, Akamai, Illumio and others in Microsegmentation Software. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.