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Nutanix Flow Network Security vs ShieldX comparison

Nutanix and Fortinet are both solutions in the Microsegmentation Software category. Nutanix is ranked #5 with an average rating of 9.7, while Fortinet is ranked #13. Nutanix holds a 6.3% mindshare in MS, compared to Fortinet’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Nutanix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.
Nutanix Flow Network Security
Read 9 Nutanix Flow Network Security reviews
  • 1,617 Views
  • 86 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
ShieldX
Read 4 ShieldX reviews
  • 73 Views
  • 11 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

ShieldX and Nutanix Flow Network Security compete in network security. Nutanix Flow Network Security has an edge due to its comprehensive feature set, while ShieldX is appreciated for pricing and support.

Features: ShieldX offers dynamic multi-cloud security capabilities, automated threat detection, and a single pane of glass for network visibility. Nutanix Flow Network Security provides integrated application-level protection, micro-segmentation, and extensive network visibility.

Room for Improvement: ShieldX could enhance scalability options, improve integration with legacy systems, and simplify its UI. Nutanix Flow Network Security can benefit from reduced integration complexity, faster deployment processes, and refining customer policy interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ShieldX features a plug-and-play model for rapid deployment, with responsive and personalized customer service. Nutanix Flow Network Security requires deeper integration efforts but offers detailed documentation and reliable support.

Pricing and ROI: ShieldX has a more attractive pricing structure with a lower initial setup cost and faster ROI, suiting budget-conscious organizations. Nutanix Flow Network Security, though more expensive upfront, provides extensive features for a higher long-term value investment.

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To learn more, read our detailed Nutanix Flow Network Security vs. ShieldX Report (Updated: April 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Flow Network Security vs. ShieldX
April 2025
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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

Nutanix Flow Network Security
Ranking in Microsegmentation Software
5th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ShieldX
Ranking in Microsegmentation Software
13th
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Microsegmentation Software category, the mindshare of Nutanix Flow Network Security is 6.3%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ShieldX is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsegmentation Software
 

Featured Reviews

Gus Thompson - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great integration capabilities and helps design a disaster recovery plan
My company is still determining how the product has improved network visibility. My organization is still actively developing the product. There are many things my company is doing in the background to make sure that our VMs come up. My company deals with Nutanix Cross Hypervisor Disaster Recovery, so we are moving from an ESXi or VMware to Nutanix AHV, meaning that my company is crossing over from hypervisor technologies and leveraging Nutanix to maintain the networks at our DR facility. The most valuable feature of the product in enhancing the security posture stems from the micro-segmentation provided by the product, but I think that it is a functionality in its early stages. The product's micro-segmentation features are being developed to be made robust against technologies such as NSX from VMware and other hypervisor-dependent technologies such as Guardicore. I can't say that the product has given my company any additional features yet, but we hope that the tool will provide us with additional functionalities in the future. The product's micro-segmentation features seem to be on par with the other technologies in the market when it comes to its ability to isolate workloads. I haven't noticed any improvements in my company due to the automation capabilities of the product, especially since everything is done manually in our organization because we know the application very well, and we also know how we want to protect it. I am sure the product has automatic features, but we haven't used them in our company. There has been a positive impact due to the integration capabilities of the product with the other solutions in our company's IT infrastructure. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it, especially those who use Nutanix AHV as a hypervisor. It would be a good choice to work with the account rep in your company so that you can get a system engineer to help you walk through the majority of the deployment and setup phases since the documentation has certain shortcomings. I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.
Read full review
MP
Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance
The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.
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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

"Nutanix Flow Network Security is a simple solution that is usable, easy to understand, and easy to deploy."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We appreciate the fact that this solution allows us to segregate two virtual machines that are in the same cluster."
"Nutanix Flow has a lot of data protection features. It's also valuable for operations and management. It's a big solution that works well with different solutions and is suitable for most business cases."
"The network view was excellent as it allowed us to expand the server view and visualize all connections it made within the environment. This was particularly useful in identifying the path of our data and not just its location within the data center."
"Flow Network Security's most valuable features are user-friendliness, the console, and policy creation."
"It allows for policies that enable complete visibility and traffic control."
"Nutanix Flow is straightforward to install. You only need to select a checkmark that you want to enable Nutanix Flow."
More Nutanix Flow Network Security pros
"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."
"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."
"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."
"The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides."
"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."
"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."
"ShieldX has been designed from the very beginning to work well in cloud environments. It understands autoscaling, automation, and auto-configuration. These are the things which are important in today's operating environment."
 

Cons

"I would rate Flow Network Security's stability seven out of ten - it could be improved."
"The most difficult part is the configuration of the initial blueprints."
"The documentation offered by the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Last time I used it, it was not handy to see or to analyze traffic logs."
"We would like the reporting functionality of this solution to be improved."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"Nutanix Flow's networking features could use some improvement. Also, I don't know if it's currently supporting load balancing or not."
"While the graphical interface of Nutanix Flow Network Security could have been improved, and some of the reporting features needed extra work, the product's features were similar to VMware's NSX. The difference lay more in the presentation and user interface."
More Nutanix Flow Network Security cons
"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."
"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."
"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."
"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."
"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In comparison to other options available in the market, I would rate their pricing as very competitive, probably a two or three out of ten for cost."
"The product is available for free use."
"This model is very accessible to implement."
"There are different licensing models."
"There is an annual subscription to use this solution. There is a 60-day trial to use the solution, it gives you time to decide if you want to continue using the solution."
"Flow Network Security is available on a three-year license, with annual renewals of the maintenance fee."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."
"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."
"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."
"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."
"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."
"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."
"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nutanix Flow?
Nutanix Flow Network Security is a simple solution that is usable, easy to understand, and easy to deploy.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Flow?
There are different models like Nutanix AOS Pro or Ultimate license. The prices are different, but it's not in the same price range as Cisco ACI, for example.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Nutanix Flow?
Last time I used it, it was not handy to see or to analyze traffic logs. As a Check Point partner as well, we have some more expectations to log in. Probably, it's possible to forward all the traff...
See all answers
Ask a question
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Comparisons

VMware NSX vs Nutanix Flow Network Security Logo
VMware NSX vs Nutanix Flow Network Security
Compared 79% of the time
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Nutanix Flow Network Security Logo
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Nutanix Flow Network Security
Compared 10% of the time
Illumio vs Nutanix Flow Network Security Logo
Illumio vs Nutanix Flow Network Security
Compared 9% of the time
Cisco Secure Workload vs Nutanix Flow Network Security Logo
Cisco Secure Workload vs Nutanix Flow Network Security
Compared 3% of the time
More Nutanix Flow Network Security Competitors
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs ShieldX Logo
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs ShieldX
Compared 100% of the time
More ShieldX Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Flow Network Security
May 2025
Nutanix Flow Network Security reportDownload Nutanix Flow Network Security product report
Buyer's Guide
ShieldX
May 2025
ShieldX reportDownload ShieldX product report
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Flow Microsegmentation
APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO
 

Overview

Flow Network Security is a stateful, distributed, microsegmentation firewall. It is provided as part of NCI Ultimate or as part of the optional Security Add-On package for NCI Pro.
Nutanix

The ShieldX Elastic Security Platform dynamically scales to deliver comprehensive and consistent controls to protect data centers, cloud infrastructure, applications and data no matter where they are or where they go to make the cloud more secure than on-premise deployments. Our frictionless approach leverages agentless technology as well as the ShieldX Adaptive Intention Engine which autonomously translates and enforces intention into a set of comprehensive controls - microsegmentation, firewall, IPS and more - making security the easiest thing you do in the cloud.

Fortinet
 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Iowa State University
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Flow Network Security vs. ShieldX
April 2025
Free Report: Nutanix Flow Network Security vs. ShieldX
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Flow Network Security vs. ShieldX and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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