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Cisco Crosswork Network Automation vs Cisco DNA Center comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco Crosswork Network Aut...
Ranking in Network Automation
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (2nd), Network Monitoring Software (34th)
 

Featured Reviews

Thu Al-Faqar Salah - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at V2X
Automation has simplified multi-vendor VPN provisioning and protects changes with safe rollback
I have performed automation for Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services provisioning during routing changes. In the data center, I completed provisioning tasks for Cisco switches using scripting in the YANG model and APIs. I deployed configuration remotely for approximately 400 to 500 switches, implementing automation instead of configuring devices individually. I also use Cisco Crosswork Network Automation Health Insights and change for streaming telemetry and KPI monitoring. The features have significantly helped decrease the complexity of using CLI commands. Using the YANG model and other tools for Cisco monitoring has been invaluable. Closed-loop automation and Health Insights have provided tremendous value through multi-vendor abstractions, including network elements and NEDs on YANG and NETCONF models. This has benefited my Layer 3 VPN configuration, and for the underlying commands, whether the target device is running Cisco IOS XR, Junos, or another platform, there are no restrictions between IOS types. Transactional rollback and multi-vendor support with closed-loop telemetry have been critical features. If a mass change fails on one device, the system cleanly reverses everything, ensuring I never end up with a half-configured device. This is an important capability in networking.
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

"Cisco Crosswork Network Automation has structurally lowered my organization's OPEX by basically eliminating manual traffic re-routing tasks, and has reduced maintenance windows roughly by half."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Automation positively impacts my organization by simplifying deployment complexity, providing stable scalability, and managing thousands of network devices without performance bottlenecks."
"Scalability is an exceptional strength of Cisco Crosswork Network Automation, as it is built for service provider scale, easily handles tens of thousands of devices, and uses a layered services architecture with microservices clusters and distributed data gateways to push thousands of concurrent changes without bottlenecks, which is incredibly impressive."
"Cisco is a leading network company."
"We have many people from the team who manage a lot of devices. By using Cisco DNA Center, it has taken some of that burden away, we are impressed with it. We did the investment in CAPEX, but in the OPEX was very low."
"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."
"The most valuable features were the monitoring, maintenance, and configuration."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"Cisco DNA Center is easier to use than Fortinet FortiManager."
"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."
 

Cons

"However, there are some areas that could benefit from improvement."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Automation needs improved API documentation, an expense integration guide, and code samples to simplify custom script development for DevOps and NetOps teams."
"I think the biggest improvement needed for Cisco Crosswork Network Automation is its multi-vendor support, which needs to be more robust."
"There are some software problems from version to version. It takes a long time for DNA Center to recognize the video and control access devices."
"The solution needs to improve the dashboard."
"One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process."
"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"It seems to be a little bit more centered toward wireless than wired. You've got more options you can do wirelessly than you can with the wired switches, but it works for what we need it to do. We would like to see a little bit more about the traffic, and we're looking at what's out there to see about that. We are looking at something that might give us a bit more insight into the actual traffic. If they had the full functionality on the wired side, as they do on the wireless side in terms of being able to view traffic and everything, it would be good."
"The solution can be quite pricey."
"Cisco DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it."
"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have a three-year license with them."
"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"The product is very costly."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"Cisco DNA Center is a licensed product with multiple levels of licensing available such as basic, advanced, and essential. I don't have the exact figure, but Cisco DNA Center is costly. For example, the box has information about the essential license and costs a considerable amount of money. You need to pay extra to use advanced features in Cisco DNA Center. My company sees Cisco DNA Center as a solution that's worth the money, which is why it invested in the solution. If you want centralized management for your network, especially when upgrading it, Cisco DNA Center is perfect, but it's more suitable for a large-scale rather than a small-scale network."
"It is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

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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?
The deployment of Cisco DNA Center was complex due to the fact that on the data center side, we have a Juniper infrastructure, which created some complexity, though not significant. The deployment ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco DNA Center?
In my organization, we currently have some Cisco devices such as access switches, and we also have infrastructure, but that is not part of our responsibility. We do not manage that infrastructure. ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
DNA Center
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Cisco, Broadcom and others in Network Automation. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.