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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
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
Google Cloud Armor
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
13th
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 August 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 5.2%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Armor is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Khandelwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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
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 rate Cisco ACI nine out of ten due to its impressive features."
"This solution is easy to configure, and it is done in an object-oriented manner."
"ACI's most valuable feature is sizing - you can easily find the sizing of the data, which means the data speed, CPU, and virtualization can be determined."
"The most valuable features include microsegmentation, L3 Out features, and the common tenant and tenancy model."
"It has benefited my organization by saving us a lot of time."
"The basic functionality that is the most useful is creating a virtual network on a physical device."
"There are many features which are useful, like the automatic completion of the VXLAN."
"Cisco technical support is great."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The first setup was difficult because it is a very different discipline than other traditional network deployments. The terminology is very different, so the first time can be difficult."
"There should be an alternative "ACI Light" solution for smaller-sized enterprises."
"In the new version of 4.0, the management groups for updating the software is not the best way to do it. It was better in 3.2."
"It needs more features for integrating with third-party vendors."
"The challenging thing about Cisco ACI was we had to put a lot of effort into providing the customer the full picture, new standards, and new technology that they had to use. This was more challenging than deploying the product."
"The CLI needs to be improved."
"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."
"Better troubleshooting features would be helpful. In ACI, it can be a big mess, a real headache to troubleshoot a single issue... The troubleshooting part, and the information that ACI gives you, sometimes don't give you a proper, inside picture of what's going on within the fabric."
"There are some discrepancies within billing, which makes the product average."
"There are some discrepancies within billing, which makes the product average."
"I believe Google Cloud Armor can benefit from enhancements of AI and automation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no additional costs. We only have to pay for a support contract apart from the license."
"The price could be improved. It is expensive, but then again, it is Cisco. The price is worth what you pay for."
"The pricing, including both hardware and licenses, is reasonable."
"We have saved time on the provisioning and configuration."
"We don't use all of the features but it's still worth the money."
"Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option."
"I don't believe there is any licensing required."
"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
20%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Retailer
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.