No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco DNA Center vs IBM Tivoli NetCool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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

Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Management Applications
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (17th), Network Automation (2nd)
IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 9.4%, down from 25.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 3.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center9.4%
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.5%
Other87.1%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Mahir Öztürk - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at NGN Bilgi ve İletişim Hizmetleri
Client history has helped resolve past network issues more efficiently
I mostly use the client history feature of Cisco DNA Center. I didn't use the real-time monitoring capability of Cisco DNA Center because I primarily used it for client history regarding issues and problems. I don't use it for real-time monitoring. If there is a problem, I can inspect the situation and see what is happening, which is beneficial.
Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the advantages is Cisco support."
"We have many people from the team who manage a lot of devices. By using Cisco DNA Center, it has taken some of that burden away, we are impressed with it. We did the investment in CAPEX, but in the OPEX was very low."
"The most valuable features were the monitoring, maintenance, and configuration."
"It is very versatile in terms of analytics."
"Cisco is a leading network company."
"It is a stable solution."
"DNA Center is scalable."
"What I found valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the Software-Defined Access Network, so the entire LAN network can be centralized and managed from a single dashboard."
"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"It's very easy to use."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"It improves customer satisfaction, deploy-ability, adaptability, flexibility, scalability, and reduces cost of operation."
"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."
 

Cons

"The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities."
"The deployment part is definitely an area for improvement; Cisco DNA Center has some weaknesses that require improvements in that area."
"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."
"As a user, it would be good if I could plug in controllers, suites, and devices from other vendors to Cisco DNA Center."
"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."
"Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs."
"We encountered issues with their response times, which had a big impact on our workflow."
"We have had a lot of problems with the Cisco switches and have needed to upgrade the operating systems, which means that we have to upgrade the DNA."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy."
"The product is pretty costly. It's definitely not the least expensive option."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"Affordability is a problem because it's created for large enterprises only. So, some customers, even if their engineers want the solution, might have problems with budget limitations."
"The partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model."
"The solution is expensive."
"Our licensing agreement is for three years."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Management Applications solutions are best for your needs.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco DNA Center?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it gives some kind of ease in operations, especially since our company is moving from CLI to GUI-based configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco DNA Center?
After evaluating other solutions, we will provide feedback.
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
The deployment of Cisco DNA Center was complex due to the fact that on the data center side, we have a Juniper infrastructure, which created some complexity, though not significant. The deployment ...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool?
NetCool is the manager of managers in the stack. It basically combines the devices of the whole network. We are the mobile network operator, so we use it to assist us in cross-domain correlations a...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
Tivoli NetCool
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.