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Nutanix Flow Network Security vs ShieldX comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ShieldX
Ranking in Microsegmentation Software
11th
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Microsegmentation Software category, the mindshare of Nutanix Flow Network Security is 6.8%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ShieldX is 2.3%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Flow Network Security6.8%
ShieldX2.3%
Other90.9%
Microsegmentation Software
 

Featured Reviews

Vishnu Mohan - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Delivery Manager Cloud And Datacenter Operations at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Cloud-style segmentation has improved hybrid security but integration with on-prem tags still needs work
I would like to see better micro-segmentation capabilities in Nutanix Flow Network Security. It has to work with our Cisco on-premises tooling. We use something called tagging on-premises, so if the same tags could be used in Nutanix Flow Network Security, then that would make life easier. The Cisco part was a challenge in terms of how it integrates with third-party vendors and tools, so we have kept it for the next release.
MP
IT Director at park holidays uk
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The micro-segmentation feature helps to manage network security effectively because it helps the virtual machines that are already on the cluster and the applications inside the cluster itself, protects them and helps them communicate with each other without needing a complex external or internal firewall in this use case."
"They also introduced that they develop API first and the rest follows."
"What I like about Nutanix Flow Network Security is that it features cloud-like segmentation, which is available in a hybrid environment for us."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Flow Network Security's most valuable features are user-friendliness, the console, and policy creation."
"We appreciate the fact that this solution allows us to segregate two virtual machines that are in the same cluster."
"Nutanix Flow is straightforward to install. You only need to select a checkmark that you want to enable Nutanix Flow."
"When comparing the costs of Nutanix Flow versus managing multiple VLANs and many other firewalls, it is far less expensive."
"Very often, when new challengers come in, what they do is they end up coming in at a lower cost with more functionality."
"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."
"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX."
"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."
"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."
"ShieldX makes it a lot easier and a lot simpler to define your policies and define your rules, and that greatly reduces the opportunity for user error."
"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."
"Once you install it you can virtually forget about it; it's very low-maintenance and high-protection."
 

Cons

"For customers who are running Nutanix Flow and AHV, the largest area for improvement is in the disaster recovery environments. To automate the populate of rules from one side to the other side in case of disaster you report everything on the disaster recovery site, and you have all the rules automatically applied. This was something that was being built when I left Nutanix. It might already be available. Additionally, the usability of the rules editor could improve."
"Nutanix Flow Network Security needs to improve threat hunting, compliance, and policy optimization - these things that security officers would use."
"For customers who are running Nutanix Flow and AHV, the largest area for improvement is in the disaster recovery environments."
"I would rate Flow Network Security's stability seven out of ten - it could be improved."
"We would like the reporting functionality of this solution to be improved."
"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."
"Last time I used it, it was not handy to see or to analyze traffic logs."
"Nutanix Flow's networking features could use some improvement. Also, I don't know if it's currently supporting load balancing or not."
"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."
"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."
"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."
"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This model is very accessible to implement."
"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."
"The product is available for free use."
"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."
"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."
"There are different licensing models."
"Flow Network Security is available on a three-year license, with annual renewals of the maintenance fee."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Healthcare Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with Nutanix Flow?
I would like to see better micro-segmentation capabilities in Nutanix Flow Network Security. It has to work with our Cisco on-premises tooling. We use something called tagging on-premises, so if th...
What advice do you have for others considering Nutanix Flow?
I cannot think of any weak sides, drawbacks, or something to improve. We have not implemented the impact on Nutanix Flow Network Security's zero-trust security model on our threat control processes...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Nutanix Flow Microsegmentation
APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Iowa State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Flow Network Security vs. ShieldX and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.