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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

"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."
"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"The advice I would give to other people who want to use Cisco DNA Center is to go for it, particularly if they have Cisco infrastructure, though these days integration could be an issue."
"The price is really high, but it's worth every single dollar you pay."
"In day-to-day operations, especially post-pandemic, the majority of our customers have to work from anywhere, and having that single integrated dashboard for each and every activity while being able to correlate those activities in line with a business objective has been very well addressed by Cisco DNA."
"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."
"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."
"The solution has the capability to scale."
"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."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"The solution is a complete package; it has various useful elements including inventory management and incident management packaged inside it, and anything is possible with Tivoli since it is quite a robust system that offers a lot of useful integration capabilities."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"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."
"Full featured - event/fault management, performance management, topology map, discovery, RCA, event enrichment, Proviso will chart data from almost any source with a variety of aggregation options."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
 

Cons

"The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities."
"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."
"The solution can be quite pricey."
"It's a very good product, however, it comes with a very high price."
"Better compatibility with third parties and to other Cisco products because if versions are not perfectly matching requirements, it gives a lot of problems."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"Requires more focus on the digital side of things."
"There should be an option for automation of template deployment by using the stored data."
"IBM's technical support takes a long time to do root cause analysis, and we have to go through several levels of help before getting a solution."
"Customization and integration that you need to do to make the product fit your needs is very complex. It is not a product that somebody could easily pick up without any prior training or experience."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."
"It was a bit expensive to purchase but the benefits outweigh all the cons by far."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"From a customer perspective, it is quite an expensive solution to initially implement and then support."
"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"The partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution is a little bit expensive but depends a lot on the customer's usage. If you use it in the right place, you can easily pay for it."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cisco DNA Center is a licensed product with multiple levels of licensing available such as basic, advanced, and essential. I don't have the exact figure, but Cisco DNA Center is costly. For example, the box has information about the essential license and costs a considerable amount of money. You need to pay extra to use advanced features in Cisco DNA Center. My company sees Cisco DNA Center as a solution that's worth the money, which is why it invested in the solution. If you want centralized management for your network, especially when upgrading it, Cisco DNA Center is perfect, but it's more suitable for a large-scale rather than a small-scale network."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
report
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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.
894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.