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Cisco ACI vs Meraki SD-WAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

Cisco ACI
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Cloud and Data Center Security (4th)
Meraki SD-WAN
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 15.2%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Meraki SD-WAN is 23.9%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

Featured Reviews

Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides scalability, ease of migration for future DC moves, multi-tenancy and programmability
Cisco's MSO (Multi-Site Orchestrator) or NDO has room for improvement. Cisco monitors ACI through a product called NDI. I find it very frustrating that Cisco has multiple monitoring platforms. It has DNAC for monitoring Cisco NX-OS, campus switches, and any other routers and switches you would have in the environment. That same thing does not work for Cisco ACI monitoring. MEraki cloudbasd platform for Meraki which will get extended to Campus monitoring, to be honest Cisco never got Monitoring 100% right from days of CiscoWorks to Prime to current platforms. To monitor and manage Cisco ACI, you need to have another platform called NDI and Cisco Dashboard Insights. What frustrates me about Cisco is that it never has a central, single pane of glass platform for all its solutions. It has one thing for Cisco ACI and another thing for campus switches. I would really appreciate it if Cisco came up with something centralized to monitor everything. I haven't thought about anything since the Cisco NDO is quite advanced, and you can deploy your cloud networking through it. I don't know how many people use it. I might explore it as my cloud orchestration tool in the future. We do a lot of cloud automation using our scripts like TerraForm, but I would like to see people using NDO more. We could have more case studies on how many people use NDO for their cloud orchestration. That might be a much easier journey for people when they move from an on-premises data center into a cloud and move from one cloud to another cloud. That is where I personally see an orchestrator being effectively used for multiple deployments.
Martyn Walker - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables productivity in terms of users and has ease of management
Scalability could be improved. Yes, you can add more than 300 or 400 sites onto it, but because it's not a true SD-WAN and, effectively, it's just a Multi-VRF, it's all hub and spoke at that point. That's the nature of the design, but that's what keeps it simple to administer. So, it's a trade off.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco ACI's best features include its network-centric approach and micro-segmentation."
"One of the most valuable features is centralized management. The other is the ability to create policies by routing."
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We just moved from one platform to another."
"We are doing automation from ACI and we have integration with Azure. With the Azure stack integration we can have total automation. We can configure the EPGs from there, and we can configure load balancing functionalities from there as well. The most useful feature is that you don't need to configure anything on ACI itself. You can configure on Azure and it will provision your application."
"In legacy networks, managing changes requires individual tickets for each device. ACI's single pane of glass management through APIC is a big advantage. So, single-tenant management is a plus."
"The centralized management of the entire network data center, in this case with ACI, is the most valuable feature. By having access to some powerful APIs you can build your own tool to speak to the ACI controller, then with that, you can deploy things really fast. Having the option to build your own tools and then using the centralized management of the ACI to push the configuration to the network devices is very valuable."
"The scalability is great. This is the greatest feature of the technology. It is a great improvement in scaling out. It can greatly increase the overall scalability of the Fabric with multi-port and multi side, making it a great product."
"Because of its automation feature, when you configure scripts for Cisco ACI, it reduces human error."
"The product's most valuable features include templating, central administration, single-pane remote administration, and integration with other Cisco products."
"The product does have a variety of features we can work with."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The centralized console manageable from the cloud is one of the advantages."
"Meraki SD-WAN is stable and the performance is good."
"It is secure, and some features, like work device management, are very useful."
"A lot of our customers really enjoy the Meraki Dashboard."
"The most valuable feature is application performance monitoring and being able to browse packets dynamically based on priorities."
 

Cons

"The first setup was difficult because it is a very different discipline than other traditional network deployments. The terminology is very different, so the first time can be difficult."
"I wish that if I had to open up an additional tab, I wouldn't have to log in every single time."
"Our company had a lot of issues with the starter kit."
"The user interface should be made easier."
"The product needs to be more visible on the Internet and have the ability to be integrated into more software developments."
"There were issues when upgrading venues and registering devices."
"Compared to VMware, it needs more virtualization technologies."
"I would like them to simplify the way you configure the Fabric. The process is quite complex. This can be a barrier to entry. For anything, where it should take two or three steps, you have ten steps"
"Regarding the integration part, the VPN connection for third parties needs to be elaborate."
"From the vice perspective, they just are not as robust as some of the other vendors. They have limitations in throughput and the number of circuits that they can support on a wide area network. Their higher-end security is all cloud-based. They have some capability with the premise-based solutions, but the higher ends are all cloud-based, and that's via Cisco Umbrella."
"In Meraki SD-WAN, we have some limitations with the traffic shaping capabilities."
"Meraki offers the client basic security, it is not the same as what FortiGate is offering."
"Meraki SD-WAN had trouble prioritizing traffic for VoIP calls."
"There are currently issues with NAT-Unfriendly situations on G4 networks that should be resolved."
"We have had some problems doing the implementation."
"The default classes should be expanded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you compare the licensing and total cost of ACI, it's cheaper than NSX because of the licensing fees. If you are going for full NSX features it will be too expensive, especially the next-generation firewalling feature."
"The thing that I like the most from Cisco is the support and all the documentation that they have. We do have to pay for it though."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The pricing, including both hardware and licenses, is reasonable."
"The pricing is pretty good for new technology."
"The licensing cost for ACI is expensive - I would rate its price 2.5 out of five."
"Cisco's pricing is very expensive."
"We don't use all of the features but it's still worth the money."
"The license model may need improvement."
"I don't have information on the exact cost of Meraki SD-WAN, but I'd rate it a three out of five just because the licensing model is very much associated with the Meraki solution."
"Meraki's pricing is on the higher side, which may limit who can afford to use them."
"The licensing model is a fair one, although having the hardware means nothing without the license. You need to continue to pay licensing fees."
"The price can vary depending on the challenges that you need to address. When you look at the stability and reliability against the price, you absolutely get the value for the price."
"The solution offers yearly licenses and product lines or prices are readily available on their website."
"Meraki solutions come with a choice of several different subscription options including one year, three years, five years, seven years, and ten years."
"like everything else, it's negotiable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
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 wh...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
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...
What do you like most about Cisco ACI?
The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution.
What do you like most about Meraki SD-WAN?
The auto VPN feature is important because it automates many tasks, making things simpler and faster. It helps with setting up devices and changing configurations without manual effort.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki SD-WAN?
The price is a little bit higher than local vendors, for example, Huawei ZTE or H3C. However, some customers require the best quality and performance, thus needing solutions and products from Cisco.
What needs improvement with Meraki SD-WAN?
They have to ask us many questions about configurations. It could be improved with some automation to trigger, for example, telemetry data, so we can determine the state of the deployment as of day...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
École Jeannine Manuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco ACI vs. Meraki SD-WAN and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.