Meraki SD-WAN vs VMware NSX comparison

The compared Cisco and VMware solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #1 in SDN , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 23.9% mindshare in the category. VMware is ranked #2 in NV , with an average rating of 7.7, and holds a 46.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Meraki SD-WAN

Read 77 Meraki SD-WAN reviews

1,592 Views
1,029 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

VMware NSX

Read 102 VMware NSX reviews

874 Views
611 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Meraki SD-WAN

VMware NSX

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Meraki SD-WAN and VMware NSX based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Meraki SD-WAN vs. VMware NSX Report (Updated: May 2020).

Buyer's Guide

Meraki SD-WAN vs. VMware NSX

May 2020

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Helped 845,406 peers since 2012

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

Meraki SD-WAN

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Networking (SDN) (1st)

VMware NSX

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

102

Ranking in other categories

Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (3rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (9th), Network Automation (5th), Microsegmentation Software (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Meraki SD-WAN is designed for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and holds a mindshare of 23.9%, down 24.5% compared to last year.
VMware NSX, on the other hand, focuses on Network Virtualization, holds 46.9% mindshare, up 45.7% since last year.

Software Defined Networking (SDN)

Network Virtualization

Q&A Highlights

Paul Wright

Head of Infrastructure Services at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 06, 2020

What is the biggest difference between VMware NSX and Meraki SD-WAN?

We are currently reviewing various SD-WAN vendors for our infrastructure and what I found lacking with Cisco Meraki is that you cannot use Active/Active HA with two MX devices. Only HA is available with one device which introduces a single point of failure for any network. There is also up to 5 minute failover time for Active/Active circuits which in my opinion is quite long compared to other solutions which are nearer instant.

See all answers

Featured Reviews

Martyn Walker

Business development manager at Virgin Media

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.

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DanielBass

Senior IT Strategy Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's most valuable features include templating, central administration, single-pane remote administration, and integration with other Cisco products."

"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."

"I'm not directly involved in SD-WAN monitoring and maintenance, but based on what I've heard from our infrastructure team, it's working well."

"Meraki SD-WAN is a very stable and scalable solution with good technical support."

"Meraki SD-WAN saves costs for our customers and provides better connectivity."

"We have found the product to be quite scalable."

"The solution's ability to prioritize traffic is its most valuable feature."

"The best feature we're using is the packet shaping."

More Meraki SD-WAN pros

"The solution is very stable and reliable."

"Has a great firewall."

"It has reduced the number of people on the network team along with the system engineer involved in the security process. So, it is valuable."

"NSX gives us the ability to put our network, NSX, onto any network there is, which allows us not to have to go to the network team to create networks our VLANs for networks."

"The most powerful feature of VMware NSX is the micro-segmentation that allows us to separate the different protocols our application works with."

"The installation is straightforward, it took a couple of hours."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The most valuable feature is the integration with the firewall."

More VMware NSX pros

Cons

"The blocklist on the Cisco Meraki side isn't complete or very large. We'd like to see them update and expand this."

"With Meraki, it's more of a basic connectivity. It doesn't have all the feature sets that a Cisco SD-WAN solution has. It's limited."

"The solution lacks controllers."

"The granularity could be improved."

"I would like to see more functions added to the next release of Meraki SD-WAN."

"The tool has challenges with features like multiple-link support, which currently only supports up to three links. Additionally, it doesn't offer router integration, and forward error correction is another missing feature. The scalability of Meraki SD-WAN is good, but there are limitations to the performance of the concentrator devices, especially in larger deployments. While the cloud scale is not an issue, the performance of the devices in branches and data centres is limited."

"The adoption of endpoint services or endpoint security should be developed in future releases."

"In Meraki SD-WAN, we have some limitations with the traffic shaping capabilities."

More Meraki SD-WAN cons

"It was stable for one year, there was no impact. In the last two months, we had two big incidents."

"The first time setting it up was difficult."

"I would rate this product an eight because it's a good product but it needs more work. They should fix some of the bugs."

"An area for improvement in VMware NSX is that it uses up more resources and is heavy on the network. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is more automation."

"If there are other solutions already in place, it can be difficult to implement."

"We have done three installations and we have not had any critical issues. The time it took for the installation was approximately two days. However, they should provide better documentation."

"The price could be better. The non-enterprise version of the product should also be improved. I would like VMware to expand beyond the network and provide some VLAN technologies and more. I think we have one, but it's more on the distribution side because it's more on the upper side of the network. I'm looking forward to that."

"The vendor should integrate a basic load balancer in future versions"

More VMware NSX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 licensing model is a fair one, although having the hardware means nothing without the license. You need to continue to pay licensing fees."

"They have a baseline software license, and then they've got an SD-WAN software license, and then they've got an advanced security software license. They're low cost, and they'll provide any amount of flexibility that you want from a modeling perspective for payment. Typically, it's either annually or multi-year, but they are a lower-cost company. They're not the most expensive by far."

"This solution is more expensive than competitors."

"One of the most valuable aspects of Meraki SD-WAN is the price. It is highly cost-effective."

"Pricing is a significant concern for me. Amongst all the firewall brands, Cisco is one of the most expensive options. Despite its reputation and security features, many customers opt for other brands, such as SonicWall because of their lower prices. These other brands offer similar features to Cisco but at a lower cost. Cisco's pricing is something that could be improved to attract more customers. The brand has a good reputation, but when it comes to budgeting and pricing, it is not always the first choice."

"Our clients pay Meraki an annual licensing fee and the pricing is not too bad when compared to other products in the Cisco portfolio."

More Meraki SD-WAN pricing and cost advice

"The price is significantly high and it can be a hurdle for many potential users."

"The implementation of VMware NSX can be cost-intensive, especially if an organization is looking for a comprehensive solution. The costs can vary based on factors like the level of conversation and discounts obtained during negotiations. Some government organizations, for instance, may find the prices relatively high, leading to concerns about budget hikes, especially when deploying the solution across the entire organization. Regarding maintenance and support, they are typically included in the standard licensing costs for enterprise-level businesses. While these costs can be significant, many companies opt for standard licensing to ensure they have access to necessary support and maintenance services."

"We are using a perpetual license to use the solution and we have support."

"The pricing is higher than other options from Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco because it is sold in a bundle."

"We haven't had to hire a dedicated network engineer because NSX handles 90 percent of it. The reduced overhead in terms of managing networks has been the biggest plus."

"The price of VMware NSX is very good compared to other solutions."

"The solution is very expensive."

"The price is based on the virtual desktop infrastructure(VDI) side and also is dependant on the size of the environment. The price is expensive and it could attract more purchasers in smaller organisations if it was reduced."

More VMware NSX pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

Paul Wright

Head of Infrastructure Services at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 6, 2020

What is the biggest difference between VMware NSX and Meraki SD-WAN?

2 out of 6 answers

GaurangPatel

Technical Director at Allot Group

Mar 12, 2020

Well, both products are very good but if you are looking for only SD-WAN Feafure than Cisco Meraki is the perfect solution: it's easy to manage, easy to deploy and deep insight at the packet level. VMware NSX is the complete package of comprehensive features like Application Load Balancing, routing, switching, micro-segmentation and many more but at a cost! It's very easy to manage from a single pane of glass. in a nutshell, if you want Application-Aware Load balancing and wan optimization which should be easy to manage and deploy than Cisco Meraki is the right product and if you are looking for a fully integrated solution and have a deep pocket then you should choose VMware NSX.

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Denis FERRAND

Head of EMEA Strategic Alliances at Arrow Electronics, Inc

Mar 12, 2020

VMware NSX is all about Software Defined Networking ie virtualizing the 7 layers of switches/routers that we know in the physical HW world. VMware is very successful with this technology acquired from NICERA. SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined WAN which is about networking but NOT at the local level, it is a wide area network. For this VMware made another acquisition which is VeloCloud. Cisco Meraki SD-WAN and VeloCloud are both in the magic quadrant and therefore competing.

Read full answer

See all 6 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware NSX?

The product has valuable features for security and network extension.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 22% of the time

Omada Cloud SDN vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 20% of the time

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 16% of the time

Prisma SD-WAN vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 14% of the time

Cradlepoint NetCloud vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 8% of the time

More Meraki SD-WAN Competitors

Illumio vs VMware NSX

Compared 20% of the time

Nutanix Flow Network Security vs VMware NSX

Compared 20% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs VMware NSX

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Workload vs VMware NSX

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco ACI vs VMware NSX

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware NSX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Meraki SD-WAN

March 2025

Download Meraki SD-WAN product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware NSX

March 2025

Download VMware NSX product report

Also Known As

No data available

VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender

Overview

Software-defined WAN is a new approach to network connectivity that lowers operational costs and improves resource usage for multi-site deployments, allowing network administrators to use bandwidth more efficiently and ensure the highest possible level of performance for critical applications without sacrificing security or data privacy. For more information on deploying and configuring SD-WAN on the Meraki MX Security Appliance, see the Meraki SD-WAN Deployment Guide.

Cisco

VMware NSX is a sophisticated solution utilized for micro-segmentation, network security, software-defined networking, and private cloud construction. It aids in the transition from physical to virtual infrastructure, ensuring efficient network virtualization and security of production workloads.

VMware NSX empowers organizations to manage network functions, implement distributed firewalls, and enhance security within virtual environments. Crucial for disaster recovery and load balancing, it supports cloud-native application development and enterprise clients. Its ease of use, scalability, and seamless integration with existing VMware solutions ensure streamlined network management and swift deployment. Despite its extensive features, areas like pricing, routing functionality, and compatibility with certain platforms require attention.

What are the key features of VMware NSX?

Ease of Use: Simplifies network management with an intuitive interface.
Scalability: Adapts to growing infrastructure needs seamlessly.
Micro-Segmentation: Enhances security by dividing networks into smaller, manageable segments.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing VMware solutions and third-party applications.
Dynamic Routing: Optimizes network traffic efficiently.
Security Options: Offers robust firewall features and security measures.
Automation: Facilitates quick deployment through comprehensive automation capabilities.
High Bandwidth: Ensures high-performance network operations.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Enhanced Network Security: Superior protection for virtual environments.
Efficient Disaster Recovery: Reliable support for business continuity.
Reduced Deployment Time: Fast implementation and configuration.
Improved Network Management: Centralized and streamlined control of network resources.

VMware NSX is widely implemented across industries such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. Organizations in these sectors utilize it to bolster security, enhance network efficiency, and support cloud-native applications. By extending on-premise networks into provider spaces and managing virtual access networks, VMware NSX significantly optimizes infrastructure operations.

VMware

Sample Customers

École Jeannine Manuel

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

Buyer's Guide

Meraki SD-WAN vs. VMware NSX

May 2020

Free Report: Meraki SD-WAN vs. VMware NSX

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