ShieldX vs VMware NSX comparison

Fortinet and Broadcom are both solutions in the Microsegmentation Software category. Fortinet is ranked #11, while Broadcom is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Fortinet holds a 1.0% mindshare in MS, compared to Broadcom’s 15.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

ShieldX

Read 4 ShieldX reviews

370 Views
144 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware NSX

Read 106 VMware NSX reviews

6,812 Views
3,815 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

ShieldX

VMware NSX

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 14, 2024

VMware NSX and ShieldX compete in the network security and virtualization market. VMware NSX holds an advantage in scalability and integration, while ShieldX is recognized for its advanced threat detection capabilities.

Features: VMware NSX offers micro-segmentation, deep integration with VMware environments, and extensive automation. ShieldX provides multi-cloud security, adaptive micro-segmentation, and advanced threat prevention tailored for dynamic cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: VMware NSX could enhance its security features beyond its integration focus and better support non-VMware environments. Improved simplicity in setup and broader cloud compatibility would also be beneficial. ShieldX may improve by providing more seamless integration with legacy systems, offering more comprehensive documentation, and expanding hardware compatibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware NSX benefits from smooth integration with existing VMware-centered environments, facilitating network management. ShieldX's deployment is flexible, praised for its straightforward implementation and quick setup across diverse infrastructures, coupled with efficient and responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: VMware NSX may involve higher setup costs due to its expansive features and integration abilities, with ROI observed over longer timeframes. ShieldX provides competitive pricing and offers quicker ROI through streamlined implementation and cost-effective security features, appealing to budget-conscious organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed ShieldX vs. VMware NSX Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX vs. VMware NSX

January 2026

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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

ShieldX

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

11th

Average Rating

9.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware NSX

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

106

Ranking in other categories

Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (6th), Network Automation (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsegmentation Software category, the mindshare of ShieldX is 1.0%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware NSX is 15.5%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsegmentation Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VMware NSX	15.5%
ShieldX	1.0%
Other	83.5%

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

MichaelProcyshyn

IT Director at park holidays uk

Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance

The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.

Read full review

TAIYAB HASAN

Windows Redhat Linux Vmware & Azure & Cloud & Nutanix Ahv-Vmware & Backup Senior System Administrator at AlDawaa Medical Services

Has improved network visibility and security through micro-segmentation and SDN capabilities

This feature gives us flexibility and allows us to manage everything under one pane. We can see everything on one console, including network operations and behavior. Monitoring and security are among the best features for VMware NSX. For micro-segmentation, it's integrated with our endpoint security. If there are any issues with servers or VMs, it notifies us so we can isolate the servers and investigate. It provides distributed security features such as firewall and intrusion, IDS, IPS. The security level with IPS and IDS in VMware NSX is excellent. It also provides logical switching and routing which gives an extra layer for Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching requirements. The solution provides flexibility, automation, and self-service capabilities, resulting in cost savings as extensive expertise isn't required. Once automation and self-service are implemented, many tasks can be completed automatically. Load balancing is another excellent feature. Multiple servers can run on load balancing features, which is particularly useful since we have many application servers running. Sharing loads between servers provides the best performance.

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

"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."

"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."

"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides."

"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."

"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."

"ShieldX has been designed from the very beginning to work well in cloud environments. It understands autoscaling, automation, and auto-configuration. These are the things which are important in today's operating environment."

"Their technical support is very good. They help us figure out solutions when we have problems."

"The initial setup is easy and takes between one and five days."

"The solution is very stable and reliable."

"During our experience, the solution has been stable."

"Firewall security is one of VMware NSX's vital features"

"When you have a solid secure solution between your on-prem and cloud solution, then you're in a safe place."

"It gives more security and micro-segmentation. It helps to set network configurations in an easy way."

"NSX helps us by making IT management and operations more efficient. When VMs spin off from the DC to the DR site, all required settings on the network level are handled automatically."

More VMware NSX pros

Cons

"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."

"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."

"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."

"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."

"This solution is really unusable from my perspective at this point. Overall, I would rate the solution a one of ten."

"In the next release, they should enhance the visual interface. With NSX-T, it's difficult to communicate between the public cloud and the container."

"The setup is complex and should be made easier."

"The ticket support response time from VMware could be improved. Often, callbacks are delayed, which can be problematic if the servers are in production."

"They could do more with cloud management."

"There are sometimes mismatch in the control, the details and what you actually see on the transport note."

"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 solution could benefit from improvements in its pricing and scalability."

More VMware NSX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."

"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."

"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."

"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."

"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."

"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"I'm unable to give information on the pricing or licensing cost of VMware NSX because I've never been someone who looks into the economic part of any security or virtualization solutions. That's handled by an entirely different team, and I don't even have the slightest idea about the costs associated with the solution, though I've heard pricing for VMware NSX is on the higher side."

"VMware has a subscription and perpetual license. In the New Year, they're changing many things about the licensing model. Previously, NSX was licensed according to the number of sockets inside the appliance, so we bought VMware licenses based on that. However, that may have changed this year. We are still contacting the vendors to understand the new licensing strategy."

"We are using the free version of the solution."

"The solution is reasonable at the local level."

"Pricing and licensing could be improved as we are a government entity. Lower pricing could always help."

"The product pricing ranges from medium to expensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"I was not involved in the purchase of the solution but I hear it is on the expensive side."

"We can't go without NSX, so it's invaluable from this perspective."

More VMware NSX pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	69

Questions from the Community

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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...

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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...

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What do you like most about VMware NSX?

The product has valuable features for security and network extension.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 61% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 39% of the time

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Nutanix Flow Network Security vs VMware NSX

Compared 16% of the time

Illumio vs VMware NSX

Compared 15% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs VMware NSX

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Workload vs VMware NSX

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco ACI vs VMware NSX

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware NSX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

VMware NSX

January 2026

Download VMware NSX product report

Also Known As

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO

VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender

Overview

The ShieldX Elastic Security Platform dynamically scales to deliver comprehensive and consistent controls to protect data centers, cloud infrastructure, applications and data no matter where they are or where they go to make the cloud more secure than on-premise deployments. Our frictionless approach leverages agentless technology as well as the ShieldX Adaptive Intention Engine which autonomously translates and enforces intention into a set of comprehensive controls - microsegmentation, firewall, IPS and more - making security the easiest thing you do in the cloud.

Fortinet

VMware NSX is a comprehensive tool for network virtualization and security, offering advanced features like micro-segmentation and multi-cloud networking to enhance scalability and management efficiency within enterprises.

VMware NSX revolutionizes enterprise networking by integrating security and scalability into one streamlined platform. With capabilities like dynamic policy updates and automation, it simplifies complex configurations and provides robust API integration. Its support for Layer 4 and 7 load balancing, along with its seamless integration in multi-cloud environments, makes it a preferred choice among companies. Although deployment speed and management console features require refinement, NSX is an effective solution for private cloud and hybrid environments, enabling centralized orchestration and management of complex networks.

What are the key features of VMware NSX?

Micro-segmentation: Provides secure, granular network segmentation for enhanced security.
Distributed Firewall: Offers policy-driven firewall capabilities across all network endpoints.
Automation: Enables dynamic policy updates and simplifies network configurations.
API Integration: Facilitates seamless third-party integrations and improves configuration processes.
Multi-Cloud Networking: Supports seamless integration across various cloud environments.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Scalability: Offers significant improvements in network scalability and management efficiency.
Security: Ensures enhanced security through advanced features like micro-segmentation.
Cost-Effectiveness: Potential to reduce costs through network automation and efficiency improvements.
Flexibility: Supports various enterprise requirements with its comprehensive feature set.

In the tech industry, VMware NSX is instrumental in managing private and hybrid cloud environments, allowing companies to replace traditional networking with software-defined networks. In finance, it helps secure transactional data through micro-segmentation. Healthcare organizations leverage its flexibility for managing sensitive patient information securely and integrating cloud services.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Iowa State University

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

ShieldX vs. VMware NSX

January 2026

Free Report: ShieldX vs. VMware NSX

Find out what your peers are saying about ShieldX vs. VMware NSX and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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