Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
7.3
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation enhances security by revealing data threats, reducing costs, and offering network activity insights and user analytics.
Sentiment score
7.0
Qualys VMDR enhances ROI by streamlining management, improving compliance, reducing vulnerabilities, saving time, and minimizing breaches effectively.
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
7.5
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation provides exceptional support praised for responsiveness, professionalism, and knowledge, ensuring high customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.6
Qualys VMDR support is responsive and helpful, but users note occasional delays and suggest better response time and depth.
We usually get on calls with tech support, and they are very helpful.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
The technical support provided by Qualys is pretty good.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
When reaching out via email, they reply quickly.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is scalable, flexible, and seamlessly integrates with cloud resources, ideal for expanding IT infrastructures.
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
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
7.3
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is stable and integrates smoothly, with minor challenges in initial implementation and frequent update adjustments.
Sentiment score
7.9
Qualys VMDR is highly stable, reliable, and effective, with minimal downtime and challenges mostly due to user-side issues.
Qualys VMDR is stable.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation needs better integration, automation, flexibility, threat detection, customer service, and Kubernetes support to overcome challenges.
Qualys VMDR needs improved support, efficient reporting, UI, asset notifications, reduced tool dependency, better pricing, and comprehensive resources.
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
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
If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It does not automate patching unless the patch management module is purchased separately.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers flexible pricing starting at $25,000 annually, providing cost-effective value compared to alternatives.
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
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 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
 

Valuable Features

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers comprehensive security features, enhancing control, visibility, and management of data centers and applications efficiently.
Qualys VMDR offers user-friendly management, real-time insights, and powerful integrations, significantly improving vulnerability prioritization and remediation efficiency.
The best features Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers make it simple to see all of the connections that are being made to each of the endpoints, and they can be controlled by process and port.
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
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
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
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (11th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (5th), 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 (2nd), 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 24.8%, down 26.7% compared to last year.
Qualys VMDR, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 5.0% mindshare, down 9.3% since last year.
Microsegmentation Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation24.8%
Illumio27.5%
VMware NSX15.5%
Other32.2%
Microsegmentation Software
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys VMDR5.0%
Wiz7.5%
Tenable Nessus5.2%
Other82.3%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ken Bauer - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Analyst at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Segmentation of legacy systems has protected outdated endpoints and reduces network risk
The best features Akamai Guardicore Segmentation offers make it simple to see all of the connections that are being made to each of the endpoints, and they can be controlled by process and port. The ability to control by process and port helps my team day-to-day because, since there are hundreds of thousands of connections to some of these endpoints, looking at the Reveal Map makes it simple to audit and create rules for what we want to allow. Akamai Guardicore Segmentation has impacted my organization positively because we find it difficult to remove the legacy systems, so it was very important to segment them from the rest of the network to protect them and protect the rest of our network.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsegmentation Software solutions are best for your needs.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
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 is that overall everything worked out really well. The pricing was flexible, and it has worked out well with our budget.
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?
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can be improved because keeping it up to date is difficult since it is SaaS-based and updates are not on a regular schedule; I have to reach out to my contact to ask ...
What do you like most about Qualys VMDR?
I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagging system is good for tagging. We can still use QualysAgent task ID tools even ...
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?
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. Qualys doesn't have its own tool to deploy the agents all...
 

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 Broadcom, Illumio, Akamai and others in Microsegmentation Software. Updated: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.