We performed a comparison between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco ACI is a solid, robust solution but can be complex to understand and manage for users not familiar with the Cisco ecosystem. VMware is considered a solution that is easy to learn and manage and offers great security with a distributed firewall. This added security and micro-segmentation make VMware NSX a trusted, complete value-added solution.
"One of the most valuable features is centralized management. The other is the ability to create policies by routing."
"Configures from a single point and commands don't need to be configured on the spine and leaf side."
"The most valuable feature is the throughput that it offers."
"It has the fastest automation. You can move and deploy services in just a couple of minutes."
"The most valuable feature is programmability, where we can manage a network via APIs and software, as opposed to having to manage complex hardware."
"It has benefited my organization by saving us a lot of time."
"This product improved the way our company functions by enabling us to establish our goal of moving to a zero-trust model. That's how Cisco ACI helps us the most."
"Virtualization and integration with VMware is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the firewall."
"The solution is robust as it covers everything we want to do and is stable, so we're happy enough with it. We have had no problems so far. Everything is great."
"The most valuable feature of VMware NSX is the ease of use and its user friendly. For example, it is simple to change the subnet masks."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It follows a certain structure and you won't miss a step. It's all on the same level, step by step."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to create, develop, and deploy servers in minutes to hours, rather than days."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Over the last two years, they've enhanced a lot, especially in regard to integration with OpenStack."
"During our experience, the solution has been stable."
"It would be better to introduce some wizards to guide you through the whole configuration process instead of clicking through a bunch of menus with no concrete path. It is too easy to forget one or another if you configure it this way."
"Our problems with Cisco ACI are mainly related to the contracts and how to manage them easily in the platform. Cisco also needs to improve the log files and the complexity of the graphical interface."
"I would like this solution to be integrated with Pure Storage."
"More how-to videos and instructional information is required."
"I would like for ACI to manage all of the devices."
"I would rate this solution a five out of ten. Not a ten because I don't have good training for this solution. I am now implementing Cisco ACI in the company. It's not 100% on the network. It's on 25% approx, more or less."
"It is challenging for people who don't understand the programming language, making it difficult to migrate. With technology, there are two verticals. One is hardware driven and the other is software driven. Most people in our domain understand networking, but they don't understand programming. When we migrate, some programming is required."
"Its scalability and reliability capabilities should be enhanced."
"The setup is complex and should be made easier."
"They have some limitations in the firewall features as compared to the on-prem or dedicated hardware appliance. They can add more features, such as IPS and IDS, to the cloud firewall."
"The setup of the solution could be simplified."
"It's not feature-rich."
"Occasionally the licensing is not very clear. They should make it easier to understand."
"The first time setting it up was difficult."
"It takes time to do the initial setup. It is a bit slow, which is surprising."
"VMware NSX can improve the migration tools from the older environments to the new environment. For example, the NSX-V has become a legacy solution, it's out of support, but customers are able to keep using it. For migration purposes, it's better for them to provide a proper tool. It will be easy to migrate from an old environment to a new one."
Cisco ACI is ranked 1st in Network Virtualization with 96 reviews while VMware NSX is ranked 2nd in Network Virtualization with 93 reviews. Cisco ACI is rated 8.0, while VMware NSX is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco ACI writes "Stable, easy to extend, scalable, and has a host-based routing feature". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware NSX writes "Allows for seamless micro-segmentation and the support is exceptional". Cisco ACI is most compared with Cisco Secure Workload, Nuage Networks, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Juniper Contrail Networking and Cumulus Networks, whereas VMware NSX is most compared with Nutanix Flow Network Security, Illumio, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Cisco Secure Workload and Cisco DNA Center. See our Cisco ACI vs. VMware NSX report.
See our list of best Network Virtualization vendors and best Cloud and Data Center Security vendors.
We monitor all Network Virtualization reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few.
-Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server where APIC software runs.
-VMware NSX doesn't have any physical network gear of its own, VMware NSX software runs on ESXi hosts(Any Vendor) & even NSX Bare Metal Edge runs on any Vendor hardware(check compatibility)
-Cisco ACI offers both Underlay & Overlay functionality
-VMware NSX is a software and it builds an Overlay tunnel for (VM/Container) communication on top of an already established IP network which can be build on hardware network gear (Cisco Legacy/ACI/Juniper etc.)
-Cisco ACI: To use micro-segmentation on a VM or Container level you will need some other Cisco products
-VMware NSX: Micro-segmentation can be done Out of the Box because DFW Distributed Firewall are applied on the vnic of a VM i.e. on the ESXi kernel.
Being different in many manners but they still define the SDN realm with L2-L7 Network services and what you choose over the other may depend on many other factors like what network gear you already have or if its Green or Brownfield deployment. For example if your infra already have something other than Cisco 9K switches and is well configured then it will make more sense to use NSX to make use of all the SDN functionalities. This is just an example not a recommendation.
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch. Cisco ACI can connect with both virtualized networks and physical networks.
As with many Cisco solutions, Cisco ACI has a steep learning curve. It is not user-friendly and most of our team would like to see a better GUI. It would be great if we could test upgrades in a simulation before implementing; this could save a lot of rework and downtime.
The key component for us with VMware NSX is the distributed firewall. VMware NSX can segment every application and server based on the ports with which they need to communicate. We can activate the ports we need and disable the ones we don’t. This really helps to keep things very secure and makes VMware NSX very flexible.
We would like to see VMware NSX integrate better with other open-source solutions; integration can be very complex leading many to simply choose not to use VMware NSX at all. We found some maximums can be very limiting, especially with very large environments. VMware can only be used with virtualized networks.
Conclusion:
Cisco ACI and VMware have many similar qualities and features. The fundamental difference is that Vmware NSX’s primary focus is on virtualized networks, while Cisco ACI can connect to both virtual and physical networks.
Vmware NSX can provide better levels of granularity and visibility into how your workload performs and functions. Cisco ACI does not provide this.
Because Cisco ACI is more robust and can handle both physical and virtual networks, Cisco ACI might be a more appropriate solution. At the end of the day, it really depends on your organization’s ecosystem and applications, features and utilities needed, and, of course, cost of implementation. You may need one of these solutions or both.