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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Cisco ACI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 14, 2024

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

Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (24th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (22nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (19th), Software Supply Chain Security (17th), DevSecOps (12th)
Cisco ACI
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 1.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco ACI is 4.2%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco ACI4.2%
Aqua Cloud Security Platform1.8%
Other94.0%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at Axoft Ukraine
A robust and cost-effective solution, excelling in scalability, on-premises support, and responsive technical support, making it well-suited for enterprises navigating stringent regulatory environment
The most crucial aspect is runtime protection, specifically image scanning before preproduction and deployment. Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment. This feature ensures that customers can identify any potential issues with the image, such as misconfigurations or vulnerabilities, before integrating it into their workloads and infrastructure. In their source pipeline, companies can identify issues before deploying changes. This is crucial because customers prefer resolving any problems or misconfigurations before the deployment process. Software change security, including GSPM Cloud, is a key feature customers seek in their infrastructure.
Rahul Khandelwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Technical Manager at KPMG
Enables streamlined data center management with automation and application-centric design
The main features of Cisco ACI that I really appreciate are the application-centric and network-centric designs, allowing you to create your network according to your application. That's helpful, and it's good for one-time implementation. The automation capabilities are really helpful. We deployed one data center using Terraform, and after deployment, many automation features are available, which can be very helpful. Based on my experience, Cisco ACI provides substantial capability; you can design your network accordingly and it's part of the SDN family, providing many benefits to the organization, especially when moving from traditional network infrastructure. Many organizations are actually using the old traditional Nexus infrastructure or some old data center devices. It gives you significant control and one-time implementation capabilities, and it also provides better performance and security. Functionality-wise, Cisco ACI provides integration using automation. We implemented it through Terraform, which was easy. Those features are available, so I don't think any new features are needed right now; something new could come up, but they have implemented many improvements over the years.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From what I understand, the initial setup is simple."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"The most helpful feature of Aqua Security is Drift Prevention, which is a feature that allows images to be immutable. In addition, one of the main reasons we went with Aqua Security is because it provides strong protection when it comes to runtime security."
"Support is very helpful."
"Valuable features include the ability to connect it to our Docker Hub where our images are stored, good integration with Slack, and the connection to the CV, to easily see which CVs are on each image."
"The solution was very user-friendly."
"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and manage."
"We use Aqua Security for the container security features."
"It is very stable. It works 100 percent of the time."
"The efficiency in terms of the data center latency has been reduced by around 20-30%. Our applications function a lot better. We get a lot of intuitive data to know how our application stack is performing."
"I rate Cisco ACI nine out of ten due to its impressive features."
"Virtualization and integration with VMware is the most valuable feature."
"It is more scalable than our previous products."
"I like features like policy control and micro-segmentation."
"Automation features have been most beneficial for managing complex networks."
"With its programmability, you can do stuff to policies to make them more flexible, allowing you to connect devices in new ways."
 

Cons

"The user interface could be improved, especially in terms of organization and clarity."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"Aqua Security could improve the forwarding of logging into Splunk and into other tools, it should be easier."
"I would like Aqua Security to look into is the development of a web security portal."
"Aqua Security could provide more open documentation so that their learning resources can be more easily accessed and searched through online. Right now, a lot of the documentation is closed and not available to the public."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"Its graphical user interface (GUI) is not as user-friendly as it could be."
"I believe there's room for improvement in terms of ACI's integration with various technologies."
"More how-to videos and instructional information is required."
"The initial setup was a bit complex. ACI was just out at that time, and there wasn't support at that time."
"Cisco needs to enhance their technical support and pay more attention to regional support."
"One of the things that makes it a lot more complicated is the way contracts are handled in ACI. Contracts are like their own access lists. They can improve the setting up of contracts between devices a lot. It can be simplified."
"Cisco needs to enhance their technical support and pay more attention to regional support."
"It is more about resolving bugs early on in the code. Otherwise, as the product gets more mature and those bugs get discovered sometimes by the customer, then Cisco will resolve them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"They were reasonable with their pricing. They were pretty down-to-earth about the way they pitched their product and the way they tried to close the deal. They were one of the rare companies that approached the whole valuation in a way that made sense for our company, for our needs, and for their own requirements as well... They will accommodate your needs if they are able to understand them and they're stated clearly."
"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"Dealing with licensing costs isn't my responsibility, but I know that the licenses don't depend on the number of users, but instead are priced according to your workload."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"Cisco's pricing is very expensive."
"Cisco is much more expensive than other vendors, especially when it comes to the licensing."
"Price is always an issue."
"If you compare the licensing and total cost of ACI, it's cheaper than NSX because of the licensing fees. If you are going for full NSX features it will be too expensive, especially the next-generation firewalling feature."
"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."
"We used Cisco Professional Services for the deployment. They were outstanding, but very expensive."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The pricing, including both hardware and licenses, is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
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 do you like most about Cisco ACI?
The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution.
 

Also Known As

Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HPE Salesforce Telstra Ellie Mae Cathay Pacific HomeAway
Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Find out what your peers are saying about Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Cisco ACI and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.