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
6.2
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (9th)
Omada Cloud SDN
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
5th
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 2026, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 9.1%, down from 15.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Omada Cloud SDN is 4.9%, down from 11.8% 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 SDN4.9%
Other86.0%
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Khandelwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"It offers multitenancy. The opportunity to install it on the same platform with a huge amount of customers."
"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."
"The centralized configuration is its most valuable feature."
"It scales very well. When you increasingly scale with it, it makes the product easier to work with."
"It is very stable. It works 100 percent of the time."
"The most important aspect of Cisco ACI in my opinion is the ease of management."
"Immediately buy Cisco ACI. It will simplify your work in a way that you can't even imagine until you try it."
"Because we can use automation processes with this platform, we have been able to free up our IT department's time."
"The solution enables us to monitor and help our customer with their connectivity remotely."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more troubleshooting apps. There should be more and better SNMP monitoring."
"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."
"The challenging thing about Cisco ACI was we had to put a lot of effort into providing the customer the full picture, new standards, and new technology that they had to use. This was more challenging than deploying the product."
"It needs to be able to function on the cloud."
"The product needs to be simpler. There is too much complexity in ACI. 80 percent of its features are of no use to us. We could do with a simplified version."
"It adds a layer of complexity that you can really do without."
"In the new version of 4.0, the management groups for updating the software is not the best way to do it. It was better in 3.2."
"It is challenging for people who don't understand the programming language, making it difficult to migrate. With technology, there are two verticals. One is hardware driven and the other is software driven. Most people in our domain understand networking, but they don't understand programming. When we migrate, some programming is required."
"The product must provide access points that can be plastered into the ceiling."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Yearly, we pay around one point two million for the solution."
"We have saved time on the provisioning and configuration."
"If you compare the licensing and total cost of ACI, it's cheaper than NSX because of the licensing fees. If you are going for full NSX features it will be too expensive, especially the next-generation firewalling feature."
"There are no additional costs. We only have to pay for a support contract apart from the license."
"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."
"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 don't use all of the features but it's still worth the money."
"It is quite expensive. It is not at all on the cheap or medium side."
"The tool is reasonably priced."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions are best for your needs.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Retailer
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise88
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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

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: May 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.