Cisco ACI vs Symantec Data Center Security comparison

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud and Data Center Security category. Cisco is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8, while Broadcom is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 3.8% mindshare in CDCS, compared to Broadcom’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco ACI

Read 103 Cisco ACI reviews

4,712 Views
2,733 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Symantec Data Center Security

Read 12 Symantec Data Center Security reviews

1,400 Views
924 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Cisco ACI

Symantec Data Center Security

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 14, 2024

Cisco ACI and Symantec Data Center Security are leaders in the network management and data security markets, respectively. While Cisco ACI has the upper hand due to its comprehensive automation and integration capabilities, Symantec excels in detailed policy enforcement for infrastructure protection.

Features: Cisco ACI focuses on network automation, centralized management, and microsegmentation, ensuring seamless integration with virtual environments. It also supports vast tenant networks and scalability. Symantec Data Center Security offers robust hardening capabilities, detailed policy enforcement, and intrusion prevention, crucial for safeguarding infrastructure.

Room for Improvement: Cisco ACI users encounter complex configuration processes, a steep learning curve, and limited integration flexibility with third-party products. Enhancements are needed in both documentation and technical support. Symantec Data Center Security requires improved reporting, better third-party integration options, and a more user-friendly interface to enhance policy management and usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco ACI provides deployment flexibility across various environments, though feedback on technical support is mixed. Symantec also supports diverse deployment scenarios but similarly faces criticism regarding technical support responsiveness. Cisco's extensive support structure surpasses Symantec’s, which struggles with complex issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco ACI is recognized as an expensive solution with mixed opinions on its value, despite operational savings through automation. Symantec Data Center Security, although costlier than some competitors, promises potential ROI via operational efficiency and security enhancements. Both solutions improve efficiency and reduce downtime, but Cisco ACI's pricing may limit accessibility for smaller businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco ACI vs. Symantec Data Center Security Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco ACI vs. Symantec Data Center Security

April 2026

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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)

Symantec Data Center Security

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 3.8%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Data Center Security is 3.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco ACI	3.8%
Symantec Data Center Security	3.0%
Other	93.2%

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

Rahul Khandelwal

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.

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Muhammad Ejaz ul Hassan

CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Continuous server hardening has protected critical legacy workloads and simplified security control

Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As a user protecting your infrastructure, you need to sell the value to your management. Management buys the tool for preventing threats, and it works for them. However, you cannot sell it because every solution needs to show what happened in the last few years or how you will be protected in the future. Reporting is the most important thing for the CIO level, not the admin level. I have seen Symantec really lag in this area. I am creating my own tool to build a dashboard to share with the CIO level because they want to know what happened last week, last month, and last year. These reports will tell you about activities. Symantec changed the licensing when Broadcom acquired the company. The question of who will provide support became unclear. Support has now changed and they are making money. I have seen that most of the time when you ask implementation questions, they do not answer you. If you have a problem, they give you a low-level engineer at the first level. This delays resolution. Support has to be better.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very easy to do the configuration after you know how to work with the product, and it is global, so you change one interface and changes are reflected on every switch."

"With the stability so far we've had very few issues with Cisco ACI, other than a couple of routing problems that were glitches within ACI, and the environment is stable and we like it."

"Because of its automation feature, when you configure scripts for Cisco ACI, it reduces human error."

"It improves security and automation; it is stable and provides flexibility with different workloads, and it is also more powerful from a security point of view."

"A lot of our tasks in cloud projects are now done faster than before and we can implement customer requirements more quickly, with our quality improved because we have faster visibility into when faults occur in the network."

"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."

"Centralized management and control of the entire data center environment and its architecture."

"Micro-segmentation is the solution’s most valuable feature."

More Cisco ACI pros

"The monitoring in the management console allows us to find out what is going wrong, and it gets reports even before the user reports it."

"The real strength lies in its straightforward approach, offering just two key policies: prevention and detection."

"The console and tools are very user-friendly."

"The advantage of Data Center Security is its ease of use and that it serves as a single unified platform, where I can apply all my security policies to protect that server."

"Good file integrity monitoring features."

"The console and tools are very user-friendly."

"The file integrity monitoring features are the most valuable features of this product."

"Symantec Data Center Security, as a name, represents the perfect solution if you want to harden your servers."

More Symantec Data Center Security pros

Cons

"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."

"Our company had a lot of issues with the starter kit."

"This is a good solution, but I would really like to see the network-centric philosophy of configuration be a little bit easier; the learning curve is steep."

"It is still not mature and has room to grow."

"The ACI user interface is complex and Cisco should improve it."

"The initial setup was fairly complex and it looks terrifying when you first log in. That's one thing about ACI. It takes a bit to wrap your mind around how it works. It's not overly complicated once you understand the concepts, but someone who has never worked with anything like ACI, will initially find it difficult to grasp the complexity of it."

"I would like to see the data center unification of Cisco ACI with Cisco DNA into a single platform to deliver the data center and campus sides."

"We have had two calls with technical support. They are not the best. We opened a case to diagnose issues and it's taken weeks to get someone on the case and to move forward."

More Cisco ACI cons

"The support is very bad. They're not fast at all. Trend Micro's support is much better."

"I think that technical support in general is not really capable of doing their work. They don't have enough knowledge to provide quick solutions, so we usually try to resolve problems within our team."

"They need to develop a more flexible product that can be scaled such that it fits well into a small business or a bigger, enterprise-level solution."

"It would be advantageous if Symantec or Broadcom, given the rebranding, could simplify the process, enabling users to leverage the antivirus functionality more easily."

"Could have better reporting capabilities and better support."

"Adding more compatibility with common products like Microsoft would be a plus."

"There is room for improvement in enhancing its graphical user interface for a more user-friendly experience."

"The product blocks certain processes, even after allowlisting them."

More Symantec Data Center Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 licensing cost for ACI is expensive - I would rate its price 2.5 out of five."

"The pricing and licensing are both high, particularly if you want a high level of functionality. It would be great if the price and licensing cost could be decreased."

"We don't use all of the features but it's still worth the money."

"I don't believe there is any licensing required."

"Yearly, we pay around one point two million for the solution."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"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."

More Cisco ACI pricing and cost advice

"The product is a bit costly."

"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."

"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	87

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

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...

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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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Symantec Data Center Security?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Center Security?

As a partner support, we handle all Symantec products for various clients. Currently, we work with DLP, Symantec Endpoint Protection, Data Loss Prevention, Data Center Security, Email Security, and...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Data Center Security?

I am still a Symantec partner. Price rating is five out of ten. Symantec Data Center Security is a perfect solution, but it needs to elaborate its functionalities and functions to the market. Peopl...

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware NSX vs Cisco ACI

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Workload vs Cisco ACI

Compared 11% of the time

Illumio vs Cisco ACI

Compared 7% of the time

Juniper Contrail Networking vs Cisco ACI

Compared 7% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco ACI

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco ACI Competitors

TrendAI Deep Security vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 32% of the time

Trellix MOVE AntiVirus vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 13% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 11% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 10% of the time

Illumio vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 3% of the time

More Symantec Data Center Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco ACI

May 2026

Download Cisco ACI product report

Buyer's Guide

Symantec Data Center Security

April 2026

Download Symantec Data Center Security product report

Overview

Cisco ACI provides advanced capabilities with features like seamless integration with VMware and APIs for programmability. It offers centralized management for streamlined operations, efficient micro-segmentation, and robust security, addressing modern data center needs.

Cisco ACI brings automation to data center infrastructure, enabling transitions from legacy to modern environments with centralized management. Organizations benefit from optimized server farms, seamless integration with VMware, and support for Kubernetes, making it suitable for large-scale environments. Offering support for healthcare, finance, and public sectors, Cisco ACI facilitates tasks such as virtual networking and multi-site connectivity with application-centric and network-centric designs.

What are the key features of Cisco ACI?

Seamless Integration with VMware: Ensures smooth operation with existing virtualized environments.
Programmability via APIs: Offers flexibility in network configuration and management through APIs.
Centralized Management: Provides a unified view of the network, simplifying oversight.
Automation: Reduces manual configuration workload, speeding up deployment.
Scalability: Adapts to growing network demands with ease.
Robust Security: Enhances protection against threats with comprehensive security measures.
Efficient Micro-Segmentation: Improves network segmentation for security and efficiency.

What benefits or ROI should users look for when evaluating Cisco ACI?

Streamlined Operation: Reduced complexity in network management.
Enhanced Performance: Improved network and application efficiency.
Cost Efficiency: Better resource allocation reduces operational costs.
Improved Security: Advanced features for increased protection.
Scalability: Allows growth without significant redesigns.

In the healthcare industry, Cisco ACI supports secure and efficient data management, accommodating regulatory needs and enhancing patient data handling. Financial institutions benefit from robust security and seamless integration with existing infrastructures, facilitating smooth transaction processing. In the public sector, it's utilized for reliable network management and servicing a diverse range of applications.

Cisco

Symantec Data Center Security provides comprehensive server protection with features like hard disk protection, file integrity monitoring, and centralized management, making it suitable for securing legacy systems and preventing unauthorized access.

Focusing on server integrity and data protection, Symantec Data Center Security delivers robust intrusion prevention, system lockdown, and specific control over server access. With a customizable rule set, it enhances server hardening by fine-tuning access controls without relying on IPS signature detection. While offering significant advantages for managing legacy infrastructure, it also requires improvements in platform metrics, compatibility, speed, and integration with third-party products. Users face challenges with false positives, policy complexity, and compatibility issues, particularly regarding Microsoft and virtualization improvements.

What Key Features Does Symantec Data Center Security Offer?

Built-in Hard Disk Protection: Safeguards data through advanced protection measures.
Centralized Console: Manages diverse product lines from a single interface.
File Integrity Monitoring: Ensures data integrity by tracking changes to files.
Efficient Endpoint Protection: Provides strong defense against endpoint threats.
Robust Intrusion Prevention: Prevents unauthorized access with advanced threat detection.

What Benefits Should Users Consider?

Enhanced Security: Offers comprehensive protection for critical data.
Customizable Rule Set: Provides flexibility to adjust security policies to specific needs.
Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and improves efficiency.
Improved Server Management: Enhances control over server access and permissions.
Comprehensive Integration: Complements other security components like antivirus and anti-malware.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and technology, Symantec Data Center Security is implemented to protect server integrity particularly in environments using Docker containers and legacy systems. It supports remote operations, enforces stringent access policies, and locks down systems while offering valuable audit capabilities for code changes, especially on Linux.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Cisco ACI vs. Symantec Data Center Security

April 2026

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