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Centreon 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.1
Centreon enhances ROI through efficient monitoring, quick issue resolution, cost savings, and minimal impact during outages.
Sentiment score
5.4
Cisco DNA Center offers ROI through time savings despite its cost with a user rating of 4/5 to 7/10.
Centreon provides timesaving and costsaving benefits as it lets us manage multiple devices on a single platform.
It significantly saves time by automating monitoring tasks and reduces costs as it requires fewer resources.
Although Cisco DNA Center is expensive, we have seen a return on investment in terms of time savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Centreon's customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, though availability limitations and support level improvements are needed.
Sentiment score
6.2
Cisco DNA Center support is generally well-received, though some users encounter delays and desire better documentation and consistency.
We do not have direct access to Centreon's technical support.
If issues arise, like services appearing as down in Centreon, technical support helps check the polar-server communication.
Technical support from Centreon responds within 24 hours and resolves issues quickly.
Overall, Cisco DNA Center rates eight out of ten as a complete solution.
The support for Cisco DNA Center is good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Centreon is valued for flexibility and scalability, though improvements in data management and alert scaling are recommended.
Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco DNA Center offers scalable network management with effective expansion, despite limited IPv6 support and high licensing costs.
Occasionally, for several hours, we do not receive any alerts, causing a business impact.
We use other tools for adding and deploying configured devices, but direct access from Centreon would be beneficial.
From my experience, we can easily manage numerous devices.
The solution is designed for large enterprise companies.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Centreon is stable and reliable, though stability may vary; support resolves issues swiftly, especially with the latest versions.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco DNA Center is generally stable, with users praising its reliability despite minor bugs and stability challenges.
Centreon is a much more straightforward and stable tool compared to Icinga.
Sometimes we do not receive alerts, causing business impact, and users ask why no alerts were received.
When we communicate problems, they solve them effectively.
 

Room For Improvement

Centreon users seek improved customization, monitoring, UI, documentation, integration, mobile features, auto-remediation, multilingual support, and notifications.
Cisco DNA Center needs better integration, pricing, UI, stability, deployment, reporting, training, and troubleshooting for improved usability.
Enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks.
Reliability is sometimes an issue. Centreon has a developer mode and production mode, but sometimes alerts don't come through in production mode.
While Centreon excels at server-level monitoring, it lacks the ability to track web app availability and latency, unlike Dynatrace, which is efficient in this area.
The AI-driven insights have contributed significantly to faster troubleshooting and predictive analytics.
The client history in Cisco DNA Center can be longer than 10 days, perhaps extending to 15 or 20 days.
 

Setup Cost

Centreon provides an open-source solution for SMEs but has a complex pricing model for enterprises needing premium features.
Cisco DNA Center's high costs and licensing requirements can deter smaller businesses, appealing mainly to large enterprises.
Centreon's pricing is not very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Centreon offers unlimited monitoring, enhanced visualization, and customizable features for efficient oversight with extensive device compatibility and anomaly detection.
Cisco DNA Center provides analytics, centralized management, and enhanced security with automation, real-time monitoring, and AI-driven network insights.
Monitoring is a fundamental pillar of technical support, and Centreon streamlines this process, reducing the need for extensive manual checks.
Centreon's real-time monitoring, despite having some manual aspects, supports us in managing our operations effectively.
Centreon allows us to monitor all of our devices on one platform.
If there is a problem, I can inspect the situation and see what is happening, which is beneficial.
The most valuable features include AI-driven insights which make troubleshooting much easier.
 

Categories and Ranking

Centreon
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Cloud Monitoring Software (14th)
Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
11th
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 October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 2.2%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco DNA Center1.4%
Centreon2.2%
Other96.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Simon KONAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Plug-ins are free but it has limitations in sending out information to users
The issue my company has with the tool stems from the fact that it didn't give an on-time response to us. The product collects the information, but it fails to send them via SMS, WhatsApp or Telegram. The solution can be used if you want to get email notifications, which is not good for our company because if someone is not in front of their desktop, you can't receive information about an equipment or LAN that is down.
Mahir Öztürk - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Centreon?
Centreon's pricing is not very expensive. Initially, I rated it seven, but corrected to five out of ten.
What needs improvement with Centreon?
I have certain concerns with Centreon, such as being unable to set downtime for multiple devices at once due to the limitation of adding only 50 devices in a single go. Increasing this limit would ...
What is your primary use case for Centreon?
We are using Centreon for monitoring devices, both LAN and WAN devices. There are subsidiaries for my company, so if any devices go down or there are any service alerts, we receive alerts through C...
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?
We have utilized the software-defined access (SDA) feature of Cisco DNA Center. The AI-driven needs enhancements and Integration and unification of visibility and monitoring to include other areas ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
DNA Center
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus, Bollore, BT, Canal Plus, Kuehne Nagel, Limagrain, LVMH, Oberthur Technologies, Orange, Darty, Addax Petroleum, Plastic Omnium, Auchan, Valeo, Saint Gobin, Clarins, Hugo Boss, JC Decaux, French Government (Defense, Justice, Environment, Agriculture), OptiComm, Thales, Zeiss.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Centreon vs. Cisco DNA Center and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.