What users are saying about
64 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 9.1 out of 100
Based on 64 reviews and ratings
40 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.9 out of 100
Based on 40 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
Firewall Security Management

Cisco ACI
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A
7.9
Palo Alto Panorama
79%
Palo Alto Panorama ranks higher in 8/8 features
Palo Alto Panorama ranks higher in 8/8 features
Policy planning and rule management

N/A
0 Ratings
7.3
73%
9 Ratings
Automated Policy Orchestration

N/A
0 Ratings
8.7
87%
8 Ratings
Device Discovery

N/A
0 Ratings
8.7
87%
6 Ratings
Policy Compliance Auditing

N/A
0 Ratings
6.5
65%
8 Ratings
Attack Path Simulation Testing

N/A
0 Ratings
8.7
87%
4 Ratings
Anomalous Event or Behavior Deviation

N/A
0 Ratings
8.4
84%
8 Ratings
Vulnerability Scans

N/A
0 Ratings
8.9
89%
4 Ratings
Firewall Rule Cleanup

N/A
0 Ratings
6.3
63%
8 Ratings
Attribute Ratings
- Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) is rated higher in 1 area: Likelihood to Renew
- Palo Alto Panorama is rated higher in 3 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Usability, Support Rating
Likelihood to Recommend

9.1
Cisco ACI
91%
25 Ratings
9.3
Palo Alto Panorama
93%
10 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew

9.1
Cisco ACI
91%
3 Ratings
9.0
Palo Alto Panorama
90%
1 Rating
Usability

7.8
Cisco ACI
78%
4 Ratings
8.2
Palo Alto Panorama
82%
2 Ratings
Availability

9.1
Cisco ACI
91%
2 Ratings
Palo Alto Panorama
N/A
0 Ratings
Performance

9.3
Cisco ACI
93%
9 Ratings
Palo Alto Panorama
N/A
0 Ratings
Support Rating

8.1
Cisco ACI
81%
9 Ratings
8.5
Palo Alto Panorama
85%
7 Ratings
In-Person Training

8.2
Cisco ACI
82%
1 Rating
Palo Alto Panorama
N/A
0 Ratings
Implementation Rating

9.1
Cisco ACI
91%
3 Ratings
Palo Alto Panorama
N/A
0 Ratings
Product Scalability

8.7
Cisco ACI
87%
9 Ratings
Palo Alto Panorama
N/A
0 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco ACI
Implementation of a new application into Cisco ACI, with all of the relevant groups of servers and storage, is very easy to carry out, as long as all of the communications between the servers are known. Migrating an existing application into the platform was found to be extremely difficult, as legacy applications are often built on a flat network, where this kind of information wasn't documented in the required depth.
Senior Cyber Security Engineer
South Yorkshire PoliceLaw Enforcement, 10,001+ employees
Palo Alto Panorama
We have multiple internal and external firewalls at our headquarters as well as firewalls at our remote locations. Users are always needing to access services and systems at our headquarters and when they tell us they don't have access we can use Panorama to view the traffic and see where they are getting denied. Without Panorama we would need to log into each firewall and see if they are getting denied with Panorama we get an overview of was is happening and it's amazing.

Verified User
Administrator in Engineering
Computer & Network Security Company, 1001-5000 employeesPros
Cisco ACI
- The REST API allows your to programmatically interact with the network and make massive changes very quickly when needed.
- The API allows you to tie together Server Provisioning tools, storage provisioning tools, into an orchestration platform such as Ansible to streamline new deployments and builds.
- New Deployments are extremely simple once you've worked out your programatic deployment process. We can deploy new clients/tenants in seconds rather than days or weeks like it used to take.
- Replacing failed switches/apics/etc is also extremely easy.
- Tightly couple the underlying Network Infrastructure to VMWare Deployments to allow VMs to move anywhere in the datacenter at the drop of a hat.

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employeesPalo Alto Panorama
- Being able to create common rules that can be maintained on multiple firewalls is very beneficial to our management of the different functional needs of the firewalls.
- Using templates to manage regional requirements is helpful for rolling out changes in the networking side, from user managemnet globally to SEIM/Syslog collection regionally, being able to stack templates helps deliver the necessary changes across multiple firewalls.
- Panorama's Dashboard and ACC provides useful information that can be set to see All firewalls, or just certain groups of firewalls. Since each group of firewalls has different applications running through them, being able to isolate one group at a time helps identify if there are errant devices causing unexpected traffic, and what type of traffic it is.
Sr. Systems Analyst (Team Lead)
CelaneseChemicals, 5001-10,000 employees
Cons
Cisco ACI
- Cost is always a challenge and ACI is no different.
- The linkage between ACI and Tetration has been rebranded since the initial marketeering of it and this has caused confusion and in some cases diminished the business case as a result.
- The fact that Cisco has developed multiple Orchestrators of their differing network stacks causes issues when trying to pull together a singular approach to orchestration across a Cisco e-2-e network in an Enterprise.

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Telecommunications Company, 10,001+ employeesPalo Alto Panorama
- Unexpected log outs outside the normal timeout window seem to happen often
- Better reporting, really a downside to the product
- Scheduling would be a great feature

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employeesPricing Details
Cisco ACI
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—Cisco ACI Editions & Modules
—
Additional Pricing Details
—Palo Alto Panorama
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$0
Palo Alto Panorama Editions & Modules
Edition
25 Devices | $9,500.00 |
---|---|
100 Devices | $23,750.00 |
1000 Devices | $71,250.00 |
- none
Additional Pricing Details
—Likelihood to Renew
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 9.1
Based on 3 answers
Cisco ACI is doing exactly what was intended for it to do, that is support our next generation data centre, improve security, and increase resiliency. Migrating to another platform would be a waste of time, resource and energy, which could be better spent migrating more legacy applications into the Cisco ACI fabric.
Senior Cyber Security Engineer
South Yorkshire PoliceLaw Enforcement, 10,001+ employees
Palo Alto Panorama
Palo Alto Panorama 9.0
Based on 1 answer
Panorama has given us much more than we expected and the support for the product, by Palo Alto Networks has been great. We would like to see some improvements that I mentioned in another review, like scheduling changes, but overall Panorama has provided a very capable product and we are very happy with it.
Sr. Systems Analyst (Team Lead)
CelaneseChemicals, 5001-10,000 employees
Usability
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 7.8
Based on 4 answers
Cisco ACI has changed the traditional data center model into a new era of automation and agility. The product was considerably easy to deploy met all the expectations. In terms of usability, ACI provides a unified interface for managing the whole infrastructure in one place which is the main benefit for users (admins)

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 5001-10,000 employeesPalo Alto Panorama
Palo Alto Panorama 8.2
Based on 2 answers
You can do anything via the GUI without going to the CLI. High real time security as every five minutes, it updates the list of phishing websites. High protection as the firewall communicates with the cloud, a machine running artificial intelligence helps to detect malware or other threats.

Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology
Telecommunications Company, 10,001+ employeesReliability and Availability
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 9.1
Based on 2 answers
no outages

Verified User
Professional in Sales
Telecommunications Company, 1001-5000 employeesPalo Alto Panorama
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 9.3
Based on 9 answers
I do not give it 10 because the platform evolves more and more every day in the data traffic of the datacenter.But the implementations that they carry out for different clients of the platform are very happy with the result of the same over time.Another point that you notice about the platform, despite its good performance, is the low use of energy used by this 24x7 on, it is a good fact to take into account for our environment.

Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Telecommunications Company, 1001-5000 employeesPalo Alto Panorama
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 8.1
Based on 9 answers
Application and service support, in times where we needed consulation, were superb. Issues were mainly due to familiarity of our Senior Engineers with this new tool or application, and the uncertainties were clearly explained by the Support Team. All the while, an "unofficial" training, so to speak, was also provided during the implementation phase - but it's most likely due to the technical person that was assigned to us and how his approach was in terms of assisting.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Telecommunications Company, 501-1000 employeesPalo Alto Panorama
Palo Alto Panorama 8.5
Based on 7 answers
They have always been able to resolve our issues promptly. We have only had one critical issue, and it was handled expediently.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Government Administration Company, 1001-5000 employeesIn-Person Training
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 8.2
Based on 1 answer
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.
Senior Cyber Security Engineer
South Yorkshire PoliceLaw Enforcement, 10,001+ employees
Palo Alto Panorama
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 9.1
Based on 3 answers
The following are extremely important when implementing Cisco ACI:
- Design phase
- Naming scheme
- Documentation
Sr. DataCenter Engineer
Conscia NetsafeInformation Services, 51-200 employees
Palo Alto Panorama
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco ACI
ACI and DNA are all very tightly integrated as it stands today. So using one with another only increases the overall benefits, when you are using the overall Cisco Stack of NGFW, ISE, ACI, Assurance engine, and Tetration (which is another product, we plan to evaluate)
IT
TrafiguraOil & Energy, 5001-10,000 employees
Palo Alto Panorama
In the past, we have used Cisco firewalls with Firepower and Palo Alto Panorama is easier to manage and more user-friendly. Also the performance of end firewalls/devices is much better than Cisco if you enable all features on them.
Security Specialist
HubsportConsumer Services, 201-500 employees
Scalability
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI 8.7
Based on 9 answers
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.
National Manager Architecture services
NEC AustraliaComputer Networking, 1001-5000 employees
Palo Alto Panorama
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco ACI
- We typically don't have to touch ACI. It does what we need it to do without having to "baby" it.
- It's constantly running so the amount of downtime we have (if any) is very minimal.
- It was pricey in the beginning but with is reliability it was well worth it.
Network Administrator II
Central Electric Power CooperativeUtilities, 51-200 employees
Palo Alto Panorama
- Reduced a lot of threats by blocking poorly reputed domains automatically, saving us a lot of time, which we would have otherwise spent on putting it on the manual blacklist.
- Helped us in almost discontinuing with the Cisco Firepower, saving a lot of money, with its powerful IDS feature.

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Higher Education Company, 5001-10,000 employees