Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Picus Security comparison

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Picus Security both operate in the network security space. Guardicore holds an advantage with its strong backward compatibility and rapid implementation capabilities, while Picus Security excels in threat intelligence and integration with other tools.

Features: Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers micro-segmentation, high process visibility, and AI-powered security policy implementations. Its backward compatibility with legacy systems is significant. Picus Security provides robust threat intelligence, real-world attack simulations, and strong security control validation. It integrates well with other security tools, making it a comprehensive solution for identifying and preventing threats.

Room for Improvement: Akamai Guardicore Segmentation could improve by lowering licensing costs and enhancing integration with major firewall vendors. Flexible policy management and user-level control, especially regarding diverse environments like Kubernetes, are also desired. Picus Security needs to improve its precision in attack identification and offer better automatic patching capabilities via AI. Enhancements in scalability and tool integration would bolster its market competitiveness.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is flexible, supporting both on-premises and cloud environments, and is praised for its responsive customer support. Picus Security supports hybrid and on-premises environments but lacks notable customer service satisfaction levels and could enhance its technical support offerings.

Pricing and ROI: While Guardicore is priced higher, the investment is justified by its ROI through improved security compliance and reduced need for additional resources. Picus Security offers good value for money with its affordable pricing but hasn't significantly realized ROI in new markets. Both solutions encourage evaluators to consider cost against features and deployment needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Picus Security Report (Updated: March 2026).

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs. Picus Security

March 2026

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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 Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (12th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)

Picus Security

Ranking in Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)

4th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) category, the mindshare of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is 1.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Picus Security is 12.0%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Picus Security	12.0%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	1.6%
Other	86.4%

Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)

Featured Reviews

Vibin Thomas

Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems

Zero-trust micro-segmentation has strengthened security and improves east-west traffic visibility

While Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is a very powerful solution, there are a few areas where it could be improved. One of the main challenges is the initial deployment and policy design complexity. In large environments, understanding all application dependencies and creating the right policies can take time and requires close coordination with application teams. The user interface and policy management can also be improved. As the number of policies grows, managing and organizing them becomes slightly complex. A more simplified or intuitive policy structure would help operational teams. Another area is integration with other security tools such as SIEM or SOAR platforms. While integration is possible, making it more seamless and easier to configure would add value. Additionally, the reporting and dashboard could be enhanced to provide more customizable and business-level insights, especially for management and reporting. One small improvement I would suggest for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is having more automation capabilities for policy creation and recommendation. For example, AI-driven suggestions based on observed traffic patterns would help reduce manual effort during the initial policy design. It would also help to have more predefined templates for common use cases, especially for industries such as banking, to speed up deployment. Another area is enhanced reporting customization where we can easily generate business-level dashboards for management and compliance teams without any additional effort.

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erdemerdag

Cybersecurity Operations Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Breach and attack simulation software that provides network, endpoint, and email vectors

According to the attack vectors, you cannot specify which product is failing or which product is working well because there's no agent. The best case scenario is to add an agent solution where an agent would have the ability to actually detect which programs aren't working. For the attack software, you put a peer on the cloud site, and you have another peer internal network. There is IPS, firewall, WAF, and DBS amongst these peers. The cloud's peer is trying to send the attack file to the internal network. Maybe the firewall is blocking it, maybe the IP, maybe the WAF, but you cannot see the details. You can say, "Yes, my security product is blocking that attack scenario," or, "I cannot block this attack."

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is its visibility."

"The solution is very scalable, especially when connected to the cloud resources."

"From day one, you get threat intelligence. It will immediately block active threats, which has been useful."

"In security, there are not many products that can do what Guardicore Centra can do in terms of visibility, seeing what is going on in the server, and using the type of mapping that it gives you with the application."

"Its deception features are great, providing a rich telemetry of lured origins, and are a great resource for any active defense strategy."

"At the moment, when I use this product it's great."

"In terms of agility, Guardicore Centra is massively easier to control and manage."

"The most important feature or use case, because of micro-segmentation, is the visibility you get when you deploy this product."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pros

"You have the liberty of physically executing a specific set of rules in your environment."

"It's very useful software because the customer mostly configures their IPS and manages their firewalls, WAF, and the DBS according to the latest update, latest news, or according to the situation."

"The most valuable feature of Picus Security is its threat intelligence, providing suggestions to block and prevent attacks by identifying malicious files and providing threat IDs."

"One of the most valuable features would be the detection capability, specifically the ability to detect alarms and logs collected from SIEM tools."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its integration capabilities with the other security tools."

"Picus Security has improved and is still improving the security level of my organization."

"The list of vulnerabilities that get detected is the most valuable feature."

"It provides good reports and offers signature-based solutions."

Cons

"I think the pricing is very high."

"The product needs a few features like enhanced user policies and payload-level inspection to improve the offering."

"The cost of licensing is the biggest issue for clients with GuardiCore."

"The maps could go a bit faster. They are useful but slightly slow."

"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."

"Customers would want to see the cost improved."

"Sometimes, the speed needs improvement, especially when it comes to the generation of maps, where it can be a bit slow."

"They can maybe improve their customer service just because they are kind of a small organization, and customer service isn't as big as others such as VMware."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation cons

"The reporting and data analysis could be improved. Specifically, the analysis of the results."

"There are a lot of other products which are performing better; as far as Picus is concerned, we have been aggressively trying to reach out to customers to try to sell it, but have not been successful."

"According to the attack vectors, you cannot specify which product is failing or which product is working well because there's no agent."

"There is room for improvement in the response rate provided by customer support."

"According to the attack vectors, you cannot specify which product is failing or which product is working well because there's no agent."

"Let's say if a customer's environment has 10 security devices and they need to know that there is an attack that has bypassed their devices, they cannot go and inspect every device and every rule in their security devices."

"The amount of integrations that the product can handle is an area of concern, making it one of the aspects where improvements are required."

"To improve, Picus Security could consider establishing a data center in India to address trust issues and increase interest from Indian customers."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is too high."

"The customer would complain about the cost."

"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."

"Compared to the pricing we were seeing from both Illumio and Edgewise, Guardicore was very competitive."

"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."

"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."

"Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is expensive."

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation pricing and cost advice

"They have certain price ranges for their products, depending upon the use cases, and the number of applications the customer wants to try."

"There is a yearly license according to the number of vectors. The pricing is moderate."

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Guardicore Centra?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that overall everything worked out really well. The pricing was flexible, and it has worked out well with our budget.

What needs improvement with Guardicore Infection Monkey?

I think the pricing is very high. It is a big cost. The price of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is very expensive, but it is important to the enterprise. I think it is more or less.

What is your primary use case for Guardicore Infection Monkey?

I use Akamai Guardicore Segmentation to block lateral movement of malicious software like ransomware. This is very important to protect my business and my corporation. I create labels for any asset...

What do you like most about Picus Security?

The most valuable feature of Picus Security is its threat intelligence, providing suggestions to block and prevent attacks by identifying malicious files and providing threat IDs.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Picus Security?

The pricing of Picus Security is average, and it offers a good value for money.

What needs improvement with Picus Security?

There is room for improvement in the response rate provided by customer support. Picus Security could improve the response time.

Illumio vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Comparisons

Compared 32% of the time

VMware NSX vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Secure Workload vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 9% of the time

TrendAI Deep Security vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 5% of the time

Zero Networks vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

Compared 3% of the time

More Akamai Guardicore Segmentation Competitors

Pentera vs Picus Security

Compared 23% of the time

Cymulate vs Picus Security

Compared 21% of the time

AttackIQ vs Picus Security

Compared 16% of the time

SafeBreach vs Picus Security

Compared 15% of the time

Verodin vs Picus Security

Compared 3% of the time

More Picus Security Competitors

Product Reports

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

April 2026

Download Akamai Guardicore Segmentation product report

Download Picus Security product report

March 2026

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore

No data available

Overview

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is a software-based microsegmentation solution that provides the simplest, fastest, and most intuitive way to enforce Zero Trust principles. It enables you to prevent malicious lateral movement in your network through precise segmentation policies, visuals of activity within your IT environment, and network security alerts. Akamai Guardicore Segmentation works across your data centers, multicloud environments, and endpoints. It is faster to deploy than infrastructure segmentation approaches and provides you with unparalleled visibility and control of your network.

Akamai

Independent from any vendor or technology, the unparalleled Picus Platform is designed to continuously measure the effectiveness of security defenses by using emerging threat samples in production environments. Created by a team that’s been working together more than 10 years already and has proven their expertise in enterprise cybersecurity, Picus is trusted by many large multinational corporations and government agencies.

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE

Akbank, Exclusive Networks, Garanti, ING Bank, QNB Finansbank, Turkcell, Vodafone, Yapı Kredi