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Cisco Crosswork Network Automation vs Infoblox NIOS 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
Infoblox NIOS
Ranking in Network Automation
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
DDI (4th)
 

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.
AS58 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineering Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Centralized IP management has reduced outages and now delivers faster, disciplined network operations
Infoblox NIOS can be improved because there is always a scope of improvement in everything. I would recommend UI simplicity. The UI is powerful, actually, but it feels heavy for new users. A more modern and task-oriented interface would reduce the onboarding time. Advanced features such as grid extensibility and APIs require solid training. Better guided workflows and in-product tips would help teams adopt faster. Reporting and dashboard are very interactive, but I think the built-in reports are functional but basic. More customizable visual dashboards would help managers and NOCs quickly see trends. The licensing clarity feels a bit complex. If the packaging were clearer and there was easier visibility of the feature uses, it would help with planning and cost control. I feel that if there could be any feature related to role-based self-service portals integrated for non-network teams, that would help in reducing the dependency on the network team for other teams. That would help in collaborating better.

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."
"I think the cost can be justified because it drastically reduced our incidents; we did not have any DNS-related incidents in three years supporting the traffic flow for about 10 million people, being part of a big network infrastructure as an ISP company in our country, so having no incidents in those three years is a strong metric."
"Infoblox NIOS has positively impacted my organization because since we began using the tool, we have experienced fewer outages regarding IP conflicts, wrong DNS entries, and DHCP mistakes."
"DNS Threat Protection feature is probably one of the primary reasons to use Infoblox NIOS."
"Infoblox NIOS has a very huge capability of automation, and most of the work can be automated on the DDI front."
"Infoblox NIOS has impacted my organization positively by giving us an overview about how users utilize the internet, stopping many DNS breaches generated by internal users, and helping us to determine the distribution of IP addresses through DNS IPAM."
"Centralized management is valuable, and using the GRID system, it works very effectively."
"Infoblox NIOS has positively impacted my organization in several ways, as automation using PowerShell and CSV scripts saved significant time and reduced errors, while a central policy for DNS and DHCP changes enhanced operational reliability, sped up delivery times, and maintained high data quality by minimizing discrepancies between spreadsheets and tools."
"Infoblox NIOS does not have a need for great improvement; it is a very robust and self-sufficient tool out of the box, offering most of the features which a customer would need."
 

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."
"Sometimes we face API limitations, and some developers feel that the API documentation and certain basic functionalities could be improved."
"Customer service rating: 4 out of 10."
"For the learning curve with Infoblox NIOS, this could be a drawback; I think the website is very difficult to get information from, but we attended helpful training and regularly work with the support team and professional services, which helped us master Infoblox NIOS functionalities."
"From the automation perspective, Infoblox NIOS is helpful in normal IT technology work, but there are not many things to automate within Infoblox NIOS, so the automation perspective is not very strong in this product."
"One improvement for Infoblox NIOS is the cost, especially when dealing with the physical device, as it is expensive."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing feels somewhat higher."
"I feel the product is very reliable, and I think the cost may be a bit high, but apart from that, I have no suggestions or feedback for any improvement."
"The UI is powerful, actually, but it feels heavy for new users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
University
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Infoblox NIOS?
If only one Windows Server license can be obtained, all features can be used for free in Microsoft.
What needs improvement with Infoblox NIOS?
From the automation perspective, Infoblox NIOS is helpful in normal IT technology work, but there are not many things to automate within Infoblox NIOS, so the automation perspective is not very str...
What is your primary use case for Infoblox NIOS?
Infoblox NIOS is used for DDI, DHCP, IPAM, and DNS. I work on DNS, IPAM, and DHCP, and I use Infoblox NIOS tool for these cases, which represent DDI. DDI in the environment is my only use case.
 

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.