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Symantec Data Center Security vs VMware NSX comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Symantec Data Center Security
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware NSX
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (7th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (9th), Network Automation (4th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Symantec Data Center Security is 3.3%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware NSX is 9.8%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware NSX9.8%
Symantec Data Center Security3.3%
Other86.9%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Ejaz ul Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Continuous server hardening has protected critical legacy workloads and simplified security control
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As a user protecting your infrastructure, you need to sell the value to your management. Management buys the tool for preventing threats, and it works for them. However, you cannot sell it because every solution needs to show what happened in the last few years or how you will be protected in the future. Reporting is the most important thing for the CIO level, not the admin level. I have seen Symantec really lag in this area. I am creating my own tool to build a dashboard to share with the CIO level because they want to know what happened last week, last month, and last year. These reports will tell you about activities. Symantec changed the licensing when Broadcom acquired the company. The question of who will provide support became unclear. Support has now changed and they are making money. I have seen that most of the time when you ask implementation questions, they do not answer you. If you have a problem, they give you a low-level engineer at the first level. This delays resolution. Support has to be better.
TAIYAB HASAN - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The monitoring in the management console allows us to find out what is going wrong, and it gets reports even before the user reports it."
"Good file integrity monitoring features."
"The real strength lies in its straightforward approach, offering just two key policies: prevention and detection."
"The tool will then detect any anomalies, such as an intruder who has breached the network, which can trigger the system lockdown feature if it's enabled and meets the defined threshold."
"The most valuable feature is the centralized console, which can handle different products that we have."
"The file integrity monitoring features are the most valuable features of this product."
"We have not reduced manpower, the number of servers has gone up, but the number of incidents has tricked down to single digits."
"Symantec Data Center Security, as a name, represents the perfect solution if you want to harden your servers."
"Some of the key features I find most valuable are the highly graphical user interface, virtualization of networks, and Microsoft application compatibility. It has all the functionality that we require."
"It's really a great product, it fits all of our needs, and everything that we've asked it to do or asked VMware to help us get done with it, we've been able to do."
"It gives more security and micro-segmentation. It helps to set network configurations in an easy way."
"It's pretty stable. Just deploy it and just forget about it."
"Overall, for me, it's a good solution and has been working well."
"This product is better for network security than Cisco ASA and Firepower."
"Consistent networking and security policies across different environments have a major and very positive impact on our business operations, allowing us to achieve the security posture we want with compliance and regulations."
"The most valuable features are its security aspects, especially the IPS and IDS for intrusion detection and protection."
 

Cons

"Agent management is a challenging task."
"The support is very bad. They're not fast at all. Trend Micro's support is much better."
"Adding more compatibility with common products like Microsoft would be a plus."
"A user or administrator making the policy in the DCS should have a very thorough knowledge of the operating system or policy making. You have to be very specific about the data structure."
"Could have better reporting capabilities and better support."
"There is plenty of room for improvement with this product, and it could start with platform metrics."
"Since the acquisition of Symantec, our customers have not been satisfied with this solution."
"I think that technical support in general is not really capable of doing their work. They don't have enough knowledge to provide quick solutions, so we usually try to resolve problems within our team."
"It still needs to grow. There are still some features that it doesn't do, like it doesn't do multicasting."
"There is room for improvement in VMware NSX's workload management, particularly in the orchestration layer and in managing workloads across multiple clouds."
"The solution is only sold as part of a bundle and not as an individual product."
"VMware NSX should be able to scale for different customers, even the big ones. Its scalability needs improvement. Stability for it should also be improved."
"VMware NSX can improve the migration tools from the older environments to the new environment. For example, the NSX-V has become a legacy solution, it's out of support, but customers are able to keep using it. For migration purposes, it's better for them to provide a proper tool. It will be easy to migrate from an old environment to a new one."
"We had some complexities implementing into the other parts of a network."
"Our technical team is always looking for the solutions that they work with to offer more convenient integrations."
"NSX-T supports more platforms, and VMware NSX only supports some platforms like KVM. I want to see support for Hyper-V and other hypervisors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."
"The product is a bit costly."
"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The pricing is higher than other options from Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco because it is sold in a bundle."
"The price of VMware NSX is reasonable."
"There is a license required for this solution and there is also a support license available. The price of the solution could be better."
"The solution is free and the price for the support can be expensive."
"The price is pretty high."
"We can't go without NSX, so it's invaluable from this perspective."
"VMware NSX isn't cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Symantec Data Center Security?
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As a user protecting your infrastructure, you need to sell the value to your manag...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Center Security?
As a partner support, we handle all Symantec products for various clients. Currently, we work with DLP, Symantec Endpoint Protection, Data Loss Prevention, Data Center Security, Email Security, and...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Data Center Security?
I am still a Symantec partner. Price rating is five out of ten. Symantec Data Center Security is a perfect solution, but it needs to elaborate its functionalities and functions to the market. Peopl...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware NSX?
When measuring complexity and costs for our organization, we consider some parameters for effectiveness. In terms of effectiveness in reducing operational complexity, I measure it to be high on the...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Symantec Data Center Security vs. VMware NSX and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
907,372 professionals have used our research since 2012.