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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Fortinet FortiOS 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

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (12th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (4th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
Fortinet FortiOS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
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 27.3%, up 22.3% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiOS, on the other hand, focuses on Firewalls, holds 0.9% mindshare, down 1.0% since last year.
Microsegmentation Software
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Matthias Kropf - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
RaynoPowell - PeerSpot reviewer
Great IPS and DNS filtering with useful tutorials available  
We don't really find a lot of issues on it. If I really have to complain about something, and there's not much, is the free VPN solution is a bit limited. Then again, it is a free solution. That's essentially it. Nothing else on the FortiGate or on the Fortinet OS side is really an issue. That's one of the main reasons why we use them: everything works and works well. For what we use, there isn't really any missing feature. In fact, we actually want to get rid of some of the features that they have due to the fact that, for the security model that we need to implement, having more features actually opens up potential risk. We actually would like to have a device that is more focused specifically on OT environments the operational technologies. We would prefer a device that's stripped down, that doesn't have all the other fluff in the more enterprise system. We actually want a feature where we can remove features that are there that we don't use. That is actually a thing that we find. We use it now in an operational technology environment. We use normal IT equipment. However, it's not a normal IT network. It differs significantly from a normal corporate IT environment. In a normal corporate IT environment, you like the fluff, and the additional features, and you can click, click, click, and you're done. However, all of those features you add to a device open up risk for us. And that is something we do differently in the OT environment in operational technology. We prefer to not have the fluff. We prefer to have only what is needed for the device to do what it needs to do. For example, imagine an additional feature for some sort of additional VPN technology has been added. However, it's not really needed for the OT environment, and it's not configured on the device, yet there's some sort of security threat in there. Now, all of a sudden, somebody can hack your system, and he's in there, and he's switching the lights on and off the entire city. And you don't know about it due to the fact that the additional fluff that we added to the system, we weren't aware of that issue was on there. You can enable and disable certain modules in it. However, with disabling, nobody can really tell us if that module is disabled. Is it really disabled? Is it actually unloaded? Is it uninstalling Word from your laptop, or is it just not running Word?

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Guardicore Centra offers the best coverage specifically in backward compatibility with legacy operating systems."
"Guardicore makes its own rule set automatically, so we can work fast when creating a rule set."
"The interface and dashboard are amazing."
"The label-based segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"The solution is very scalable, especially when connected to the cloud resources."
"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 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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution would be the caching feature."
"All of the features in this solution are effective and efficient."
"It has a lot of scalability abilities which makes it easy to scale."
"The most valuable features are the intrusion prevention system and the anti-virus."
"It's simple to use in terms of inbound and outbound traffic management."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are its constant updates and definitions."
"FortiOS' most valuable features are management, security, and easy updates with no downtime."
 

Cons

"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."
"It doesn't support a PAAC solution (Platforma as a service) in the cloud."
"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."
"Needs more customization of honeypots and a vaster catalog of systems able to be mimicked."
"Sometimes, the speed needs improvement, especially when it comes to the generation of maps, where it can be a bit 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."
"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 support could be improved, Fortinet's response time is very slow. Setting up the VPN could be made much easier, especially when deployed with Azure."
"I can only compare it with SonicWall, and it is missing many advanced features that SonicWall has."
"The central management can improve in Fortinet FortiOS. It is sometimes difficult to manage all the devices."
"The pricing model makes this product far more expensive than similar solutions."
"The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is better troubleshooting and reporting."
"The report and policy optimization tools can be improved in the next release."
"Fortinet needs to make this solution even more robust. Sometimes when we get a DDoS attack, the cannot withstand it. We can run out of sessions very easily. That said, I suppose if you want more a robust system, then you could purchase higher-end solutions, which are more expensive. Still, I would like to see more protection from even in the low-end version."
"The GUI could be improved to make it more usable, easier to administer, and easier to configure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."
"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 customer would complain about the cost."
"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."
"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."
"This is not a cheap solution but you have to consider the bigger picture, which is what it is giving you."
"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 price of Fortinet FortiOS has been reasonable."
"We pay $100,000. That covers the cost of the hardware that we run the VN's on. That also includes any SGNA costs for the internal support tech."
"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."
"The pricing could always be lower."
"We pay an annual license fee. It is rather expensive so I would like to perhaps see a drop in price in the future."
"A yearly subscription might be around $20,000 to $30,000."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is comparable to other similar solutions on the market. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
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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
8%
 

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...
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: December 2024.
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