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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
41
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
158
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.7%, down from 6.0% 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions."
"The most valuable features were the monitoring, maintenance, and configuration."
"The product gives a consolidated view."
"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"I like the visibility, instant build, network, policies, and the ability to control access. I also like that you can visualize your whole network."
"The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration."
"Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."
"Automation is another key highlight. With automation, you can automate everything through a single port."
"Provides a good level of tools and covers essential components."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"Network performance is the main issue clients are facing. SolarWinds checks if a node is down, and we can set thresholds for performance metrics. For example, we set it up to get an alert automatically if a value is over 80 percent. It has a full dashboard that covers CP, hard disk, and node monitoring."
"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
 

Cons

"The solution’s security side could be improved."
"The cost is very high."
"The solution's setup process needs enhancement."
"In terms of the clustering part, there are some concerns."
"The features of Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Prime could have more parity."
"Integration with analytic tools and API integrations would be ideal."
"The solution's technical support is an area with which my company's clients have a problem. Cisco doesn't provide good technical support unless a user has a big account that Cisco wants to retain."
"When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"The solution's customer service is not very good because the support takes too long."
"Sometimes there are issues when upgrading to a new version of the product."
"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is medium-priced."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"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."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"We have a three-year license with them."
"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"Quite highly priced"
"I find that the pricing is acceptable."
"Price could be improved on"
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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
18%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
6%
Educational Organization
58%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
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 needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
The system is working fine for me currently.
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
 

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: March 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.