No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
6.1
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (9th)
Omada Cloud SDN
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
6th
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 August 2026, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 9.1%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Omada Cloud SDN is 4.4%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Networking (SDN) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco ACI9.1%
Omada Cloud SDN4.4%
Other86.5%
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

Featured Reviews

Sulaiman Olubiyi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Network automation has simplified secure multi-site connectivity and reduced daily operational effort
I believe Cisco ACI could improve by incorporating something related to agentic AI, where it can execute tasks based on particular evaluations or loop engineering, enhancing fault identification or suggestions based on each tenant's configuration. Additionally, I think they should ensure that the documentation is comprehensive. I appreciate that Cisco provides documentation, and their support engineers are helpful in case of any issues. In terms of governance and security regarding Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, I think what we call evals or evaluations is important, whereby the engineer can evaluate the functionalities of the AI in Cisco ACI, preventing it from making deletions or modifications on its own. Therefore, there should be evaluations or guardrails incorporated into the development capabilities. Regarding accuracy and reliability of output for Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, it hasn't met my expectations. What we need is something called RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation. If Cisco can implement that to utilize customer-specific data instead of general knowledge, while ensuring data privacy under GDPR laws, I think that will result in very good, reliable output.
Gavin Cotton - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner at Attune
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

"I recommend Cisco ACI due to its reliable tech support, timely updates for security, traffic management, and ease of management."
"We had different networks and combined them with ACI so we could have the control of one controller-based network, and automation is running so that the operational effort was reduced massively."
"Instead of taking days or multiple days for a deployment of a server or application, they can do it immediately within minutes because all the configuration templates are already there in the control plane, which we can push immediately when the new server gets added."
"The most important aspect of Cisco ACI in my opinion is the ease of management. Other solutions, like traditional solutions and pricier solutions—or even fabric and PAT—you have to do many configurations on a box-to-box basis, With Cisco ACI, you go on the AP and do some "next, next finish" installer."
"The ability to integrate with other systems is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are the ease of setup for redundancy, as well as centralized control."
"The most useful feature in the ACI is a feature called Service Graph."
"ACI provides network ability to deploy and respond to the needs of applications, both in the data center and in the cloud."
"The solution enables us to monitor and help our customer with their connectivity remotely."
 

Cons

"It needs more integration with public clouds, like Azure and AWS."
"Cost is one thing that could be improved, as it is heavy for an emerging market like ours."
"An area for improvement in Cisco ACI is security, which Cisco needs to enhance in the solution. Though Cisco ACI uses a whitelist model, you must purchase an external product, such as a security firewall solution, to make whitelisting work, which the customer could find expensive. For example, you're a customer who has Cisco ACI, and the solution doesn't have IP-based filtering, so as a customer, you've purchased Cisco ACI. However, you still need to buy another product for security, and some customers wouldn't like that. However, some customers prefer to go with Cisco ACI because of its scalability and flexibility versus other solutions such as Juniper and Aruba. Technical support for Cisco ACI also needs improvement, particularly in product knowledge."
"Our problems with Cisco ACI are mainly related to the contracts and how to manage them easily in the platform. Cisco also needs to improve the log files and the complexity of the graphical interface."
"The ability for us to figure out the traffic flows, to enable some of the more segmentation parts of it, is really tough with what is built into ACI."
"If I lose the connection from one side to the core, I can't use the other side to go to the core. I hope in the future, this will be fixed."
"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."
"The tool's initial deployment is complex and takes five hours to complete."
"The product must provide access points that can be plastered into the ceiling."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing, including both hardware and licenses, is reasonable."
"Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option."
"The pricing is pretty good for new technology."
"We used Cisco Professional Services for the deployment. They were outstanding, but very expensive."
"The price could be improved. It is expensive, but then again, it is Cisco. The price is worth what you pay for."
"Price is always an issue."
"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."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
11%
Construction Company
9%
Retailer
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
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 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.
What advice do you have for others considering Omada Cloud SDN?
As a current user at home and a pro reseller, I can highly recommend Omada Cloud SDN. For usage at home, it maybe a little bit technical but you can forget many issues like unnecessary add-ons you ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Aviatrix, Megaport and others in Software Defined Networking (SDN). Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.