No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

CA Unified Communications Monitor vs Cisco DNA Center 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

CA Unified Communications M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
87th
Average Rating
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications Monitoring (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (65th)
Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of CA Unified Communications Monitor is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 0.9%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center0.9%
CA Unified Communications Monitor0.5%
Other98.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1605927 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr.Solutions Engineer | Project Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Meets the needs of the customer but all of the features need improvement
I do not choose the solution. The client does. I am an implementer. We are systems integrators. It is worth mentioning that the solution should be easy to install and offer the user exhibition capabilities. Also, a data sheet should be used to gather information about the product, to facilitate easy and simple implementation. I rate CA Unified Communications Monitor as a five out of ten.
Mahir Öztürk - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at NGN Bilgi ve İletişim Hizmetleri
Client history has helped resolve past network issues more efficiently
I mostly use the client history feature of Cisco DNA Center. I didn't use the real-time monitoring capability of Cisco DNA Center because I primarily used it for client history regarding issues and problems. I don't use it for real-time monitoring. If there is a problem, I can inspect the situation and see what is happening, which is beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Good end-to-end monitoring"
"For us, it's very key to know the voice quality of the total solution, which is based on many components across many domains."
"We use the solution to meet the needs of the customer."
"We use the solution to meet the needs of the customer."
"DNA Center is scalable."
"The advice I would give to other people who want to use Cisco DNA Center is to go for it, particularly if they have Cisco infrastructure, though these days integration could be an issue."
"Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."
"Technical support is excellent. We have pretty good technical support."
"What I found valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the Software-Defined Access Network, so the entire LAN network can be centralized and managed from a single dashboard. Cisco DNA Center is suitable for centralized management and lets you deploy switches in a centralized fashion. You can also do multiple switch port configurations simultaneously and segregate your traffic into multiple fabrics. Another valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is enhanced security through Scalable Group Tags. Cisco DNA Center can be integrated with your Cisco ISE to enhance the port securities, and this paves the way for Software-Defined Networking in the LAN segment, which is the main advantage of Cisco DNA Center. I also like that you can use Cisco DNA Center for data assurance or correlation. The solution shows your network and client health parameters, which I find convenient for troubleshooting."
"It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out the configuration to branch networks. It also provides visibility into the health of user network devices."
"Scalability in Cisco DNA Center is good; we are using it for Software-Defined Access solution, and we haven't reached our device limit yet— from my experience, we can easily manage numerous devices."
"I think that their LAN automation is a very good feature."
 

Cons

"The solution should have automatic baseline detection."
"All the features and functions of the solution can be improved, specifically the user experience."
"The solution should have automatic baseline detection."
"All the features and functions of the solution can be improved."
"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."
"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
"DNA Center has been on the market for a few years and they need to update it."
"When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging."
"There is a limitation with the number of VRFs that you can have in your network, and this has caused us problems with some customers."
"It's a very hard software to learn. It's very deep, and when we first got it, there wasn't a whole lot of documentation on it."
"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"It's a very good product, however, it comes with a very high price."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"Affordability is a problem because it's created for large enterprises only. So, some customers, even if their engineers want the solution, might have problems with budget limitations."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
After evaluating other solutions, we will provide feedback.
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
In my opinion, the client history in Cisco DNA Center can be longer than 10 days, perhaps extending to 15 or 20 days. I am using it in a huge factory in Turkey, and sometimes I need to see what occ...
 

Also Known As

CA UC Monitor
DNA Center
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BBVA Compass
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about CA Unified Communications Monitor vs. Cisco DNA Center and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.