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Centreon vs Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) 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
1.0
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller delivers consistent connections and high ROI, benefiting diverse sectors over a decade.
Centreon provides timesaving and costsaving benefits as it lets us manage multiple devices on a single platform.
Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
It significantly saves time by automating monitoring tasks and reduces costs as it requires fewer resources.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

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
6.4
Customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some operational cases take longer to resolve.
We do not have direct access to Centreon's technical support.
Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
If issues arise, like services appearing as down in Centreon, technical support helps check the polar-server communication.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Technical support from Centreon responds within 24 hours and resolves issues quickly.
Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.
Cisco's support I would rate as a 10 compared to all other vendors.
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

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
7.3
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller is scalable, supporting integration and expansion, with varied user experiences on upgrading and compatibility.
Occasionally, for several hours, we do not receive any alerts, causing a business impact.
Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
We use other tools for adding and deploying configured devices, but direct access from Centreon would be beneficial.
Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.
 

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
7.8
The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller is praised for its stable performance and reliability, especially in managing data centers.
Centreon is a much more straightforward and stable tool compared to Icinga.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Sometimes we do not receive alerts, causing business impact, and users ask why no alerts were received.
Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Centreon users seek improved customization, monitoring, UI, documentation, integration, mobile features, auto-remediation, multilingual support, and notifications.
Cisco Nexus Dashboard needs easier configuration, better integration, improved performance, intuitive reporting, and competitive pricing to enhance user experience.
Enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks.
Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.
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.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Reliability is sometimes an issue. Centreon has a developer mode and production mode, but sometimes alerts don't come through in production mode.
Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I do not believe it integrated well with different infrastructures for hybrid environments.
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Centreon provides an open-source solution for SMEs but has a complex pricing model for enterprises needing premium features.
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller is costly but offers high value, transparent pricing, and excellent support and service.
 

Valuable Features

Centreon offers unlimited monitoring, enhanced visualization, and customizable features for efficient oversight with extensive device compatibility and anomaly detection.
The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller offers stability, ease of use, integration, and real-time insights for optimized network management.
Centreon's real-time monitoring, despite having some manual aspects, supports us in managing our operations effectively.
Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.
Monitoring is a fundamental pillar of technical support, and Centreon streamlines this process, reducing the need for extensive manual checks.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Centreon allows us to monitor all of our devices on one platform.
Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
People typically understand north-south traffic flows but usually miss the east-west traffic flows in data centers.
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Centreon
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (21st), Cloud Monitoring Software (17th)
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabri...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 1.7%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Centreon1.7%
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)0.7%
Other97.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Sulesh PK - PeerSpot reviewer
Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.
Experience enhanced monitoring with real-time alerts and efficient support
I would like to see automation in the poller features, as currently, the poller is not automated. If we could automate the addition or removal of hosts in the poller, it would improve efficiency. Sometimes, Centreon does not show the status of services as updated, which should be addressed. Additionally, enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks, as Centreon does not currently display issues with HTTP links, requiring manual investigation.
Jagdev Dhaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Flow monitoring has improved planning for east-west traffic and real-time capacity decisions
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) helps to understand the flows and data plane capacities, which are the primary use cases. Usually, people struggle with east-west traffic flow when they need to decide on firewalls or products. People typically understand north-south traffic flows but usually miss the east-west traffic flows in data centers. I was focusing more on this so that people can accordingly plan, such as after F5, the number of servers, the number of sessions needed, and whether we need to plan the interface for groups from the line capacity perspective. This kind of information was valuable to us. The real-time telemetry feature was beneficial. When experiencing performance issues, I could determine if there were any issues related to flows or areas where bottlenecks were occurring.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
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 Enterprise6
Large Enterprise16
 

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 Data Center Network Manager?
It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar plat...
What needs improvement with Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
In a mixed architecture where Nexus switches are used as border devices and are connected to a Palo Alto firewall (e.g., version 9.1 or 10.1), you might encounter issues with BGP peering. For insta...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cisco Data Center Network Manager
 

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.
Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
Find out what your peers are saying about Centreon vs. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.