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Cisco ACI vs Google Cloud Armor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 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)
Google Cloud Armor
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 4.2%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Armor is 1.0%, up from 0.9% 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%
Google Cloud Armor1.0%
Other94.8%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AnupChapalgaonkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solution Architect at Tech Mahindra Limited
Bot management tool enhances defense capabilities against DDoS and SQL injections
This solution is a bot management tool that provides extensive capabilities for Cloud Armor. It helps with DDoS defense and OWASP for SQL injections and cross-site scripting. We can rewrite these rule sets for DDoS protection. Integration with Cisco WAF is possible. It is scalable and integrates with Google's Kubernetes for easier scaling processes. It includes AI features like auditing and logging for troubleshooting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have found the SDN features to be the most valuable."
"Virtualization and integration with VMware is the most valuable feature."
"It has benefited my organization by saving us a lot of time."
"This product improved the way our company functions by enabling us to establish our goal of moving to a zero-trust model. That's how Cisco ACI helps us the most."
"Cisco's technical support team is very good."
"PBR has been beneficial for network efficiency."
"In a very general way, the ease of access, ease of use, and ease of connecting the system is a valuable feature in itself. The solution doesn't really increase detection rates as that is not what it was created for. Threat prevention comes in from other devices that might be connected into the Cisco ACI that monitors external traffic. It maintains what end-of-life products would be doing and offers other opportunities to unify solutions."
"With Cisco ACI, I can deploy things with a script, then run it in five minutes."
"This solution is a bot management tool that provides extensive capabilities for Cloud Armor."
"We utilize Google Cloud Armor alongside our Cloud Load Balancer to safeguard against DDoS attacks. This setup acts as a local Layer 7 proxy provided by Google, allowing us to predict and mitigate DDoS threats effectively."
"It helps with DDoS defense and OWASP for SQL injections and cross-site scripting."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was not straightforward. We adopted an agile strategy, starting small and expanding to multiple data centers."
"Cisco ACI is a highly complex solution. The initial deployment is just a few clicks, but understanding how an ACI works and interacts with routing, switching, and virtualization takes a lot of knowledge. The interface isn't necessarily hard to use, but the technology is complicated. If you want to understand how it works and how to configure it, you should study hard."
"The GUI is not easy to use."
"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."
"Biannually, there is a new design delivered by Cisco. Thus, you are always running behind the new design, and it never stops. With Cisco ACI, this has been a nightmare."
"The learning curve is long. It's very difficult to learn Cisco ACI. As a result, our customers usually have difficulty working with this solution."
"Customer support for ACI needs improvement. Many customers prefer HPE because their internal support is different and easier to integrate with existing networks. This lack of awareness of ACI's capabilities makes customers stick to traditional networking."
"The product needs to be simpler. There is too much complexity in ACI. 80 percent of its features are of no use to us. We could do with a simplified version."
"I believe Google Cloud Armor can benefit from enhancements of AI and automation."
"There are some discrepancies within billing, which makes the product average."
"There are some discrepancies within billing, which makes the product average."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco ACI costs depend on how many sites you have. One simple site with a simple installation, including two leaves, two spines, and some fibers, would cost $200,000 to $300,000 for the licenses. The solution is a bit expensive, but it's a good investment if you want your data centers to work without interruption."
"Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option."
"It is quite expensive. It is not at all on the cheap or medium side."
"We have seen time improvement using the product."
"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."
"The product is not cheap."
"Cisco's pricing is very expensive."
"We used Cisco Professional Services for the deployment. They were outstanding, but very expensive."
"I would rate the pricing of Google Cloud Armor around 7 on a scale of 10. As for the licensing costs, I'm not directly involved in billing, so I don't have specific details on that aspect. We have a partner agreement with Google, which gives us a discounted price for using Cloud Armor."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise87
No data available
 

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 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.
What do you like most about Google Cloud Armor?
We utilize Google Cloud Armor alongside our Cloud Load Balancer to safeguard against DDoS attacks. This setup acts as a local Layer 7 proxy provided by Google, allowing us to predict and mitigate D...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Armor?
We have to maintain the solution with the least cost. One to two people are fine, one being an SME and one being a senior SME.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Armor?
There are some discrepancies within billing, which makes the product average. We have not proceeded with the ROI analysis right now, so I cannot comment on it.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco ACI vs. Google Cloud Armor and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.