Best Elisity Alternatives: 2026 Guide
Updated November 3, 2026. Asimily publishes this guide and is one of the platforms compared. Please take this into account and perform your own assessment.
The top Elisity alternatives for 2026 are a mix of network-based and host-based network segmentation solutions: Asimily, Akamai Guardicore, Armis, Claroty, ColorTokens, Forescout, Illumio, and Ordr. Asimily fits teams that need a reliable inventory of all assets, exploitability-based prioritization, and segmentation enforced through the NACs and firewalls they already run. Ordr fits segmentation-first programs, Forescout fits teams that want their device security platform to be their NAC, and Illumio, ColorTokens, and Akamai Guardicore fit server and cloud workloads; Armis fits ServiceNow-centric teams, and Claroty fits industrial sites.
IonQ’s October 2026 agreement to acquire Elisity turned many upcoming renewals into a fork in the road. When your core segmentation vendor changes hands, it’s only natural to pause and re-examine your strategy. Beyond the acquisition, many security leaders are simply looking for a smoother path: one that replaces generic threat scores with clear prioritization, respects existing NAC investments, and protects IoT and OT assets without operational headaches.
Instead of running through another generic feature checklist, this guide breaks down how the top Elisity alternatives handle real-world deployment, risk-based prioritization, and policy enforcement, helping you find the best fit for your team’s actual footprint.
In this guide, you’ll find:
- What the pending IonQ acquisition means for Elisity customers planning a renewal
- Why security teams evaluate Elisity alternatives beyond acquisition uncertainty
- Eight key criteria for evaluating connected device security platforms, including pricing
- A side-by-side comparison of the top eight Elisity alternatives for 2026
- How Asimily moves teams from risk intelligence to enforced, continuously maintained policy
- Frequently asked questions regarding Elisity alternatives and device security
- What to test before signing with a new vendor
Why Elisity Customers Are Weighing Their Options
Elisity’s prospective acquirer, IonQ, has said it plans to pair Elisity’s Zero Trust platform with its post-quantum security work, and that Elisity will continue serving customers under its current leadership (IonQ, October 12, 2026). IonQ describes Elisity as having more than 100 global customer deployments.
While this combined vision offers clear benefits for organizations seeking unified Zero Trust and post-quantum controls, an upcoming renewal remains an ideal checkpoint to review key strategic and operational considerations:
- What shifts should be anticipated regarding licensing structures, tiering, or commercial terms following full portfolio integration?
- Will full feature utility require expanding into other components of the broader platform?
- How high of a priority will connected device security, specifically IoT and OT environment needs, remain within a quantum-focused engineering roadmap?
- How will ongoing feature development and support resources be distributed across core product lines moving forward?
Many may be taking a wait-and-see attitude to post-quantum and are focusing on today’s challenge of microsegmentation to serve a Zero Trust strategy. Evaluating these factors during M&A transitions helps security teams confirm long-term alignment with their architectural goals before committing to extended contracts.
Why Teams Evaluate Elisity Alternatives
Beyond acquisition uncertainty, security teams actively evaluate alternatives to Elisity for several practical product and operational reasons:
- High remediation volume: The Elisity platform focuses on identity-based segmentation and does not analyze which vulnerabilities are exploitable on a specific device, according to Asimily’s October 2026 comparison, so teams segment without a ranked list of the devices that carry real risk. Prioritization instead rests on vulnerability severity or partner-supplied risk data.
- Enforcement limitations: Elisity enforces through its Virtual Edge software on supported switches, not through the NACs many teams already run, so the enforcement plan depends on the switch footprint.
- Mitigation beyond segmentation: The Elisity platform relies on other data sources for detailed IoT and OT classification, and does not patch IoT devices or snapshot device configurations for recovery, per the same comparison.
What to Evaluate in an Elisity Alternative
When evaluating connected device security platforms, eight key criteria help security leaders distinguish capabilities during vendor selection.
| Criterion | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Deployment Model | Many IoT, OT, and medical devices cannot run agents or tolerate aggressive scanning. Confirm the platform builds a complete inventory agentlessly, safely, and without disruption. |
| Exploitability Analysis | Generic CVSS scoring produces lengthy lists. More than 48,000 CVEs were published in 2025 alone (2025 CVE Data Review). Does the platform analyze actual network context (especially topology) to determine which vulnerabilities are genuinely exploitable on a specific device, to reduce teams’ workloads? |
| Path to Enforcement | A recommendation is not a control. Check whether the platform creates, simulates, applies, and maintains policy, and through which enforcement points: NAC, firewall, or by other means. |
| Mitigation Beyond Segmentation | Some devices can be patched, some can only be reconfigured, and some can only be contained. Look for automated patching, configuration drift control based on snapshots, and targeted mitigations alongside segmentation. |
| Identity-Based Policy | Policy built from user, device, and application identity is one of Elisity’s core strengths. If identity drives your segmentation, confirm each alternative can group devices by identity and role, and simulate the resulting policy against your own traffic before enforcement. |
| Fit With Your Existing Stack | For the organizations that have chosen a NAC to manage their networking layer (the majority of the organizations Asimily sees), the platform should work with the NAC you already own, such as Cisco, Aruba, Arista, or Extreme, along with your firewalls, SIEM, and ITSM tools. |
| Vendor Strategy and Focus | Is connected device security the core focus of the vendor’s roadmap, or a secondary module within a broader IT suite? |
| Pricing Transparency and Model | How is licensing structured (e.g., per-device count vs. site licenses), and are quotes predictable as device counts grow? |
Top Elisity Alternatives for 2026
The table below compares approach, best fit, and notable strength across the platforms security teams evaluate most often, starting with Asimily.
| Platform | Best For | Approach | Notable Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asimily | Organizations across IoT, OT, IoMT, and IT that need to move from inventory to reduced risk through microsegmentation, patching, and targeted mitigations | Agentless; cloud or on-premises; enforces through NACs and firewalls | ATT&CK Analysis (based on MITRE) that determines real exploitability per device, plus native packet capture. 4.9/5 on Gartner Peer Insights for OT and IoT security. |
| Armis | Organizations standardized on ServiceNow that want device findings in IT remediation workflows; part of ServiceNow since April 2026 | Agentless asset intelligence with ticket-based remediation | Exposure management across devices, cloud, code, and applications |
| Claroty | Industrial and critical infrastructure cyber-physical environments | Agentless, cloud/on-prem | Industrial protocol depth, threat detection, and secure remote access for OT (as a separate offering) |
| Ordr | Teams that put microsegmentation ahead of patching and targeted remediation, and prioritize AI-assisted segmentation workflows | Agentless, segmentation-first approach | AI-generated segmentation policy with natural-language orchestration through Ordr IQ |
| Forescout | Enterprises that want their device security platform to also be their NAC | Agentless, with more than 30 discovery methods | Access control, segmentation, and discovery from a single vendor with a long NAC history |
| Illumio | Data center and cloud teams that want workload-centric microsegmentation | Host agents, plus a Network Enforcement Node that generates ACLs for supported Cisco Nexus and Arista switches; IoT and OT device data comes from partners such as Armis and Claroty | Label-based workload policy that can be modeled before enforcement, with traffic and anomaly analysis in Illumio Insights |
| ColorTokens | Teams that need one segmentation policy across servers, cloud workloads, and devices that cannot run agents | Host agents, existing EDR agents, or agentless appliances that become the network gateway for IoT, OT, and legacy devices | Policy simulation on up to 30 days of historical traffic, and the Xshield AI Agent for policy automation |
| Akamai Guardicore | Data center and cloud workload segmentation inside an Akamai Zero Trust program | Workload segmentation managed from the Akamai platform; agentless OT and ICS segmentation with NVIDIA announced February 2026 [NEEDS TECHNICAL CHECK: agent requirement for workloads] | AI features that map application behavior, generate and explain policy, and simulate impact before enforcement |
Gartner Peer Insights also lists Cisco ACI, Zscaler Zero Trust SASE, and Illumio among Elisity’s alternatives, which reflects how often identity-based segmentation is compared with data center and SASE approaches.
The Asimily Approach: Asset Visibility to Enforced Zero Trust Policy
Asimily is a proactive cyber asset defense platform designed to secure connected environments, spanning IoT, OT, IoMT, and IT, including the applications running on them. Through agentless discovery, Asimily maps your total attack surface without disrupting operations or causing operational downtime. Operating in cloud or on-premises environments, it enforces microsegmentation directly via your existing network access control (NAC) infrastructure and firewalls. By using patented ATT&CK Analysis to factor in network topology and real-world vulnerability exploitability, Asimily pinpoints the core 1% of assets responsible for the vast majority of actionable risk.
Once critical risks are identified, Asimily offers tailored remediation options: dynamic microsegmentation, direct patching, or targeted technical mitigations. Risk Simulator models how each option would change a device’s risk score, and Policy Simulation tests a proposed policy against actual network traffic before it is applied. For segmentation, Asimily automatically generates, tests, and pushes native policy definitions to leading NAC platforms like Cisco ISE, Aruba ClearPass, Extreme Networks, and Arista, ensuring continuous alignment without rule sprawl or stale ACLs.
| Capability | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Inventory and Visibility | Agentless discovery and classification of every IoT, OT, IoMT, and IT asset, including services, connections, and firmware versions (for relevant devices). |
| ATT&CK Analysis | Determines real exploitability per device and network, producing the smallest remediation list for the same risk reduction |
| Policy Auto-Recommendation and Policy Creation | Shows where to start and generates policy in each firewall or NAC’s native format |
| Policy Simulation | Validates a policy against real, observed network traffic and shows exactly which devices and connections would be affected before anything deploys |
| Continuous Segmentation and Policy Audit | Keeps policy aligned as devices are patched, moved, added, or decommissioned, and merges, deduplicates, and optimizes policies to prevent sprawl and overtaxing of limited switch memory |
| IoT Patching | Applies fixes where devices can be patched, manually or automatically. |
| Configuration Control | Detects configuration drift and restores from known, valid snapshots. |
| Threat and Response | Anomaly detection with protective actions up to quarantine, plus native packet capture for forensic incident response |
| Governance, Risk, and Compliance | Compliance mapping to frameworks including NIST, CIS, NIS2, and CMMC, with an auditable record of enforcement for audits and board reviews |
Additionally, Asimily won the Operational Technology and Industrial IoT Security category in the 2026 Merit Awards.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Are the Top Elisity Alternatives for 2026?
The leading alternatives to Elisity in 2026 include Akamai Guardicore, Armis, Asimily, Claroty, ColorTokens, Forescout, Illumio, and Ordr. They fall into three groups: connected device security platforms (Asimily, Armis, Claroty, and Ordr), a platform that also acts as the NAC (Forescout), and workload segmentation platforms (Illumio, ColorTokens, and Akamai Guardicore).
What Happens to Elisity After the IonQ Acquisition?
IonQ agreed in October 2026 to acquire Elisity and expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approval (IonQ); a later IonQ prospectus notes it may not close on the anticipated timeline (IonQ Form 424B5). IonQ has said Elisity will continue serving customers under its current leadership. Teams reviewing Elisity are weighing whether future roadmap investment and packaging align with their connected device security requirements.
Why Do Security Teams Replace Elisity?
Teams often consider alternatives when they need more capabilities than Elisity offers, for example vulnerability prioritization based on exploitability in their own environment, detailed asset inventories with the essential details that let risk be assessed accurately for current and past vulnerabilities, or remediation options beyond segmentation, such as IoT patching and restoration via configuration snapshots. Others want a vendor whose roadmap delivers relevant features quickly, which matters more as attackers use AI to move faster.
Do Elisity Alternatives Require Software Agents?
No. Alternatives, including Asimily, can discover connected devices without installing endpoint agents, using passive network traffic analysis, native switch integrations, and API integrations to identify and secure devices without risking device disruption. Workload segmentation platforms such as Illumio and ColorTokens use host agents for servers and cloud workloads.
How Does Asimily Compare With Elisity?
Both platforms build segmentation policy and simulate it before enforcement. Elisity starts from identity context and enforces with Virtual Edge software on supported switches. Asimily starts from its own agentless device inventory, adds per-device exploitability analysis, IoT patching, and configuration snapshots, and enforces through existing NACs and firewalls. Asimily has no switch-level enforcement of its own. See the Elisity vs Asimily: 2026 Comparison.
What Does Switching From Elisity Involve?
The main change is the enforcement point. Elisity enforces through Virtual Edge software on supported switches, so moving to an alternative usually means deciding whether policy will be enforced by a NAC, a firewall, host agents, or another switch-based tool. Run the new platform’s policies in simulation first, keep Elisity enforcing until they’re validated, then cut over by device group and retire Virtual Edge.
Choosing the Right Elisity Alternative
Selecting an alternative requires evaluating long-term operational resilience as well as immediate needs. Look for platforms that deliver broad functional coverage across discovery, risk prioritization, patching, and policy enforcement within a unified platform, reducing the complexity of managing point solutions. Assess each vendor’s roadmap execution and financial commitment to ensure continuous innovation as threats evolve, and verify that their device security focus remains a core priority rather than a secondary offering. If you’re moving away from switch-level enforcement, confirm each finalist works with the NAC, firewalls, or switches you actually run before you compare anything else.
Evaluate the strength and reputation of the vendor’s customer success and technical support teams. Strong post-deployment support and dedicated customer resources are essential for maintaining policy updates, troubleshooting complex network integrations, and ensuring long-term value across diverse connected environments.
Finally, examine how effectively the platform enables your team to keep pace with rapid attacker innovation, largely driven by AI. Platforms that offer automated risk intelligence, continuous policy validation, and proactive threat response empower security teams to adapt quickly without increasing operational overhead. That overhead saved could be in both personnel time and in extending the life of hardware. Devices that can be protected can operate longer, avoiding CapEx, and switch memory that is used efficiently can extend the life of network infrastructure as well.
See How Asimily Compares in Your Environment
Further Reading
[Related: IoT Security FAQ: Securing, Prioritizing, and Mitigating Risk Across Enterprise IoT Devices]
[Related: OT Security FAQ: Visibility, Vulnerability Management, and Operational Protection Without Downtime]
[Related: Microsegmentation FAQ: Tools, Zero Trust, and Segmenting IoT and OT Devices Without Disruption]
[Related: Elisity vs Asimily: 2026 Comparison]
[Related: Best Armis Alternatives: 2026 Guide]
[Related: Best Claroty Alternatives: 2026 Guide]
[Related: Best Ordr Alternatives: 2026 Guide]
[Related: Best Forescout Alternatives: 2026 Guide]
[Related: Best Zero Trust Security Platforms 2026 Rankings]
[Related: Best Microsegmentation Tools 2026]
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