We compared VMware NSX and Cisco Secure Workload based on our users' reviews in six categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: VMware NSX provides advanced virtual networking capabilities, a distributed firewall, and seamless integration with VMware Hypervisor. Nevertheless, it has areas that could be enhanced such as licensing clarity, compatibility with non-Windows operating systems, and user-friendliness. Conversely, Cisco Secure Workload is commended for its user-friendly interface, stability, and comprehensive solution. However, it faces challenges in terms of integration, a complex dashboard, and controversy surrounding data reduction. Cisco Secure Workload does excel in providing excellent technical support, particularly for networking products.
"The product provides multiple-device integration."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network."
"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."
"By using Tetration insight, we are able to get the latency on our level accounts and we can determine whatever the issue is with the application latency itself."
"The security offered by VMware NSX is the most valuable, plus it's a feature-rich product that's straightforward to install and configure."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"Some of the key features I find most valuable are the highly graphical user interface, virtualization of networks, and Microsoft application compatibility. It has all the functionality that we require."
"The installation is straightforward, it took a couple of hours."
"I have found the solution to be stable."
"NSX's stand-out function is the distributed firewall. The firewall system is just top-notch, and I haven't seen another solution like it."
"One significant advantage of VMware NSX is the ability to provide advanced security at the micro-level, focusing on securing applications and workloads rather than just the network structure or virtualization-based network security."
"The migration methods are the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"There was a controversy when Cisco reduced the amount of data they kept, and the solution became quite cost-intensive, which made its adoption challenging….Although they have modified it now, I preferred the previous version, and I wish all the functionality were back under the same product."
"It is not so easy to use and configure. It needs a bunch of further resources to work, which is mainly the biggest downside of it. The deployment is huge."
"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"They should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem. The issue with the price comes from the fact that you have to have it with enormous storage and enormous computes."
"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and I need to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."
"I'd like to see better documentation for advanced features. The documentation is fairly basic. I would also like to see better integration with other applications."
"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"The network-extending capabilities for the physical environment need improvement."
"I want to see the solution expand to more than just the network, for example, perhaps it could provide some VLAN technologies."
"The feature it can improve is essentially application-based load balancing with intelligent load distribution for applications that require redundancy and high availability."
"There are always issues integrating with Cisco."
"It takes time to do the initial setup. It is a bit slow, which is surprising."
"I would like to see automation capabilities in the deployment process."
"The engineering team has room for improvement. They should have have more of a Knowledge Base about different case studies and should develop more advanced features. These kinds of improvements will change the way things get done."
"The price is rather high."
Cisco Secure Workload is ranked 9th in Cloud and Data Center Security with 13 reviews while VMware NSX is ranked 1st in Cloud and Data Center Security with 93 reviews. Cisco Secure Workload is rated 8.4, while VMware NSX is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Workload writes "A solution that provides good technical support but its high cost makes it challenging for users to adopt it". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware NSX writes "Allows for seamless micro-segmentation and the support is exceptional". Cisco Secure Workload is most compared with Illumio, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Cisco ACI and Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine), whereas VMware NSX is most compared with Nutanix Flow Network Security, Illumio, Cisco ACI, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Cisco DNA Center. See our Cisco Secure Workload vs. VMware NSX report.
See our list of best Cloud and Data Center Security vendors and best Microsegmentation Software vendors.
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