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Cisco ACI vs Nuage Networks vs VMware NSX 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
6.7
Cisco ACI offers varied results, with some users seeing cost savings and efficiency, while others face challenges and mixed ROI.
Sentiment score
8.5
Nuage Networks improved efficiency, scalability, and automation, reducing costs and complexity, while enhancing control, performance, and adaptability.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware NSX enhances infrastructure, reduces costs, boosts security, and increases satisfaction, offering ROI within a year.
Efficient utilization leads to cost savings and efficiency gains.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Cisco ACI's support is praised for responsiveness, though regional differences and training consistency impact overall satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.7
Nuage Networks' customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, providing quick issue resolution, effective troubleshooting, and personalized assistance.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware NSX customer service is praised for knowledgeable support but faces challenges with accessibility and response times in specific regions.
The technical support from Cisco is satisfactory.
Our technicians have a good support experience from the company.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ACI offers scalable, efficient networking with easy deployment and high performance, ideal for large enterprises despite occasional bugs.
Sentiment score
7.2
Users laud Nuage Networks for its seamless scalability, flexible network management, and efficient performance in cloud and SD-WAN environments.
Sentiment score
7.7
VMware NSX is highly scalable, effectively handling large networks with ease, despite potential complexity and cost concerns.
The solution offers high performance and scalability with connectivity options up to 100 GS.
The scalability of Cisco ACI supports our organization's growth effectively.
There is a high level of satisfaction with its ability to scale.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco ACI has become highly stable with minimal issues, praised for reliability and regular performance-enhancing updates.
Sentiment score
9.0
Users praise Nuage Networks for reliability, strong features, seamless integration, scalability, minimal issues, and responsive support.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware NSX is praised for stability and reliability, despite minor upgrade issues, due to consistent performance and enhancement updates.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco ACI users seek simplified interfaces, better documentation, enhanced integration, and improved support to overcome complexity and challenges.
Nuage Networks could improve documentation, simplify setup, enhance customer support responsiveness, offer better training, and improve system integration.
VMware NSX needs enhancements in integration, performance, automation, security, compatibility, user-friendliness, and deployment for improved functionality.
Their lack of on-ground offices can result in business losses.
The initial configuration and integration within our existing environment were not easy.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ACI pricing is high but valued for features and support, though smart licensing remains a challenge.
Nuage Networks provides customizable and competitive pricing for scalable solutions, appealing to enterprises with detailed, requirement-based quotes.
Enterprise buyers find VMware NSX pricing high due to bundling, complexity, and significant setup costs, seeking flexible options.
Cisco's pricing tends to be on the higher end compared to other vendors.
The cost of VMware NSX is considered high.
VMware NSX is a little higher in price compared to the competition.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco ACI provides integration, programmability, scalability, and unified management for efficient and automated data center network solutions.
Users praised Nuage Networks for its automation, integration, scalability, and security, valuing deployment simplicity, cost efficiency, and technical support.
NSX enhances security and scalability, offering seamless integration, automation, and efficient performance with flexible, easy-to-use management features.
It is essential for growing our data center connectivity and enablement for our customers.
Its features, like easy application deployment, short deployment time for new applications or software, and eliminating the hassle of STP, are appreciated.
The most powerful feature of VMware NSX is the micro-segmentation that allows us to separate the different protocols our application works with.
I value the ability to dynamically configure our network on the fly using VMware NSX.
 

Mindshare comparison

Network Virtualization
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
Network Virtualization
 

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.
Kristof Spriet - PeerSpot reviewer
Great multi-tenancy and routing functionalities but needs more security capabilities
We primarily use the solution for connectivity to the majority of our customers, for national and international deployments.  Their multi-tenancy and routing functionalities are both great. It is stable and reliable. The solution can scale. Technical support has been fine. Security needs to be…
DanielBass - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves network security with micro-segmentation but setup is complex
I value the ability to dynamically configure our network on the fly using VMware NSX. This flexibility is a huge advantage because it allows us to avoid static configurations that come with traditional hardware setups. Additionally, the micro-segmentation feature is beneficial for adhering to strict security regulations from our security department.
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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
16%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 g...
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 wh...
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...
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What do you like most about VMware NSX?
The product has valuable features for security and network extension.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware NSX?
The cost of VMware NSX is considered high. I would rate the price at two or three out of ten. It could be cheaper.
What needs improvement with VMware NSX?
A basic load balancer feature was present in a previous version, but the latest version only has an advanced load bal...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Produban
City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, VMware, Array Networks and others in Network Virtualization. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.