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Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms vs Cisco Meraki vMX comparison

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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

Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Meraki vMX
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms is 0.6%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Meraki vMX is 1.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms0.6%
Cisco Meraki vMX1.3%
Other98.1%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Service Delivery Manager
High-capacity edge upgrade has supported seamless 400G migration and prepared segment routing
I would rate Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms as nine out of 10 due to hardware reliability and straightforward configuration and deployment. Migrating from 9Ks to 8K was very easy, and we did not face any major challenges during deployment. Configuration information was readily available in Cisco documentation, and we experienced no compatibility issues. Regarding AI capabilities, we did not use AI agents or AI capabilities because our environment operates as a large operator network supporting numerous customers with Service Level Agreements. We did not enable AI currently, but we may consider it in the future with additional support and briefing from Cisco regarding AI capabilities. Our primary concern is whether any service impact would be limited to a particular region or could propagate to other devices. As an operator, such issues could impact an entire region, which prevented us from deploying AI features. My recommendation to others considering Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms is that if your organization requires high capacity hardware exceeding 400G, I would definitely recommend Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms.
Eric Liao - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Manager at DYXnet Group
Cloud connectivity has improved secure orchestration and simplified multi-site management
The most valuable features in Cisco Meraki vMX are easy deployment, an easy-to-read dashboard for information, and automatic load balancing for two circuits in the MX. These are the most important key features for our small business customers. I believe you can integrate Cisco Meraki vMX analytics for network performance when deploying it on any public cloud platform. Encryption is important, and Cisco Meraki vMX supports what most customers want, such as AES 256 or 128. The product supports modern encryption functions and features, making the connection more secure, easy to deploy, and monitor. I think the orchestration feature is beneficial. The automated failover capabilities are very important to our customers because the IT department does not need to configure any parameters; they can switch over themselves. If such an event occurs, the system will send the customers an email to notify them when it goes down or when any device is out of order. This is very easy for the IT department.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms has positively impacted my organization because it was useful to migrate 25 years of different third-party devices."
"Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms positively impacts my organization because, although we were using Meraki MX for a long time with no new model from them, we were concerned about supporting the increasing bandwidth requirement for our sites, and Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms helps with this, as we understand it is a newer platform with many optimizations under the hood that can be done to make it more powerful and able to support larger bandwidth requirements."
"This feature impacts my workflow and day-to-day tasks by allowing me to make my configurations and commit them at a later stage, which I prefer because I can prepare my configuration and stage it rather than having to copy and paste everything at the time of configuration."
"Overall, it is a solid platform that ensures reliability and scalability for network edge connectivity."
"The great thing about Cisco Catalyst is the performance and how it can handle so much traffic and information at the same time, forwarding using CEF technology compared with other brands."
"The flexibility of the models in Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms helps my organization because it is easier to add any Catalyst 8000 series to Catalyst Center for management, and it is also easy to add to the SD-WAN manager if needed, which makes operations very easy from both an intuitive and operational handling perspective."
"The GUI interfaces feature has helped my team immensely because we manage more than 100 remote sites."
"Customer support from Cisco is excellent, with Advanced Services support, TAC support, and all related services being outstanding."
"Cisco Meraki vMX offers sufficient features for most customers; it is very easy to handle and proves very efficient, with the main advantages being the visibility it provides and the ease of administration."
"<p>The most valuable features in Cisco Meraki vMX are easy deployment, an easy-to-read dashboard for information, and automatic load balancing for two circuits in the MX, which are the most important key features for our small business customers.</p>"
"The Meraki dashboard helps manage our network effectively because it is quite easy; we manage ourselves very well."
 

Cons

"I believe Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms could improve the overall management and troubleshooting experience."
"Additionally, the firewall management requires significant improvement, as the current behavior resembles firewalls from 25 years ago; it lacks central management policies and objects that modern firewalls possess."
"The price for Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms is somewhat higher compared to Chinese brands, though the difference is not huge."
"Configuration syntax could have been more similar to 8K since it has XR only."
"I rated it an eight out of 10 because of the latest demands regarding environmental constraints, AI and machine learning features, and a need for PoE modules, which could be seen as improving features."
"The only improvement I can suggest for Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms is that in the AI era, it will be important to embed machine learning capabilities."
"Sometimes it takes a little bit, and sometimes they do not give a lot of information, so it is better to make calls and have meetings with the support team."
"Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms needs to be improved in terms of scalability, specifically physical scalability and throughput metrics."
"It is not the strongest security solution, so if you want to have next-generation firewall features, you always need an additional component."
"In comparison with Aruba, I find Aruba to be far better in terms of deployment, ClearPass, and everything, which is all very easy."
"<p>Cisco Meraki vMX needs to improve its ability to configure complex policy-based routing.</p>"
"In comparison with Aruba, I find Aruba to be far better in terms of deployment, ClearPass, and everything, which is all very easy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Leisure / Travel Company
11%
Pharma/Biotech Company
7%
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms?
I do not think Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms needs improvement at all; I think it is a great Cisco product, and I have no complaints about it, as it works like a physical Cisco router, with more of ...
What is your primary use case for Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms?
My main use case for Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms is to use it as a router inside the cloud, facilitating BGP peering between that and the Palo Alto firewalls, and I have also used it as part of SD...
What advice do you have for others considering Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms?
I would rate Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. The reason I give it the highest rating is that the features I discussed, including great throughput and familiarity with Cisco...
What needs improvement with Cisco Meraki vMX?
Cisco Meraki vMX needs to improve its ability to configure complex policy-based routing. The product can only be set up via the GUI interface and cannot perform complex tasks like a Cisco router wh...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Meraki vMX?
I am an architect planning for our customers to plan their enterprise connectivity via Cisco Meraki vMX and SASE. This is for internet access for mobile users, and I am a reseller, not using the pr...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Meraki vMX?
I have no idea about additional features that I would like to see in the next release to make it better. My customers will buy it from the AWS Marketplace and Azure. In my opinion, Cisco Meraki vMX...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms vs. Cisco Meraki vMX and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.