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Cisco DNA Center vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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
41
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is 1.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

AvrahamSonenthal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ruslan Melnyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for network performance monitoring
My manager can explain the use cases attached to the product. I am a unit leader in my company, and I don't sell the product directly to our partners or customers. In my company, I manage certain processes and a team while building, developing, and providing them with a direction for the market. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is a good solution for network performance monitoring since it is not cloud-based. My company sells NETSCOUT nGeniusONE in eight to ten countries. I think the solution is not good for capacity planning, but it is better to help find problems in applications because not every infrastructure is good at managing working applications. I think it is a solution meant for applications. The tool is useful for solving problems attached to applications. The tool's real-time network monitoring capability was used when the product was more reactive. In our company, if we use real-time monitoring, then we need to deal with raw traffic. In our company, if we don't see any problem in the real-time systems, we have the possibility to rely on the tool since it acts like a time machine for us, which can allow us to get back to the areas of problem and solve them. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. For many users, it can be a good monitoring system that can be scaled up in the future. I think it is a good product to start with when working systems in an environment. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is another tool used to manage raw traffic, and I find it to integrate well into our customers' network. I am not using it actively on the system. I use the tool for network packet brokers. I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"It is simple to manage and it is all done from a single dashboard."
"I think that their LAN automation is a very good feature."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"I like that we can easily configure any new hardware. It's also easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot."
"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."
"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."
"If a lot of traffic from one site is hitting AWS Cloud or the data center, then we want to know which client is utilizing the most bandwidth. We will work with nGeniusONE to troubleshoot the issue."
"The installation process is straightforward."
"The solution transforms packet wire data into real-time data that is actionable. It helps us with faster detection of issues and allows us to create alerts."
"The solution helps us get to root cause quickly by using the Media Monitor to help identify QoS mismatches for voice calls on the network."
"The most valuable feature of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is it helps customer to understand what risks are in their network. For example, if a customer has some wrong configurations. It could cost them some critical services to slow down."
"The ability of the dashboards is useful for discover, mapping and understanding of application behaviour."
"The fact that it's able to capture and store packets from the wires is very useful for troubleshooting with our vendors, when issues do come up. It's valuable that we have that overall data for them."
"If one of our network pipes is getting plugged up by somebody using too much bandwidth, we can use the NETSCOUT tool to examine and find out what is going on."
 

Cons

"The network, data center, and SD-WAN are all being treated as different services, but I would like to have only one solution to manage all of them."
"The solution needs to improve the dashboard."
"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"The weaknesses primarily involve pricing and the ongoing need for increased bandwidth and data throughput."
"One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process."
"There are some software problems from version to version. It takes a long time for DNA Center to recognize the video and control access devices."
"The solution's integration feature can be better."
"They can improve the network visibility. Licensing and its maintenance are also needed."
"I would love to have them reassemble fragmented packets. That would be a very big plus in my book."
"We would like more encryption of customer data, because we have a very security conscious company. We have a lot of regulation coming in which requires us to make customer data private."
"The solution could do more for security. It should offer more security-related features."
"The scalability needs some work. From a probe perspective, we are limited to a certain amount of throughput on the devices themselves. Without having actual hooks into the bare metal hardware for the solutions, it's a bit of a "thumb in the air" as to when we hit our capacity or when our high watermark is."
"There are so many features that it makes it hard to know it all. You end up paying for things that you don't use and probably don't even need. It might be better if Netscout came up with a modular way to pay for what you're going to use and not pay for all of this "white elephant" without being able to take advantage of all of it."
"While it is good, the single pane of glass view is too high level. It is better for management or someone doing sanity checks. A lot of times, I need to go deeper into the additional screens to get what I want out of it."
"NETSCOUT nGeniusONE can improve the detection of what area of the infrastructure could be having an issue, such as an application, server, or network. It needs to find evidence of a fault."
"Initially, we were having a lot of issues with bugs when using version 6.1.1. There were a lot of problems with the dashboard causing confusion. We worked with our SE and the NETSCOUT engineering team to fix the visibility with the data. There should be a patch release to fix this issue. However, this seems to be working fine for us right now after the 6.2.2 upgrade."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"We have a three-year license with them."
"The product is very costly."
"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."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"It is very expensive, but it's well worth the money."
"The price is only for acquisition; it's not a licence."
"Their pricing is very competitive with other solutions... But what I like about NETSCOUT's licensing is that it's shared across all their platforms. They don't create a new licensing scheme for every one of their products. So for nGeniusONE, you buy a certain license level, and it works on all of their products."
"The biggest problem we have with this product is the expense."
"I rate the price of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE a four out of five."
"It can be expensive, but if you have a good configuration, based on what you are looking for, it's okay, it's manageable."
"Like any company, we always want better pricing. The pricing is okay, but it's not a cheap solution. When you want to deploy it across an enterprise as large as ours, you go into seven figures. It's not a cheap solution to get out there."
"This solution has saved us more than $50,000 a month and freed up 30 percent of our bandwidth."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

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.
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
The system is working fine for me currently.
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.
What do you like most about NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
The pricing is a bit high yet not overly expensive. The cost depends on the size of the customer, as sizing controls the pricing.
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
NETSCOUT nGenius, nGeniusONE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Cerner Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.