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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 March 2025, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 14.8%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Meraki SD-WAN is 24.0%, up from 23.7% 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

"The most valuable feature of Cisco ACI is that it is eay to manage. We can automate and it can be scripted. Virtual ACI is very good."
"I rate Cisco ACI nine out of ten due to its impressive features."
"Cisco technical support is great."
"I especially like the host-based routing feature of Cisco ACI because it's straightforward to do it on different data centers. Another valuable feature of Cisco ACI is that its management controller works very well with no issues."
"The most valuable feature is the data center communication."
"I have found the SDN features to be the most valuable."
"It scales very well. When you increasingly scale with it, it makes the product easier to work with."
"The most valuable features of Cisco ACI are micro-segmentation, the VXLAN, and the ACI flattening services."
"The solution's ability to prioritize traffic is its most valuable feature."
"The Meraki interface is really well driven and very mature."
"The tool is easy to use."
"It is secure, and some features, like work device management, are very useful."
"We have found the scalability to be good."
"I appreciate the cloud-based management feature the most. It's a crucial aspect for me because it allows me to manage the configuration remotely without having to visit the on-premise location. The ability to do this from my home is a major benefit. Additionally, security is good."
"The dashboard is the solution's most valuable feature."
"Meraki can react fast to emerging trends."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was a bit complex."
"I believe there's room for improvement in terms of ACI's integration with various technologies."
"Quality Assurance could be better, and there are a lot of bugs in each release. We discover these bugs when we upgrade the ACI environment, sometimes resulting in downtime. In the next release, I would like to be able to manage hybrid cloud networking. So currently, if you have an ACI environment running on-premise or Epic in the cloud, we can handle it with the NexSys dashboard. But if Cisco can integrate SD WAN-related features, through which we can do multi-cloud networking, that will be an awesome feature. It should be more flexible."
"ACI's blade servers could be more flexible, and its storage interface is a little too complex because they use some third-party storage solution."
"Training for this product is available from institutions but it is not available online where you can get users trained easily."
"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"
"There should be an alternative "ACI Light" solution for smaller-sized enterprises."
"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."
"The default classes should be expanded."
"The port density should be improved because this solution is limited to two."
"The security and upgrading could improve in this solution."
"The solution needs a multi-use provider portal."
"The blocklist on the Cisco Meraki side isn't complete or very large. We'd like to see them update and expand this."
"Meraki SD-WAN could improve on the lead time, but this is not a problem only with Cisco. there's a global shortage of chipsets. Additionally, the solution has limited features. It's quite a standard product and not very easily upgradeable or stackable."
"Meraki could make better use of virtual connect."
"The adoption of endpoint services or endpoint security should be developed in future releases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco is much more expensive than other vendors, especially when it comes to the licensing."
"We used Cisco Professional Services for the deployment. They were outstanding, but very expensive."
"We have saved time on the provisioning and configuration."
"The pricing, including both hardware and licenses, is reasonable."
"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."
"A big company can automate it themselves or spend a lot of money and buy it."
"The cost is fine."
"Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option."
"The price of Meraki SD-WAN could improve, it is expensive when compared to other solutions on the market, such as Aruba."
"If you purchase a Meeraki box, you have to purchase a license, and it's already the basic license, you will have you SD-WAN included."
"Regarding pricing, Meraki SD-WAN is quite competitive, especially compared to solutions like Fortinet. However, it's essential to consider that Meraki requires cloud orchestration, which adds to the overall cost. Overall, it's one of the most competitive solutions from Cisco for SD-WAN."
"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."
"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 tool offers term licenses. You have the same term licensing model available for all of your equipment, which is good for management."
"This solution is more expensive than competitors."
"The license model may need improvement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Healthcare Company
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.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.