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Cisco ACI vs Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization 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

Cisco ACI
Ranking in Network Virtualization
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (8th)
Cisco Enterprise Network Fu...
Ranking in Network Virtualization
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Virtualization category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 25.6%, down from 43.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization is 9.5%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Virtualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco ACI25.6%
Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization9.5%
Other64.9%
Network Virtualization
 

Featured Reviews

Sulaiman Olubiyi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Network automation has simplified secure multi-site connectivity and reduced daily operational effort
I believe Cisco ACI could improve by incorporating something related to agentic AI, where it can execute tasks based on particular evaluations or loop engineering, enhancing fault identification or suggestions based on each tenant's configuration. Additionally, I think they should ensure that the documentation is comprehensive. I appreciate that Cisco provides documentation, and their support engineers are helpful in case of any issues. In terms of governance and security regarding Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, I think what we call evals or evaluations is important, whereby the engineer can evaluate the functionalities of the AI in Cisco ACI, preventing it from making deletions or modifications on its own. Therefore, there should be evaluations or guardrails incorporated into the development capabilities. Regarding accuracy and reliability of output for Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, it hasn't met my expectations. What we need is something called RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation. If Cisco can implement that to utilize customer-specific data instead of general knowledge, while ensuring data privacy under GDPR laws, I think that will result in very good, reliable output.
Majdi Sabbah - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant Sales Engineer at BT Al-Saudia
Versatile, offering flexibility and scalability
I rely on Cisco Enterprise NFV for various sectors like government, campuses, and hospitality. It is a crucial foundational layer that is mandatory before delivering other services The most valuable feature is its user-friendly management dashboard. It is easy to use and covers everything in one…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ACI provides network ability to deploy and respond to the needs of applications, both in the data center and in the cloud."
"We are doing automation from ACI and we have integration with Azure. With the Azure stack integration we can have total automation. We can configure the EPGs from there, and we can configure load balancing functionalities from there as well. The most useful feature is that you don't need to configure anything on ACI itself. You can configure on Azure and it will provision your application."
"Cisco's technical support team is very good."
"ACI's most valuable feature is its SDN capabilities. Everything is on your software design controller. Everything is blocked by default until you allow it."
"The scalability has been great. It is very easy to scale."
"I like features like policy control and micro-segmentation."
"The stability is perfect, and we have had no problems with Cisco ACI."
"It is more scalable than our previous products."
"Network Security is one of the most valuable features of Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization."
"Routing, switching, and wireless network security are the valuable features of Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization."
"Cisco is in our portfolio, which is one of the reasons that we keep working with them."
"Scalability is not a problem."
"It is easy to manage, easy to maintain, and stable, and if you set up everything alright, it will give years without any issues."
"The most valuable feature is its user-friendly management dashboard."
"The support system that they have in place is very good and they are easy to reach."
"Overall, I feel that this is a good product and I recommend it."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was very complex."
"Quality Assurance could be better, and there are a lot of bugs in each release. We discover these bugs when we upgrade the ACI environment, sometimes resulting in downtime. In the next release, I would like to be able to manage hybrid cloud networking. So currently, if you have an ACI environment running on-premise or Epic in the cloud, we can handle it with the NexSys dashboard. But if Cisco can integrate SD WAN-related features, through which we can do multi-cloud networking, that will be an awesome feature. It should be more flexible."
"It needs to be able to function on the cloud."
"ACI is not simple by any stretch of the imagination, but the initial go-at-it is pretty straightforward, which is nice."
"They should improve the GUI, make it simpler. They also need to improve its integration with other automation tools."
"The initial setup of this solution is not straightforward. We had our standard configuration running, but when we moved to ACI it was a completely different dimension."
"For technical support, I would rate them a seven because it's a complex technology and the TAC people sometimes don't have much understanding of the product."
"We deployed a lot of Fabrics to multiple sites, which was a bit complex."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the cost. The SDN hardware especially is much too expensive, specifically 799 and 9000, which act like a spine and those spines are connecting to the leaves."
"There is room for improvement in enhancing compatibility with other solutions and vendors."
"I would like to see the principle scan introduce more models, to help with scalability issues."
"One of the things that can be improved is trimming all mobile numbers so that it aids in swiftly acquiring information for tablets or any necessary solution."
"The solution's orchestration part could be improved."
"This is a software solution, which is less stable than a hardware solution by definition."
"It would be helpful if they offered modularized upgrades, such as additional memory or a faster processor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have seen time improvement using the product."
"Pricing for Cisco ACI could be expensive if you're not a gold partner. If you're a gold partner, you'll get reasonable pricing, but to become a gold partner, you must cross several layers. For example, at least twenty engineers within your organization have to be certified, with each certification priced at £2,000 minimum, so this would make some companies think twice about the product. If you're going for Aruba and Juniper products, on the other hand, you can quickly get the partner status, and you can start selling the product. As a gold partner, you can get up to seventy percent discount on Cisco ACI, for example, while an ordinary partner gets ten percent off. Cisco ACI is expensive for both customers and partners, but I'm rating pricing for the product as four out of five because even if the price is costly, you get a lot of benefits from the product. Cisco ACI isn't the best, price-wise, but it's still a good solution. If you're in a small organization, you may be unable to afford it. Cisco ACI is best for enterprises but not SMBs because Cisco ACI and its required resources are expensive."
"The product is not cheap."
"The licensing cost for ACI is expensive - I would rate its price 2.5 out of five."
"We bought a package for hardware, software, and support. At that time, Cisco was simply selling that package to distributors, then we opted for it directly."
"Yearly, we pay around one point two million for the solution."
"There are no additional costs. We only have to pay for a support contract apart from the license."
"The cost is fine."
"There is a separate charge for support."
"Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

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 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 Cisco ACI?
Cost is one thing that could be improved, as it is heavy for an emerging market like ours.
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Also Known As

No data available
Cisco NFV
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco ACI vs. Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.