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Cisco ACI vs Omada Cloud SDN 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 Software Defined Networking (SDN)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Cloud and Data Center Security (5th)
Omada Cloud SDN
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
3rd
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 15.3%, up from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Omada Cloud SDN is 11.8%, up from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

Featured Reviews

Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides scalability, ease of migration for future DC moves, multi-tenancy and programmability
Cisco's MSO (Multi-Site Orchestrator) or NDO has room for improvement. Cisco monitors ACI through a product called NDI. I find it very frustrating that Cisco has multiple monitoring platforms. It has DNAC for monitoring Cisco NX-OS, campus switches, and any other routers and switches you would have in the environment. That same thing does not work for Cisco ACI monitoring. MEraki cloudbasd platform for Meraki which will get extended to Campus monitoring, to be honest Cisco never got Monitoring 100% right from days of CiscoWorks to Prime to current platforms. To monitor and manage Cisco ACI, you need to have another platform called NDI and Cisco Dashboard Insights. What frustrates me about Cisco is that it never has a central, single pane of glass platform for all its solutions. It has one thing for Cisco ACI and another thing for campus switches. I would really appreciate it if Cisco came up with something centralized to monitor everything. I haven't thought about anything since the Cisco NDO is quite advanced, and you can deploy your cloud networking through it. I don't know how many people use it. I might explore it as my cloud orchestration tool in the future. We do a lot of cloud automation using our scripts like TerraForm, but I would like to see people using NDO more. We could have more case studies on how many people use NDO for their cloud orchestration. That might be a much easier journey for people when they move from an on-premises data center into a cloud and move from one cloud to another cloud. That is where I personally see an orchestrator being effectively used for multiple deployments.
Gavin Cotton - PeerSpot reviewer
Reasonably priced, easy to deploy, and enables remote monitoring
The implementation is quite straightforward. It works every time. The setup is very easy. I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. The deployment can be done very quickly. The time taken for deployment depends on the setup. Generally, it can be up and running in a few hours.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In legacy networks, managing changes requires individual tickets for each device. ACI's single pane of glass management through APIC is a big advantage. So, single-tenant management is a plus."
"It has saved me a couple of times, as just a backup feature. It can easily do a snapshot before you do any change, and if something goes wrong, you can just rollback."
"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."
"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."
"It is very easy to do the configuration after you know how to work with the product. It is global, so you change one interface, and changes are reflected on every switch."
"The best part of ACI is that it can integrate with a lot of virtual environments like VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM."
"With ACI, if you need more capacity you can just buy more and plug them in without needing to do anything else. All of the sudden that infrastructure is there for me to use, configure, and add stuff to."
"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 solution enables us to monitor and help our customer with their connectivity remotely."
 

Cons

"From my point of view, troubleshooting issues relating to ACI can be a little bit complicated to perform."
"Deploying Cisco ACI was a little complex because we needed to add a lot to the fabric. You need to configure some servers, connect everything, make templates, and deploy switches. It takes five people to deploy and maintain."
"We are waiting to see what happens with the cloud. We want to see if it will scale better."
"ACI's blade servers could be more flexible, and its storage interface is a little too complex because they use some third-party storage solution."
"The tool's initial deployment is complex and takes five hours to complete."
"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."
"Compared to VMware, it needs more virtualization technologies."
"Since it is a new technology, Cisco moved all the menus. This made it tricky to use."
"The product must provide access points that can be plastered into the ceiling."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have saved time on the provisioning and configuration."
"It's expensive but the product is very good. I have never found another partner like Cisco with a solution like this and with great support."
"We have seen time improvement using the product."
"The good thing about Cisco is that you can trade in your old products to replace them with ACI."
"This is an expensive solution."
"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."
"Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option."
"The thing that I like the most from Cisco is the support and all the documentation that they have. We do have to pay for it though."
"The tool is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Omada Cloud SDN?
The tool is reasonably priced. There is no licensing fee.
What needs improvement with Omada Cloud SDN?
The product must provide access points that can be plastered into the ceiling. The tool should not be visible on the ceiling.
What is your primary use case for Omada Cloud SDN?
We implement the solution for our clients so that they have Wi-Fi in their villas. We manage the tool for them.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, TP-Link, Aviatrix and others in Software Defined Networking (SDN). Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.