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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

"Now, our customers have tiers of management that have meetings with about the simplest tasks because it has to be approved from upper management and senior management and by the time it gets to the engineer that's going to deploy it, it takes way too long. With the solution, they can delegate a person who would be in charge of running the ACI as a whole, and it will be much faster because it doesn't have to go through the whole chain of command for the simple task of deploying one little machine on one port in the data center."
"This solution allows you to do everything quicker and more efficiently."
"We will improve our organization using the automation."
"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."
"One area where it has an advantage... is that you're able to reuse a specific integration. If you add another server, you can use a specific integration and assign it to another port."
"It is one of the better solutions in the market right now."
"The biggest benefit has been that it has improved communication between my endpoints in the data center."
"It has made it simpler and easier for non-Cisco personnel to come in and configure stuff because it is easier to understand, compared to when you configure Nexus using the CLI."
"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

"Biannually, there is a new design delivered by Cisco. Thus, you are always running behind the new design, and it never stops. With Cisco ACI, this has been a nightmare."
"I would like Cisco to simplify the interaction of the controller. I would also like them to simplify the way you configure the Fabric."
"Sometimes, it has been a bit hard to configure it. Since it is a new technology, Cisco moved all the menus. This made it tricky to use."
"The CLI needs to be improved."
"It needs more integration with public clouds, like Azure and AWS."
"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."
"I can recommend that Cisco improve its execution."
"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."
"We found it to be too complex for our use case."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is not cheap."
"Cisco's pricing is very expensive."
"There are no additional costs. We only have to pay for a support contract apart from the license."
"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."
"It is quite expensive. It is not at all on the cheap or medium side."
"Pricing for Cisco ACI could be expensive if you're not a gold partner. If you're a gold partner, you'll get reasonable pricing, but to become a gold partner, you must cross several layers. For example, at least twenty engineers within your organization have to be certified, with each certification priced at £2,000 minimum, so this would make some companies think twice about the product. If you're going for Aruba and Juniper products, on the other hand, you can quickly get the partner status, and you can start selling the product. As a gold partner, you can get up to seventy percent discount on Cisco ACI, for example, while an ordinary partner gets ten percent off. Cisco ACI is expensive for both customers and partners, but I'm rating pricing for the product as four out of five because even if the price is costly, you get a lot of benefits from the product. Cisco ACI isn't the best, price-wise, but it's still a good solution. If you're in a small organization, you may be unable to afford it. Cisco ACI is best for enterprises but not SMBs because Cisco ACI and its required resources are expensive."
"Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option."
"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.