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Cisco DNA Center vs Fortinet FortiManager vs OpenText Network Node Manager comparison

 

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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 24.0%, down from 29.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiManager is 5.4%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Network Node Manager is 2.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed  Helmy - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience unified visibility and monitoring for enterprise campus and significant time savings and enhanced troubleshooting with reliable support
We have been working with Cisco DNA Center for ten years. Our clients use Cisco DNA Center for unified visibility/monitoring across Enterprise Campus both LAN & WLAN along with Access and fast technical issues troubleshooting The solution provides fast troubleshooting capabilities and fast…
Damitha Anuradha - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage multiple devices with ease but experience complexity in deployment and limited AI features
I use Fortinet FortiManager to manage multiple devices in a single location. Although it does not provide a security posture itself, it depends on the firewall policies and settings in their respective firewalls. Fortinet FortiManager is primarily meant for the management of devices Fortinet…
Qusai Abuomar - PeerSpot reviewer
Network performance optimization achieved with comprehensive visibility and effective event handling
The root cause analysis is valuable. The availability and event handling are also very good, as our team understands the events well. Overall, the tool helps maintain the health of the network. It provides visibility for the network device status, link status, and hardware status of devices such as switches and routers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It does a lot of things automatically, and that's the big thing with it. They're making the software so that you don't need to be as knowledgeable as me on the switching and routing side to get your work done. If you want, you can have DNA troubleshoot your problem for you and give you solutions or fix it itself, if it was something that's just a configuration issue."
"The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration."
"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."
"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."
"It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions."
"Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"I like the visibility, instant build, network, policies, and the ability to control access. I also like that you can visualize your whole network."
"The centralized management of policies and certificates, coupled with the capability to handle multi-site deployments effectively, provides streamlined operations."
"The most valuable feature is the central configuration for firewall policies."
"The main benefit of Fortinet FortiManager is the ability to control all the devices from a central location, view their statuses, and manage their configurations and updates from a single management console."
"A fully integrated solution."
"Fortinet FortiManager allows you to manage multiple FortiGate devices from a single console, and this is a valuable product feature."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiManager is the ease of manageability and policy-pushing functionality."
"FortiManager enables us to set unified firewall policies from one centralized dashboard, reducing human error. If you do not have a central dashboard, there's a chance you might set a policy on one firewall and forget to do it for another."
"The capability of centralized management is valuable. We can configure all firewall boxes with the same configuration."
"We do not have any issues stability-wise."
"You can utilize the main file from various vendors for integration."
"Overall, the tool helps maintain the health of the network."
"Most valuable function would have to the internal causal engine and its root cause analyzer which keep us updated on critical errors and incidents in our network environment."
"If you install one node on Network Node Manager and want to scale it up, it's pretty easy to create more nodes."
"Topology creation is the most valuable feature."
"It gives us a good overview of what's happening in our networks and the devices in the networks."
"The best feature is the solution's entire credibility with all vendors."
 

Cons

"We encountered issues with their response times, which had a big impact on our workflow."
"When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging."
"As a user, it would be good if I could plug in controllers, suites, and devices from other vendors to Cisco DNA Center."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process."
"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."
"The network, data center, and SD-WAN are all being treated as different services, but I would like to have only one solution to manage all of them."
"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."
"Regional support in African countries needs to be improved."
"Performance issues should be improved. We have problems when we have more mobile connections than local devices. Most of us have two to three devices."
"Issues arise when customers experience unstable electricity or poor grounding conditions."
"The reporting details have room for improvement."
"There are a lot of bugs that need to be fixed, for example, the ZTP."
"Fortinet is releasing quite a lot of new versions and I would say that most of the versions are not well tested before they're pushed out. Even the new versions sometimes are a bit buggy before it's all correct."
"It's a difficult process to transfer one interface from one virtual domain to another."
"The areas that need improvement are implemenation and support. In terms of implementation, it mainly needs clear documentation."
"The solution should integrate with NAC servers."
"We had some issues with some of the features, some modules are not meeting expectations."
"Micro Focus Network Node Manager is not powered to drill down for traffic visibility."
"The way the solution currently works means I'm not able to customize my own reports."
"As the technologies evolve, also these solutions or the monitoring tools should evolve to cover the progress in technology, including capabilities related to monitoring of virtualized devices today, as the DNS is on the table in this way."
"The deployment architecture and installation part needs improvement."
"Reporting. Even though this is available in separate software (iSPI) there is potential in making the reporting more SLA-aware and more intuitive."
"Micro Focus Network Node Manager is not the best when it comes to drilling down for more visibility, especially regarding traffic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is medium-priced."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
"Our licensing agreement is for three years."
"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"The partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"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."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"Fortinet FortiManager is a low-priced product."
"Our organization pays a monthly license fee for the solution."
"FortiManager isn't expensive, but its cost is dependent on which services are required."
"The pricing model is affordable."
"In comparison with other products, the price of FortiManager is reasonable."
"The licensing costs depend on how many devices you want to use."
"The license model they use depends on the size and is not limited to the users."
"FortiManager is reasonably priced - I pay around US$40,0000 per year, which covers fifty locations."
"The solution is priced mid-range compared to the competition."
"It is more inexpensive than other products in the market."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"I wasn't involved in the pricing, but I think it's quite expensive."
"It's an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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, especial...
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
The system is working fine for me currently.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiManager?
The most valuable feature is the centralized management console.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiManager?
Regarding the price of Fortinet FortiManager, I need to get that information from my management, as they handle purch...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?
There is room for improvement in Fortinet FortiManager because there is no option for roaming profiles, and the cloud...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Network Node Manager?
The interface is outdated and needs to be more dynamic and faster. It would be better if the product was a single mod...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Network Node Manager?
We use OpenText Network Node Manager i ( /products/opentext-network-node-manager-i-reviews ) primarily for network mo...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
No data available
Micro Focus Network Node Manager, Network Node Manager, HPE Network Node Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
IPC, Exelon, VivaCom, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.