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Cisco DNA Center vs SolarWinds NPM 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:
 

ROI

No sentiment score available
Sentiment score
7.4
SolarWinds NPM delivers quick ROI with cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and improved network visibility for proactive management and profitability.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.5
Cisco's customer service experiences range from excellent to inadequate, highlighting issues with expertise, communication, and support consistency.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM's support is knowledgeable but faces issues in response speed, sales tactics, and customization support options.
They have good technical support.
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco DNA Center offers scalable, flexible network management, praised for ease of configuration despite costly licensing and limited IPv6 support.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and adaptable, with flexible deployments but may need dedicated hardware for optimal performance.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco DNA Center is generally stable, rated highly by users, despite occasional minor issues with logs and database errors.
Sentiment score
7.5
Properly managed SolarWinds NPM is stable, with fewer issues in updated versions, relying on infrastructure planning and resource allocation.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco DNA Center struggles with compatibility, pricing, training, and features, impacting user experience and system performance.
SolarWinds NPM faces challenges with accuracy, user interface, scalability, support, stability, resource use, and pricing concerns.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers should consider Cisco DNA Center's high cost and potential licensing fees, but promotions may lower expenses.
SolarWinds NPM offers competitive pricing but can be costly; complex licensing and additional fees may impact smaller businesses.
Pricing-wise, SolarWinds NPM is more expensive than PRTG.
The solution is considered expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco DNA Center offers analytics, AI-driven insights, centralized management, and automation, enhancing network operations with scalability and ease of use.
SolarWinds NPM offers easy deployment, intuitive monitoring, customizable dashboards, multi-vendor support, scalability, and community-driven enhancements for proactive management.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 5.2%, down from 6.1% 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.
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
6%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco DNA Center?
I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive.
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process. The time required for downloading and installing packages during upgrades is too long, often taking around ten hours. This is a significant i...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.