Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) vs. Cisco Meraki MX

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco ACI
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is network virtualization technology.N/A
Cisco Meraki MX
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Meraki MX Firewalls is a combined UTM and Software-Defined WAN solution. Meraki is managed via the cloud, and provides core firewall services, including site-to-site VPN, plus network monitoring.
$595
per appliance
Pricing
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Meraki MX
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
MX64
$595
per appliance
MX67
$695
per appliance
MX68
$995
per appliance
MX84
$1,995
per appliance
MX100
$4,995
per appliance
MX250
$9,995
per appliance
MX450
$19,995
per appliance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco ACICisco Meraki MX
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Meraki MX
Considered Both Products
Cisco ACI
Chose Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)
LAN, Storage network and compute were already Cisco so we moved from Nexus to Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure as natural alignment and simplified the dc operations.
Cisco Meraki MX
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
The enormous difference between Catalyst and Meraki products is the granular and simple deployment. The Cisco security appliance firewall gives one and you more granular activity whereas the Cisco Meraki MX is focused on plug and play and it gets one and you going. I like …
Features
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Meraki MX
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)
-
Ratings
Cisco Meraki MX
7.9
131 Ratings
9% below category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.0126 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.4123 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings8.1121 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings7.9121 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings7.5105 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings7.4123 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings7.4128 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings8.8122 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings8.7124 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings7.6117 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings6.670 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Meraki MX
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.6 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.6 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Meraki MX
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(98 ratings)
9.1
(174 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(5 ratings)
8.7
(14 ratings)
Usability
7.5
(7 ratings)
8.4
(10 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(9 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(10 ratings)
8.3
(19 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(9 ratings)
9.0
(141 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.5
(1 ratings)
9.5
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Meraki MX
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
I feel that Cisco ACI is quite good at different architecture designs. You can have it as just a straight layer two network. You can have it like we have with a vast layer three network and I think just for the layer three network it has easen up the use. I think the use cases for layer three networking is better for ACI. If you just want to do the layer two, you can still use Cisco Nexus and so on and that should be almost simpler in some way.
Read full review
Cisco
It's very well suited for retail locations where you have a small footprint and it's a collapsed core design and it's connecting to a larger hub. We don't necessarily use them in our data centers just because they don't have the full capability we have. We use FTDs in our data centers, so we use a different Cisco product for that. So I would say they're really good at setting up sites quickly, getting them connected, protecting the traffic, and then they're a little weak in a data center right now.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • Cisco ACI, The object model is very complicated. It's something difficult to understand and also because there is a user interface, there's a web user interface, but it's not optimal to use it because if you want to deploy a large amount of VLAN or a large amount of tenants, it's quite difficult to do it or it's quite challenging. Maybe if you want to configure a large amount of ports using the web interface, it's not appropriate because it takes a lot of time. It also provides APIs to do that, but as I say, the object model is very difficult to understand and there is very little documentation about automation of the ACI and maybe there is but it's not so easy to find.
Read full review
Cisco
  • The Cisco Meraki MX series is phenomenal at allowing us to remotely manage networks. So the devices usually act as the brain behind our client's networks, which makes it really, really easy for our team to take a look at what's going on in those client network environments, resolve any issues, and make sure that our client's networks are staying secure.
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • I think something I've just went to a session with hyper fabric and the ideas that hyper fabric has. Keep it really simple because Cisco ACI is a complex system and adopt some of the ideas behind hyper fabric, bring it to ACI that will be really beneficial. So as I said, automation is a great thing, but it's still, you need to have the background and the really complex stuff that happens behind the scenes to leverage the value of that solution. And by adding more simplicity to it, I think that will be a great thing. And also integrating with other applications in terms of the automation.
Read full review
Cisco
  • Inbuilt wireless does not support tunnel SSID mode. This has meant not all SSID in our organisation can be deployed at a MX site.
  • Whilst Inbuilt switch ports support dot1x, they do not report as well on our NAC server as on a MS switch or catalyst switch.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
Provided with the intensive fault isolation for the CISCO ACI, we are glad that we have this Data Center Solution in place and we will continue to renew as long as the future needed requirements are meet and more helpful features will be enabled in the future with the integration of security
Read full review
Cisco
The simplicity and ease of use for the Meraki Dashboard make it an easy choice for our organization to renew our Meraki Enterprise Agreement. We will likely continue using the Meraki MC67-C, MX450, and other MX models in their catalog until we shift away from Meraki completely
Read full review
Usability
Cisco
You'll need a lot of training and hands on experience to get the most out of the product. There are a lot of very useful features in the ACI product. Often times there are a lot of ways to get to a solution for chalanges in the field. The solutions might be different eacht time. Knowing which one to implement is somtimes a challenge.
Read full review
Cisco
Some features simply aren't there, but the ones that are there are pretty easy to use. Sometimes it is easy to get lost when trying to find the specific device you want to work on, but that's mostly due to how rarely we have to go into the interface.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
It allways works. If there are problems with links going down by accident (say someone accidentally unpatches something they shouldn't have), we rarely miss more then one packet over the link. Also, using VPCs we are able to upgrade the software on the switches without the attached EPs ever noticing.
Read full review
Cisco
Meraki MX devices support high availability (HA) configurations, which ensures minimal downtime if one device goes offline. This feature has helped us maintain a stable and reliable network, even in cases of hardware failures. ince Meraki is cloud-managed, we've noticed that the cloud infrastructure is generally highly reliable, with minimal service interruptions or downtime. This makes it easier to manage the network remotely without significant availability concerns. Meraki automatically pushes firmware updates and patches, which helps maintain system stability without requiring manual intervention. These updates are rolled out in a manner that ensures minimal disruption to service.
Read full review
Performance
Cisco
Day to day operations on Cisco ACI do not require much human intervention, the platform ticks over without any major faults. Being able to rapidly replicate the communication between two groups of machines across multiple sub networks speeds up new application delivery, and the integration into vmWare allows multiple teams within IT to work together to problem solve rapidly.
Read full review
Cisco
The interface is pretty responsive. The lower end devices are easy to overwhelm if you have a lot of throughput. Be sure the model you get is rated for the amount of traffic you will have. Overbuild if possible, otherwise you won't be fully leveraging the connection from your ISP.
Read full review
Support Rating
Cisco
Cisco provides users and partners with a multitude of data for you to consume. I think that the stuff in the public domain goes a long way to assisting you find any answers you may need, plus insights and information from areas such as DevNet provide you with access to more than just the traditional release notes and the like
Read full review
Cisco
I haven't ever had a bad experience with Meraki support. On the few occasions where I wasn't understanding the UI or needed some clarification about what a setting actually would do, I contacted them and they were very quickly able to provide help. Returns are simple and fast, too. We had to return a defective device one time and they shipped the replacement before we had even un-racked the one that was faulty. Unlike many other vendors, they didn't ask use to a do long list of scripted diagnostics, they just took my word for it that the device was broken and sent out a replacement immediately
Read full review
In-Person Training
Cisco
The Cisco ACI training provided by Cisco was in depth, covered all of our requirements, and allowed us to implement and maintain the platform without issues.
Read full review
Cisco
great when they offered it, really tested your knowledge with hands on and see what your peers from other orgs know. glad to see that we were ahead of the curve of what our peers knew
Read full review
Online Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
it was okay as it was moderated but still better than nothing and done via semi self paced webex meeting
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Cisco
Being involved in the implmentation gives you more overview on how things are supposed to be working and communicating, you can easily performce troubleshooting and understanding the troubleshooting scenario
Read full review
Cisco
Implementing Meraki MX devices in phases—starting with a pilot group or select branch offices—was invaluable. This allowed us to identify potential configuration issues, troubleshoot problems, and refine our setup before rolling it out company-wide. It also helped to get feedback from early users and adjust the deployment strategy accordingly. The SD-WAN capabilities in Meraki MX were essential for optimizing our WAN traffic and ensuring better application performance across various locations.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Actually we start our learning in networking career with Cisco. So it is very useful or easier to learn this product. And honestly speaking, I didn't work in any other data center solution other than Cisco. So I cannot compare what it gives us more than other popular stuff. But this is very nice product like from Cisco.
Read full review
Cisco
The Meraki Dashboard has been a lot more intuitive than CradlePoint NetCloud. We switched from CradlePoint to Cisco Meraki MX because we were already familiar with the interface which allowed us to be familiar with a single dashboard.
Read full review
Scalability
Cisco
Cisco ACI scales well and is suited in scenarios such as multi-cloud or large data centre implementations. It is not suited to smaller deployments as the efficiencies that it provides are not fully realised. It is well suited in large environments that contain both virtual and bare-metal machines allowing a great deal of flexibility. It is also perfect to support multi-tenancy platforms.
Read full review
Cisco
When I first started with my company we had various infrastructure and a mix of tech. Since going to Cisco Meraki MX we have noticed better network performance and our new sites are much easier to bring online. Users have noticed an improvement in VPN connection and getting into all our systems.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We've definitely spent quite a bit of time relearning how to do things in ACI, but I think the investment has been well worth while considering that we can now deploy tenants and leaves from the ground up in a matter of seconds.
  • We can if we choose to upgrade an entire datacenters worth of switches in a single night. (We've chosen to break it up for availability requirements, but if you didn't require 99.999% uptime like us you may be able to do it)
Read full review
Cisco
  • From a positive impact? Basically it allows us to set up shop very quickly. It allowed us to add sites to our network very quickly. From a negative perspective, I think the only thing is that I can see from a negative perspective is I have a preference to working with ACLI in terms of how I engage with the youth tool At the moment, the only way to actually engage with a tool is on a gui and sometimes what I'd actually like is more detailed information in terms of actual configuration that you'll actually get out of ACLI.
Read full review
ScreenShots