Cisco DNA Center vs Nagios Core comparison

Cisco and Nagios are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Cisco is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.0, while Nagios is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 1.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to Nagios’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Nagios users who would recommend it.

Cisco DNA Center

Read 41 Cisco DNA Center reviews

1,783 Views
1,076 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

4,253 Views
3,272 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Cisco DNA Center

Nagios Core

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Nagios Core and Cisco DNA Center compete in the network management category. Based on features, Cisco DNA Center holds an upper hand due to its advanced analytics and automation capabilities, although Nagios Core offers flexibility and cost-efficiency.

Features: Nagios Core provides maximum flexibility through its open-source nature, allowing text file configurations and integration with various plugins. It supports comprehensive monitoring of servers and networks with a robust architecture for distributed monitoring and reliable alerts. Cisco DNA Center integrates analytics, centralized network management, and automation, making it ideal for Cisco device deployments. Its seamless integration and advanced automation features enhance user experience.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Core can be difficult to configure and requires significant technical expertise, with limitations in application-level monitoring and scalability. Cisco DNA Center is hindered by high pricing, complex configuration, and challenges integrating with non-Cisco products. Both could improve user interfaces and ease of setup, though Cisco's advances in automation offer benefits.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Nagios Core and Cisco DNA Center mainly operate on-premises with hybrid and public cloud options. Nagios Core setup demands technical expertise and relies on community support. Cisco DNA Center provides a structured support framework but still requires internal expertise for setup, often underutilized by smaller infrastructures due to costs and complexity.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core is open-source, offering significant cost savings and high ROI as there are no licensing fees, only investments in expertise. Cisco DNA Center often faces criticism for high costs, including licensing and deployment fees, posing financial challenges for smaller enterprises, but offers valuable features for large-scale environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco DNA Center vs. Nagios Core Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center vs. Nagios Core

April 2025

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Helped 848,716 peers since 2012

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 Monitoring Software

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)

Nagios Core

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.0%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

AvrahamSonenthal

Senior Network Engineer at Inside Global

Efficiently manages our wireless network and provides valuable monitoring features

The platform's biggest benefit has been in managing our wireless network. Having a single pane of glass to control all wireless controllers and access points and to monitor activity has been a significant advantage. We're a small federal agency with around 300 network devices, so automation is a minor focus. It's more relevant for larger networks. The main benefits we've seen are in inventory management and the potential for configuration automation. However, I recommend using the DNA Centre only for larger networks with over a thousand devices; otherwise, it may not be cost-effective. Before proceeding, ensure that your devices are compatible with DNA Center, as not all Cisco devices are supported. Also, investing in proper training is different from plug-and-play. I rate it an eight.

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Nishith-Vyas

Tech Lead at STL Digital Limited

Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements

The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product gives a consolidated view."

"Cisco VXLAN is a protocol that has been around for some time, but the practical implementation and operational capability of Cisco DNA Center bring it to life."

"It offers automation, security enforcement, analytics, and integration with other Cisco technologies, making it a key driver for efficient network operations and compliance with security protocols."

"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."

"Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning."

"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."

"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."

"It is simple to manage and it is all done from a single dashboard."

More Cisco DNA Center pros

"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."

"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."

"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."

"The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything."

"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."

"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."

"Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system."

"The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me."

More Nagios Core pros

Cons

"In terms of the clustering part, there are some concerns."

"The features of Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Prime could have more parity."

"The solution's integration feature can be better."

"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."

"Cisco DNA Center was a new technology for us, at the beginning, it was not easy to do, but Cisco did a lot of training with us to a level we could handle everything. The team is managing itself now without the assistance of Cisco."

"There is a limitation with the number of VRFs that you can have in your network, and this has caused us problems with some customers."

"The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities."

"Integration with analytic tools and API integrations would be ideal."

More Cisco DNA Center cons

"The mapping is a little hard."

"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."

"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."

"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."

"The UI is a little outdated and graphics could be displayed in a better way."

"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."

"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."

"Nagios Core is limited in terms of distributed setups, and there is no central view for remote data centers."

More Nagios Core cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."

"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."

"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."

"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."

"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."

"We have a three-year license with them."

"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."

"I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."

More Cisco DNA Center pricing and cost advice

"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."

"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."

"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."

"It's free."

"The solution is expensive."

"Nagios Core is free to use."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco DNA Center?

The cost is very high.

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What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?

The system is working fine for me currently.

See all answers

What do you like most about Nagios Core?

What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?

Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nagios Core?

The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

Juniper Mist Wired Assurance vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiManager vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 6% of the time

Meraki Dashboard vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 6% of the time

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Icinga vs Nagios Core

Compared 26% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 18% of the time

Zabbix vs Nagios Core

Compared 14% of the time

Centreon vs Nagios Core

Compared 9% of the time

OP5 Monitor vs Nagios Core

Compared 4% of the time

More Nagios Core Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center

April 2025

Download Cisco DNA Center product report

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

April 2025

Download Nagios Core product report

Also Known As

DNA Center

No data available

Overview

Cisco DNA Center offers a comprehensive platform for network automation and management, providing detailed analytics, enhanced security, and streamlined operations for both wired and wireless networks.

Cisco DNA Center integrates with Cisco infrastructure to deliver efficient network automation and management, helping organizations improve network visibility, security, and control. It supports AI-driven analytics and automated workflows to enhance operational efficiency and reduce errors. Challenges include compatibility with third-party systems, steep learning curve, and complex deployment. Its interface facilitates centralized control, vital for troubleshooting, policy management, and configuration management, with support for zero-touch provisioning and SD-Access.

What are the key features of Cisco DNA Center?

Robust Analytics: Provides detailed insights into network health with AI-driven analytics.
Centralized Security: Integrates with ISE for comprehensive security management.
Automated Device Management: Simplifies device provisioning and configuration transfers.
Wi-Fi Analytics: Offers deep insights into wireless network performance.
Zero-Touch Provisioning: Streamlines new device deployments with minimal human intervention.
Scalable Segmentation: Efficiently segments network traffic ensuring security and performance.

What benefits should users consider?

Operational Efficiency: Automation reduces potential errors and streamlines workflow.
Enhanced Security: Integration with Cisco ISE bolsters security capabilities.
Network Visibility: Comprehensive dashboards and analysis tools enhance monitoring.
Troubleshooting: Real-time monitoring aids in identifying and resolving issues swiftly.

In sectors such as healthcare, finance, and retail, Cisco DNA Center is utilized for its ability to enhance security and compliance, manage large-scale networks, and provide detailed analytics for better operational decision-making. Its support for location tracking and policy automation ensures efficient network management across diverse environments.

Cisco

This is IT infrastructure monitoring's industry-standard, open-source core. Free without professional support services.

Nagios

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center vs. Nagios Core

April 2025

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