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Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Qualys VMDR 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation secures systems effectively, reducing security resources and enhancing protection without network changes, despite slow legacy implementation.
Sentiment score
7.0
Qualys VMDR enhances ROI by streamlining management, improving compliance, reducing vulnerabilities, saving time, and minimizing breaches effectively.
You don't need to change anything in the network because it's not a network thing.
Senior Security Consultant at Orange Cyberdefense
I have not seen a return on investment in terms of specific metrics like time saved or reduced risk, but I can say that reduced risk is significant.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
We saw a return on investment through significant savings in time, money, and resources.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation provides effective support with quick solutions, though response times and inquiry basics can vary.
Sentiment score
6.6
Qualys VMDR support is responsive and helpful, but users note occasional delays and suggest better response time and depth.
The response is very fast.
Cybersecurity at Embracon
The customer support for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is amazing.
CISO at Paschoalotto
We usually get on calls with tech support, and they are very helpful.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
The response time takes a while.
Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The technical support provided by Qualys is pretty good.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is scalable, integrating smoothly, requiring minimal personnel, and handles extensive networks across various environments.
Sentiment score
7.9
Qualys VMDR is highly scalable, supporting numerous assets efficiently with customizable management and seamless cloud-based architecture.
It scales very well, and I can keep adding agents and scale as much as needed.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is very scalable because I could deploy anywhere without any hardware needs, for example.
CISO at Paschoalotto
The scalability of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is pretty good; whenever we need more resources for management, if a customer's environment increases significantly, they can add more nodes to the manager within a 15-minute downtime, and it works well.
Cybersecurity Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Scalability depends on the license and the number of assets being monitored.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Qualys VMDR can handle scalability, although increasing the inventory can raise the licensing costs.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Qualys VMDR's scalability is good, and the customer support is good.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is praised for stability and reliability, with swift updates and minor non-impactful cosmetic bugs.
Sentiment score
7.9
Qualys VMDR is highly stable, reliable, and effective, with minimal downtime and challenges mostly due to user-side issues.
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is stable.
Senior Security Consultant at Orange Cyberdefense
Qualys VMDR is stable.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation requires improved integration, cost-efficiency, user interfaces, automation, and support for scalable and complex environments.
Qualys VMDR needs improved support, efficient reporting, UI, asset notifications, reduced tool dependency, better pricing, and comprehensive resources.
In large environments, understanding all application dependencies and creating the right policies can take time and requires close coordination with application teams.
Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
I think it is really valuable to take a course on Akamai Guardicore Segmentation because many things are not obvious in terms of how to do them correctly.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
The price of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is very expensive, but it is important to the enterprise.
Cybersecurity at Embracon
It does not automate patching unless the patch management module is purchased separately.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
One area where Qualys VMDR can be improved is the missing feature for deploying agents for over 1,000 assets, as we need to do it manually.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers flexible, competitive pricing and comprehensive features, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
Qualys VMDR pricing is high for small businesses but offers flexibility, discounts, and comprehensive features for larger enterprises.
The pricing was flexible, and it has worked out well with our budget.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
It has a fair cost for our business.
CISO at Paschoalotto
Concerning their pricing, it is not cheap, but it is reasonable with respect to the kind of market you have to face.
Sales Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 51-200 employees
I would rate the pricing between seven to eight out of ten.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I have a notion that Qualys might be more expensive than Rapid7.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers visibility, micro-segmentation, AI-assisted policies, and a seamless interface for efficient security management.
Qualys VMDR offers user-friendly management, real-time insights, and powerful integrations, significantly improving vulnerability prioritization and remediation efficiency.
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation reduced risk because it blocked malicious ransomware and uninspected traffic.
Cybersecurity at Embracon
We can create a policy based on labels such as application, environment, or role, allowing only required communication and blocking everything else, which significantly reduces the lateral movement risk.
Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
The best feature Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers is great threat intelligence.
CISO at Paschoalotto
The prioritization of vulnerabilities has improved our remediation efforts by around thirty to thirty-five percent.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
It impacts my workflow overall, with the patch management features as it has the missing patches listed in detail, making it easier to get a comprehensive report and providing some dashboards that offer visual representation.
JMS, RPSG Ventures Limited at RP Sanjiv Goenka Group
Qualys VMDR's continuous monitoring capabilities help us respond to emergent threats by enabling my team to reach out to the security engineers whenever there is any detection of a vulnerability, informing them about it, and creating an incident.
Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (10th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (6th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
Qualys VMDR
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), Vulnerability Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (3rd), Container Security (9th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is designed for Microsegmentation Software and holds a mindshare of 21.3%, down 27.4% compared to last year.
Qualys VMDR, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 4.2% mindshare, down 8.0% since last year.
Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation21.3%
Illumio24.7%
VMware NSX15.5%
Other38.5%
Microsegmentation Software
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys VMDR4.2%
Wiz5.0%
Tenable Nessus4.1%
Other86.7%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vibin Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vaibhav Ghule - PeerSpot reviewer
Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems
Continuous risk-based monitoring has strengthened incident response and vulnerability prioritization
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries lack grouping operators in Qualys VMDR. From my experience, I would appreciate improvements in the query options in Qualys VMDR, specifically in the query-building process where I would need more features and operators. Additionally, we have been facing issues with Qualys on the cloud level. We cannot download the configuration profile from the cloud agent, and it is showing a pending action for download. During 2025, we noticed outages of Qualys a couple of times. I want to mention that there is an issue with receiving timely RCA deliveries. While this is not necessarily about the tool, it relates to support. The support has not been very responsive, and we are receiving RCAs a little delayed whenever we raise support cases or communicate with the TAMs. Additionally, the UI has a slight latency, which I and my team have experienced. They have also reported this latency issue when navigating through different pages.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Guardicore Centra?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is great. It has a fair cost for our business.
What needs improvement with Guardicore Infection Monkey?
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...
What is your primary use case for Guardicore Infection Monkey?
Our main use case for Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is to implement micro-segmentation and Zero Trust security across hybrid environments, including both on-premises and cloud workloads. We primar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that we can consider both time and money saved.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries lack grouping operators in Qualys VMDR. From my experience, I would appreciate imp...
What advice do you have for others considering Qualys VMDR?
I have some understanding about PeerSpot, and I have visited the website. PeerSpot is similar to TrustRadius. It takes reviews from customers or end users who are using the tools and technologies i...
 

Also Known As

Guardicore Centra, GuardiCore
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Santander, Frontier Airlines, OpenLink, Intermountain Healthcare, Cellcom, BancoBASE
Agrokor Group, American Specialty Health, American State Bank, Arval, Life:), Axway, Bank of the West, Blueport Commerce, BSkyB, Brinks, CaixaBank, Cartagena, Catholic Health System, CEC Bank, Cegedim, CIGNA, Clickability, Colby-Sawyer College, Commercial Bank of Dubai, University of Utah, eBay Inc., ING Singapore, National Theatre, OTP Bank, Sodexo, WebEx
Find out what your peers are saying about Illumio, Broadcom, Akamai and others in Microsegmentation Software. Updated: May 2026.
894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.