ShieldX vs VMware NSX comparison

Fortinet and VMware are both solutions in the Microsegmentation Software category. Fortinet is ranked #14, while VMware is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.8. Fortinet holds a 0.3% mindshare in MS, compared to VMware’s 16.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of VMware users who would recommend it.

ShieldX

Read 4 ShieldX reviews

74 Views
13 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware NSX

Read 105 VMware NSX reviews

4,091 Views
1,585 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

ShieldX

VMware NSX

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 14, 2024

VMware NSX and ShieldX compete in the network security and virtualization market. VMware NSX holds an advantage in scalability and integration, while ShieldX is recognized for its advanced threat detection capabilities.

Features: VMware NSX offers micro-segmentation, deep integration with VMware environments, and extensive automation. ShieldX provides multi-cloud security, adaptive micro-segmentation, and advanced threat prevention tailored for dynamic cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: VMware NSX could enhance its security features beyond its integration focus and better support non-VMware environments. Improved simplicity in setup and broader cloud compatibility would also be beneficial. ShieldX may improve by providing more seamless integration with legacy systems, offering more comprehensive documentation, and expanding hardware compatibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware NSX benefits from smooth integration with existing VMware-centered environments, facilitating network management. ShieldX's deployment is flexible, praised for its straightforward implementation and quick setup across diverse infrastructures, coupled with efficient and responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: VMware NSX may involve higher setup costs due to its expansive features and integration abilities, with ROI observed over longer timeframes. ShieldX provides competitive pricing and offers quicker ROI through streamlined implementation and cost-effective security features, appealing to budget-conscious organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed ShieldX vs. VMware NSX Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX vs. VMware NSX

June 2025

Download the complete report

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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

ShieldX

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

14th

Average Rating

9.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware NSX

Ranking in Microsegmentation Software

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (7th), Network Automation (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Microsegmentation Software category, the mindshare of ShieldX is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware NSX is 16.5%, down from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

MichaelProcyshyn

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.

Read full review

MagdyRaafat

Services Presales Solutions Architecture - UAE & Gulf at Dell Technologies

Enhanced security and streamlined management drive efficient connectivity

Open source is a standard solution where you take a gray box or white box and put the software from your end. You can do programming with Ansible and make the network work in the software-defined mode, providing automation and management capabilities. I am currently working with VMware. It integrates easily with everything and can work with any system. When discussing micro-segmentation, it enhances security, providing more secure data in your data center while allowing for extra layers of security outside your data center. If you have an ACI, there is communication between locations, keeping your data secure in your data center and throughout the path it takes, such as to SD-WAN or the cloud. I work with cloud solutions including AWS, Azure, GCP, and private cloud. My overall rating for VMware NSX is 8.5 out of 10.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."

"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."

"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"The installation is straightforward, it took a couple of hours."

"The organization of it is logical, useful, and intuitive."

"Provides flexibility to deploy and have network virtualization on different types of firewalls."

"The most valuable feature of VMware NSX is the DFW (distributed firewall)"

"When you have a solid secure solution between your on-prem and cloud solution, then you're in a safe place."

"The solution is easy to use and is good for management control."

"Any administrator with basic networking knowledge, in a couple of days, can be in full control of their networking without going through a networking engineer."

"During our experience, the solution has been stable."

More VMware NSX pros

Cons

"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."

"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."

"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."

"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."

"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 would like better integration with the standards on the market. For example, with OSPF, their integration in NSX is very low. It's not a full OSPF integration. It is too thin from a protocol perspective."

"One drawback is this solution requires a lot of other products in the VMware ecosystem to have a full end-to-end operation orchestration monitoring. You have to buy a lot of add-ons to fully utilize the functionality."

"It might be nice to have more AI in the future."

"There are sometimes mismatch in the control, the details and what you actually see on the transport note."

"This solution is really unusable from my perspective at this point. Overall, I would rate the solution a one of ten."

"It lacks full knowledge of physical side of the network topology."

"In the future, the solution should be compliant with internet NIC."

"The solution could improve by having a more streamlined setup."

More VMware NSX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I was not involved in the purchase of the solution but I hear it is on the expensive side."

"I'm unable to give information on the pricing or licensing cost of VMware NSX because I've never been someone who looks into the economic part of any security or virtualization solutions. That's handled by an entirely different team, and I don't even have the slightest idea about the costs associated with the solution, though I've heard pricing for VMware NSX is on the higher side."

"The cost of the solution is a bit high."

"I would rate the pricing of VMware NSX as seven out of ten"

"The subscription is on a yearly basis."

"We are using the free version of the solution."

"The price of VMware NSX is reasonable."

"VMware NSX isn't cheap."

More VMware NSX pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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...

See all answers

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...

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What do you like most about VMware NSX?

The product has valuable features for security and network extension.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

June 2025

Download ShieldX product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware NSX

June 2025

Download VMware NSX product report

Also Known As

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO

VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender

Overview

The ShieldX Elastic Security Platform dynamically scales to deliver comprehensive and consistent controls to protect data centers, cloud infrastructure, applications and data no matter where they are or where they go to make the cloud more secure than on-premise deployments. Our frictionless approach leverages agentless technology as well as the ShieldX Adaptive Intention Engine which autonomously translates and enforces intention into a set of comprehensive controls - microsegmentation, firewall, IPS and more - making security the easiest thing you do in the cloud.

Fortinet

VMware NSX is a sophisticated solution utilized for micro-segmentation, network security, software-defined networking, and private cloud construction. It aids in the transition from physical to virtual infrastructure, ensuring efficient network virtualization and security of production workloads.

VMware NSX empowers organizations to manage network functions, implement distributed firewalls, and enhance security within virtual environments. Crucial for disaster recovery and load balancing, it supports cloud-native application development and enterprise clients. Its ease of use, scalability, and seamless integration with existing VMware solutions ensure streamlined network management and swift deployment. Despite its extensive features, areas like pricing, routing functionality, and compatibility with certain platforms require attention.

What are the key features of VMware NSX?

Ease of Use: Simplifies network management with an intuitive interface.
Scalability: Adapts to growing infrastructure needs seamlessly.
Micro-Segmentation: Enhances security by dividing networks into smaller, manageable segments.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing VMware solutions and third-party applications.
Dynamic Routing: Optimizes network traffic efficiently.
Security Options: Offers robust firewall features and security measures.
Automation: Facilitates quick deployment through comprehensive automation capabilities.
High Bandwidth: Ensures high-performance network operations.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Enhanced Network Security: Superior protection for virtual environments.
Efficient Disaster Recovery: Reliable support for business continuity.
Reduced Deployment Time: Fast implementation and configuration.
Improved Network Management: Centralized and streamlined control of network resources.

VMware NSX is widely implemented across industries such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. Organizations in these sectors utilize it to bolster security, enhance network efficiency, and support cloud-native applications. By extending on-premise networks into provider spaces and managing virtual access networks, VMware NSX significantly optimizes infrastructure operations.

VMware

Sample Customers

Iowa State University

City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX vs. VMware NSX

June 2025

Free Report: ShieldX vs. VMware NSX

Find out what your peers are saying about ShieldX vs. VMware NSX and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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