Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. vRealize Network Insight

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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 Nexus Dashboard Fabri...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

35th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.6%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Upul Abhayasena

Manager - Technology at a engineering company with 10,001+ employees

Robust management tool with an easy setup and room for more features

DCNM is used by one of the airline customers in Qatar to manage many data centers and rack switches running on normal Nexus or NX-OS mode. They required a controller platform to manage these Nexus switches, and thus, they utilized DCNM as a Fabric controller. Given that ACI deployment is very low…

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NiteshKumar1

Principle consultant at Infosys

The tool's configuration is easy and artifacts are easily accessible through professional services and the web

The product is highly regarded, and many customers have been using it along with other VMware products like vSphere and VMware vCloud Usage Insight. However, recently, there's been a trend among customers, especially those using VMware for a considerable period, to explore the potential of migrating to the public cloud. The common concern among these customers is how the VMware products will perform in the public cloud environment. Migrating instances from VMware to different platforms is not easy, especially when dealing with many instances across multiple customers. Customers are keen to maintain the functionality of their existing VMware products but prefer to run them on the public cloud instead of on-premise servers. Our clients for vRealize Network Insight are enterprise businesses. I rate it a nine out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Cisco Data Center Network Manager are consistency and the core server. The teams have had a good experience."

"The product makes the management of our environment simpler."

"Monitoring system provides a clear indication of what's going on in the network."

"The automation capability is more than enough. It depends on how we consider and integrate the automation engine. We need to ensure the automation engine and then how to perform it. It depends on the policy making, API integration, and other integrations."

"The monitoring capability is the best in Cisco Data Center Network Manager. It helps me improve network management tasks and optimize processes."

"Data Center Network Manager is absolutely stable."

"It has a very nice dashboard so you can see what's currently happening in the network and the performance of the back story."

"After installation, you almost forget that it is working."

More Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) pros

"It has really tightened down the security. That was something that we were lacking. It has also given us deep visibility into our network. We can really get down and see all of the traffic within the data center, between the VMs, between the applications, database servers, other application servers, web servers. We can identify everything that is communicating, and we can see it all on one product."

"It is user-friendly. It's pretty simple to deploy and to run. It gives you pretty easy-to-understand reports, very graphically intense, so you can visualize what's going on in your network."

"The most valuable feature is the visualization. It's really handy to be able to classify network objects as with applications and see the interaction between them."

"The most valuable feature is being able to easily see the path that the VM traffic is taking, what ports are in use."

"The solution has helped improve our organization by directing the network traffic using SDN."

"It helps a lot because, until now, we didn't have the tools to figure out the micro level, VM-to-VM kind of traffic; that was not in the current environment. We could not figure out VM-to-VM communication from the other tools. This is the tool which gives us end-to-end transparency."

"The graphical interface of this environment is so good with all the views, the graphics, and everything in them. It's really easy for me. It doesn't need an engineer to work on it. It's easy enough that anyone can get into the environment and look for issues or look at how communication is going on across the VMs. It's pretty much straightforward."

"The automation collects all the relationships between servers, allowing us to visualize these relationships and organize the migration into waves."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"The tool should be more user-friendly and improve AI integration."

"API lacks robustness."

"It would be nice to have the ability to more easily collect information from other software when doing some types of analysis."

"It's a relatively expensive product for some clients."

"If the customer thinks about using additional solutions, Cisco should make sure they are not left out."

"It is not very easy to monitor or to browse."

"Sometimes the product gives us problems that require support."

"The reporting is not very intuitive and has room for improvement."

More Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) cons

"Since Broadcom acquired VMware, it has been experiencing challenges. Many sales processes are not well defined."

"The only reason I would not give it a nine or a 10 is for cost reasons. It seems to be one of those things that really belongs as part of the product inherently and not as an add-on. That would be my only concern."

"I would like to see them expand the capabilities to infrastructure types other than just VMware."

"It needs to be a little easier to use and to understand the information it's putting out. That would make it more helpful. If you're not a network person you need to understand things like network policies and concepts. If you gave it to a regular admin, it would be nice if it were easier for them to pick up what is going on, understand the flows and whether or not stuff should be talking to each other, as opposed to just port groups and IP addresses."

"The compatibility with each and every component of the infrastructure is the main thing that I am looking for. I would like them to make sure that it's compatible with different kinds of storage systems, etc. I have seen the compatibility list. I feel it can be more compatible than it is right now."

"In a very general way, I would like to see an improvement in interoperability with third-party product, from other vendors."

"If it were more application-aware, more descriptive; if it were able to determine the application that is actually doing the communication, that would be easier. More application information: which user or account it's accessing, is it accessing this application, doing these calls, if it is accessing a script, what script is it accessing. Things like that would provide deeper analytics so I can track what's going on. It would not just be, "These people shouldn't be talking," but who is actually doing these calls."

"After you use it for a little while you become accustomed to it but the layout doesn't feel very intuitive. You have to dig around and find the exact place where you can find the information, where you can actually see your east-west traffic, etc. I would like them to bring that information more to the forefront, instead of having to find it."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."

"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 platform across all domains."

"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."

"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."

"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."

"We usually opt for a yearly plan, commonly for three or five years upfront. Some customers may not utilize all the features included in the product, and this can lead to them paying for functionalities they don't need."

"The solution is very expensive."

"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."

"It has brought more money into our company."

"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."

"The solution has reduced the time that we spend on other products. For example, with NSX, we were able to quickly find things that we would normally spend days trying to figure out."

"It's a little expensive, but for what you're getting out of the product, you often see the trade-off. It depends on the type of licensing you have. It might be a little too pricey for some."

"We have spent less time investigating network flows, so it is absolutely cost-effective."

"It's an expensive product because we have a lot of nodes."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

What do you like most about vRealize Network Insight?

The tool's ease of configuration and use and the availability of information and artifacts through professional services and the web are key factors that customers find valuable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vRealize Network Insight?

Broadcom is known for increasing product prices, making them expensive compared to what people used to pay. I liken the subscription model to not truly owning what you pay for.

What needs improvement with vRealize Network Insight?

Right now, I do not see a specific area for improvement. My main concern is understanding the intentions of Broadcom, which has acquired VMware. Broadcom should improve by going back to what was wo...

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Product Reports

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)

Download Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) product report

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) report

vRealize Network Insight

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager

Arkin

Overview

The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) offers a comprehensive solution for managing Cisco NX-OS switches in hybrid-cloud environments, providing automation, visibility, and consistent operations. Designed to simplify and enhance data center management, NDFC integrates with Cisco Nexus Dashboard to streamline network connectivity, reduce deployment times, and ensure seamless transitions with minimal disruptions. Its modular architecture, new user interface, and support for non-Nexus OS platforms make it a robust tool for LAN, SAN, and IP Fabric for Media management. Additionally, NDFC enhances fabric reliability, automates workflows, and supports cloud connectivity with AWS and Microsoft Azure, making it ideal for businesses adapting to increasingly complex digital environments.

Cisco

VMware vRealize Network Insight delivers intelligent operations for software-defined networking and security. It helps customers build an optimized, highly-available and secure network infrastructure across multi-cloud environments. It accelerates micro-segmentation planning and deployment, enables visibility across virtual and physical networks and provides operational views to manage and scale VMware NSX deployments.

VMware

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia

NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. vRealize Network Insight