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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."
"Cisco Catalyst switches are reliable and stable."
"The solution primarily focuses on visibility into Cisco products and day zero, day one, and day two operations, enabling plug-and-play features, device onboarding, hierarchy definition, and telemetry data collection to offer a comprehensive 360-degree view with basic automation and visibility assurance at its core."
"Cisco Catalyst Center has significantly reduced travel time for our organization, which has approximately 60 locations across our state."
"Cisco tech support is one of the best in the industry, which is a strong feature available across their products."
"Whenever something goes down, it's easy for us to look into a problem because before teammates reach out to us saying they're not getting to the internet, we already know there's a problem because of Cisco Catalyst Center, so it's very useful and helps us have less downtime."
"One of the most significant features of Cisco Catalyst Center that has improved our network performance is the wireless assurance, which helped us identify issues in the wireless; thanks to the help of Cisco Catalyst Center, we migrated from 2.4 to 5G as we understood where the maximum service interruptions were happening, leading to significant improvement in customer satisfaction, better connectivity, better strength, and better onboarding."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Catalyst Center is automation."
"The integration of Cisco Catalyst Center is fine"
 

Cons

"There could be in-built end-to-end map integration features for IoT devices instead of using third-party tools."
"I think the solution would be greatly improved by adding application level visibility on the dashboard."
"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."
"The main drawback of Cisco Catalyst Center is that it can only manage and monitor Cisco devices with a DNA license, specifically the Catalyst 9000 series."
"The deployment process is pretty complex"
"The only limitation is when integrating with other products due to Cisco's proprietary protocols."
"The area for improvement in Cisco Catalyst Center is the spectrum analyzer, as I find it difficult to identify which type of device is causing a problem."
"The integration of Cisco Catalyst Center is fine, but the deployment process can be pretty complex, involving some irrelevant or uncertain information during setup."
"There is room for improvement in introducing auto-heal AI capabilities. In the current setup, incidents are always reactionary, and it would be beneficial if Cisco Catalyst Center could proactively handle issues such as bandwidth crunches and packet drops."
"My customers often complain about numerous software bugs requiring frequent software patches and updates to resolve these issues."
 

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.