Cisco DNA Center vs Fortra's Intermapper comparison

Cisco and Fortra are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Cisco is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.2, while Fortra is ranked #82. Cisco holds a 1.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to Fortra’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fortra users who would recommend it.

Cisco DNA Center

Read 43 Cisco DNA Center reviews

7,884 Views
1,892 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Fortra's Intermapper

Read 4 Fortra's Intermapper reviews

524 Views
477 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco DNA Center

Fortra's Intermapper

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Fortra's Intermapper and Cisco DNA Center are two key players in network monitoring and management solutions. Cisco DNA Center maintains an edge due to its comprehensive features that justify its premium pricing.

Features:Fortra's Intermapper focuses on real-time network performance monitoring, automatic network mapping, and a lightweight deployment. Cisco DNA Center provides advanced policy-based automation, AI-driven analytics, and integration capabilities for holistic network management.

Room for Improvement:Fortra's Intermapper could enhance its advanced analytics capabilities, improve integration with other enterprise systems, and expand on customization options. Cisco DNA Center may benefit from simplifying its deployment process, offering more cost-effective plans for smaller networks, and enhancing user interface customization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Fortra's Intermapper offers straightforward deployment with accessible customer support, making it quick to manage. Cisco DNA Center requires a more extensive initial setup but compensates with robust support and detailed integration guidance.

Pricing and ROI:Fortra's Intermapper is considered cost-effective with a lower initial setup cost, offering fair ROI for small to mid-sized networks. Cisco DNA Center provides substantial ROI for large enterprises despite a higher initial investment, thanks to scalable solutions and enhanced network control.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco DNA Center vs. Fortra's Intermapper Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center vs. Fortra's Intermapper

September 2025

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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 DNA Center

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)

Fortra's Intermapper

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

82nd

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Intermapper is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco DNA Center	1.4%
Fortra's Intermapper	0.4%
Other	98.2%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Mahir Öztürk

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.

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Andrian Lubimov

SVP of Networking and Operations at Skywire Networks

It tremendously cuts down our troubleshooting timeframe, but needs advanced SLA monitoring and reporting

They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit.

Read full review

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 most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."

"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."

"Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."

"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."

"The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration."

"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"

"The most valuable features of Cisco DNA Center are wireless assurance and visibility."

More Cisco DNA Center pros

"What is really cool about HelpSystems InterMapper is that because of its SNMP base, you can integrate all different makes and models on the same map. You, of course, can have more than one map, but you have an option to have visibility into the entire network from one centralized system. You can monitor IPs, routers, radios, DC power plants, and UPS. You can do it all from one network management and monitoring solution. That's what really makes HelpSystems Intermapper great. Another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper is that you can really bundle different probes under one device. You can have a bundled device. You can monitor the physical status of a host based on the IP availability. You can also monitor services and actually see if anything happens. You can quickly determine whether it is the application layer, host layer, or network layer. HelpSystems Intermapper gives such a unique representation of a network. Ever since we started using HelpSystems InterMapper, we don't have to document everything in a detailed format and store it somewhere. Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing. So, in my opinion, it is awesome. When you have your SNMP topology defined, you don't require a dedicated NMS engineer to manage your system, which is another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper. I see how our operators get so excited by having the ability to map a device or interface and connect interfaces together. HelpSystems InterMapper is also very operator friendly; not just user friendly, but also operator friendly. This is a unique feature, and it works really great."

"It's all today portal-based which is a good feature for us."

"It's a nice graphical interface, a nice map, that relates Layer 1 to Layer 3, virtually instantly, to the Helpdesk support staff. It provides a default place to get critical information so we can deploy our staff."

"The most valuable features are its: log history, real-time monitoring capabilities, accuracy - the number of false positives is very low, and the mapping features."

Cons

"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."

"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."

"The pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco DNA Center are expensive."

"What I want to see in Cisco DNA Center in the future is more support for other platforms so that you can manage third-party products, such as Fortinet."

"DNA Center has been on the market for a few years and they need to update it."

"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."

"When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging."

More Cisco DNA Center cons

"They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit."

"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it. If we were able to run scripts to bounce ports on switches, that would be great. It's asking a lot, but it's actually very doable because I do it through scripting into other products. If we could incorporate that directly into Intermapper, that would be fantastic."

"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."

"Affordability is a problem because it's created for large enterprises only. So, some customers, even if their engineers want the solution, might have problems with budget limitations."

"Cisco DNA Center is too 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."

"Our licensing agreement is for three years."

"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."

"The product is very costly."

"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."

More Cisco DNA Center pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

22%

Government

17%

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	25

No data available

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, especially since our company is moving from CLI to GUI-based configuration.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco DNA Center?

After evaluating other solutions, we will provide feedback.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?

We have utilized the software-defined access (SDA) feature of Cisco DNA Center. The AI-driven needs enhancements and Integration and unification of visibility and monitoring to include other areas ...

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Comparisons

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Compared 16% of the time

Juniper Mist Wired Assurance vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 5% of the time

Fortinet FortiManager vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco DNA Center Competitors

Zabbix vs Fortra's Intermapper

Compared 100% of the time

More Fortra's Intermapper Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center

October 2025

Download Cisco DNA Center product report

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

October 2025

Download Fortra's Intermapper product report

Also Known As

DNA Center

HelpSystems Intermapper

Overview

Cisco DNA Center offers a comprehensive platform for network automation and management, providing detailed analytics, enhanced security, and streamlined operations for both wired and wireless networks.

Cisco DNA Center integrates with Cisco infrastructure to deliver efficient network automation and management, helping organizations improve network visibility, security, and control. It supports AI-driven analytics and automated workflows to enhance operational efficiency and reduce errors. Challenges include compatibility with third-party systems, steep learning curve, and complex deployment. Its interface facilitates centralized control, vital for troubleshooting, policy management, and configuration management, with support for zero-touch provisioning and SD-Access.

What are the key features of Cisco DNA Center?

Robust Analytics: Provides detailed insights into network health with AI-driven analytics.
Centralized Security: Integrates with ISE for comprehensive security management.
Automated Device Management: Simplifies device provisioning and configuration transfers.
Wi-Fi Analytics: Offers deep insights into wireless network performance.
Zero-Touch Provisioning: Streamlines new device deployments with minimal human intervention.
Scalable Segmentation: Efficiently segments network traffic ensuring security and performance.

What benefits should users consider?

Operational Efficiency: Automation reduces potential errors and streamlines workflow.
Enhanced Security: Integration with Cisco ISE bolsters security capabilities.
Network Visibility: Comprehensive dashboards and analysis tools enhance monitoring.
Troubleshooting: Real-time monitoring aids in identifying and resolving issues swiftly.

In sectors such as healthcare, finance, and retail, Cisco DNA Center is utilized for its ability to enhance security and compliance, manage large-scale networks, and provide detailed analytics for better operational decision-making. Its support for location tracking and policy automation ensures efficient network management across diverse environments.

Cisco

Fortra's software frees you up to focus on what matters most, aligning IT and business goals to help organizations build a competitive edge. Intermapper is network monitoring software for organizations who want to monitor their IT infrastructure in real time.

With Intermapper, you can visualize all your physical and virtual network components on a live map and get up-to-date performance data on its availability. Powerful and user-friendly, Intermapper helps leading businesses prevent costly outages and maximize uptime for 24/7 availability of network resources.

Features include flexible monitoring for anything with an IP address, free probes to monitor different types of equipment from various vendors, dynamic network mapping, bandwidth monitoring, real-time alerts, and remote access. Our add-on integration with Automate allows you to remediate network failures and conduct network self-healing.

Intermapper runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Fortra

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Greater Media Detroit, University of British Columbia, Don's Farm Supply

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center vs. Fortra's Intermapper

September 2025

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