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Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass vs Cisco Catalyst Center 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

Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass
Ranking in Network Management Applications
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Catalyst Center
Ranking in Network Management Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Catalyst Center is 4.4%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Catalyst Center4.4%
Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass1.7%
Other93.9%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Karthikeyan Ravi - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President of Technology at Netcon Technologies India Private Limited
Has an automated feature for user onboarding and supports heterogeneous devices
We use the product for the automated onboarding of corporate users with secure network access. It helps secure IoT endpoints for specific networks. It allows us to control the devices, including posture, endpoint verification, validation, latest patching, and signatures The product’s most…
AR
Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
Has improved infrastructure management with customizable reporting and automated deployment
Cisco Catalyst Center's reporting is one of the best features, providing graphs and quick hit analysis in one place instead of having to search elsewhere. Historical data can be stored in Cisco Catalyst Center, and dashboards and widgets can be configured to personal preference. Device deployment can be automated to the point where all someone needs to do is plug it in. Zero Touch Provisioning, while requiring some initial work to set up properly, provides significant benefits. Once configured, it reduces the need for travel by specific network personnel, allowing on-site or other staff to handle device deployment by simply plugging in the cable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It helps secure IoT endpoints for specific networks."
"I think the best features are the user profiling and the BYOD facilities."
"Catalyst provides a reliable and mature network solution, which has stabilized all features and improved productivity."
"The customer service is very good. They are excellent and efficient."
"Storing the configs with Cisco Catalyst Center benefits my organization because if there is a failure, I can restore directly from it."
"There is a lot of documentation for the platform, which is an advantage."
"The architecture and the way Cisco designs it, VXLAN and Cisco Express Forwarding are some of the features I like."
"Cisco Catalyst Center has been pretty smooth with scaling the growing needs of my organization, and it is scaling; we are about to replace all of our switches, so we are anticipating that it will help a lot with that."
"With Cisco Catalyst Center, it is now controlled in one location and I can easily manage them, ensuring they are all up to date with compliance checks and other requirements."
"Cisco Catalyst Center allows me to manage all the fabric SD Access from one location."
 

Cons

"I think the solution would be greatly improved by adding application level visibility on the dashboard."
"There could be in-built end-to-end map integration features for IoT devices instead of using third-party tools."
"The initial setup of Cisco Catalyst Center is complex."
"The initial setup for Cisco Catalyst Center is not a simple process."
"My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is that the hardware is probably a good price, but it feels like the license is always too expensive."
"My experience with deploying Cisco Catalyst Center had one challenge where we couldn't find enough documentation because one of our nodes went down. So we had to rebuild our entire Catalyst."
"Some documentation or use cases are not clear enough."
"The retention period of data could be improved from seven days to 30 days. This change would help in cases where users are on leave for extended periods."
"If they can add a layer of portable hotspots with some licensing flexibility for 20 to 50 users, it would be a great feature."
"I have not seen ROI at all."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass is an expensive product compared to other vendors."
Information not available
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909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Catalyst Center?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that licensing is always a pain, as everything involves levels of licensing, so when there are specific features I am looking for, they are ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Catalyst Center?
I would say Cisco Catalyst Center's PNP functionality is not as good as it could be. When the switches come out of the box and we try to configure it, the onboarding is kind of hard where I assign ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Catalyst Center?
The main use case for us is to centralize managing our switches in one spot. We have a lot of switches to manage, so it's very easy to find that useful.
 

Also Known As

Alcatel Lucent ClearPass, ClearPass Policy Management System, ClearPass
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blickle and Scherer, Loughborough University, CSF Inox, Caritas Speyer
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass vs. Cisco Catalyst Center and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.