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Cisco ACI vs Xtended ZeroTrust Security Platform 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
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
Xtended ZeroTrust Security ...
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
18th
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 5.4%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xtended ZeroTrust Security Platform is 0.3%, up from 0.1% 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.
CanselÖzcan - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced remote security with reasonable pricing and room for better support
The idea behind ZeroTrust is to significantly reduce security operations within your company. It helps in reducing hidden costs associated with these operations. Using ZeroTrust solutions also reduces the security surface, which is very important. During the COVID period, companies using this solution were able to reduce their employees as the platform minimized the need for an extensive security team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best part of Cisco ACI is the server deployment and integration."
"You can integrate Cisco ACI well with VMware."
"Having a lot of racks and switches with a single point of configuration which can be done with automation on one platform using one API. This makes everything work faster."
"Automation is its most valuable feature."
"The operation and maintenance costs have been reduced. It is also simple to deploy any deployment. Any configuration can be easily done."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco ACI is that it is eay to manage. We can automate and it can be scripted. Virtual ACI is very good."
"It's improved the static configuration of our data center switching environment. But it's added some challenges to our ability to operationalize it and make it easier for people to manage."
"It scales very well. When you increasingly scale with it, it makes the product easier to work with."
"Due to COVID, many employees work from home, requiring a secure VPN solution. Most of the ZeroTrust platforms integrate VPN and serve as a web proxy, securing the VPN site."
 

Cons

"The tool's initial deployment is complex and takes five hours to complete."
"It would be nice if I could specify network-centric in my design, and the system would organize and set itself up in that way."
"For technical support, I would rate them a seven because it's a complex technology and the TAC people sometimes don't have much understanding of the product."
"We deployed a lot of Fabrics to multiple sites, which was a bit complex."
"The CLI needs to be improved."
"It could benefit from an orchestration tool that makes deploying services easier."
"The initial setup was a bit complex."
"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."
"Xtended ZeroTrust should consider improvements in technical support and pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A big company can automate it themselves or spend a lot of money and buy it."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The good thing about Cisco is that you can trade in your old products to replace them with ACI."
"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."
"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."
"We don't use all of the features but it's still worth the money."
"Once you sign for the start kit implementation, you have to go all the way through to the implementation, even if you are experiences issues."
"Price is always an issue."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

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 Xtended ZeroTrust Security Platform?
When evaluating the cost, customers often have complaints about pricing. From a broader perspective, the price is justified because using ZeroTrust eliminates the need for multiple security devices...
What needs improvement with Xtended ZeroTrust Security Platform?
Xtended ZeroTrust should consider improvements in technical support and pricing. It is tricky to get a clear answer because the solution is quite new, and my perspective is from a partner’s side. F...
What is your primary use case for Xtended ZeroTrust Security Platform?
We started working with Xtended ZeroTrust Security Platform at the beginning of COVID. We have been using it for around four years. Our use case includes deploying it in our data center in Turkey t...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Information Not Available
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