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Cisco ACI vs Versa Cloud Services Gateway comparison

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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 (1st), Cloud and Data Center Security (7th)
Versa Cloud Services Gateway
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
15th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 9.1%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Versa Cloud Services Gateway is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Networking (SDN) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco ACI9.1%
Versa Cloud Services Gateway2.6%
Other88.3%
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.
reviewer1569237 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Of Product Strategy at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has many capabilities, but is overly complex for our use cases
We couldn't see anything uniquely valuable in the SDN and that's why we didn't pursue it. While the solution offers many capabilities, it did not line up with what we were looking for in our use case. As we are a small organization and do not possess many resources, the solution we use must be simpler and smaller than Versa Cloud Services Gateway. We found it to be too complex for our use case.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco's technical support team is very good."
"It is very stable. It works 100 percent of the time."
"We work with Cisco because they have many possibilities to work with very good support."
"The routing of traffic is one of our main focuses when utilizing Cisco ACI."
"The most valuable feature is the unified fabric."
"We get a full holistic view of the ecosystem."
"Technical support for this solution is great. The ACI guys have been some of the best technical support people that I've worked with at Cisco."
"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."
"From an economic perspective the solution is very competitive to what is offered in the market."
"It definitely offers a lot of advanced functionality."
 

Cons

"The initial set up was complex. We had to deploy 120 leads. Migrating from Legacy Cisco network to ACI was complex."
"I wish that if I had to open up an additional tab, I wouldn't have to log in every single time."
"Cisco ACI, segmentation-wise, could be more flexible, which is an area for improvement. The solution could be improved in terms of macro or micro-segmentation for many access lists and contracts. The process becomes very messy in the end."
"It's a very complex system, as it should be. It's a new way of thinking about networking. Cisco ACI adds complexity. Cisco ACI is extremely complex. That's not necessarily a complaint, as much as it is a fact."
"Cisco SDN will only work with its own devices, so that's a downside."
"I would like Cisco to simplify the interaction of the controller. I would also like them to simplify the way you configure the Fabric."
"I would really appreciate it if Cisco came up with something centralized to monitor everything."
"Sometimes I get stuck with somebody from technical support who does not understand the problem."
"We found it to be too complex for our use case."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option."
"The product is not cheap."
"The licensing cost for ACI is expensive - I would rate its price 2.5 out of five."
"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."
"The good thing about Cisco is that you can trade in your old products to replace them with ACI."
"We have seen time improvement using the product."
"From an economic perspective the solution is very competitive to what is offered in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
No data available
 

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.
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Also Known As

No data available
Versa CSG, Versa Networks CSG, Versa Networks Cloud Services Gateway
 

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: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.