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Cisco DNA Center vs Icinga comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
26th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (14th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (30th), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 0.9%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Icinga is 1.5%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center0.9%
Icinga1.5%
Other97.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Net Consulting
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very versatile in terms of analytics."
"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."
"The most valuable features include AI-driven insights which make troubleshooting much easier."
"In terms of software-defined networking, I think it's an outstanding product."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"The advice I would give to other people who want to use Cisco DNA Center is to go for it, particularly if they have Cisco infrastructure, though these days integration could be an issue."
"My advice to others is if you are a large enough company to have the Cisco DNA Center technology, you must try it because for a large enterprise or multi-site organization it's impressive and it saves a lot of money and time."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"I would recommend Icinga; it's an open-source solution, it's quite easy and simple to use, and checks can be run with Python code and Shell Script code."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"We monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains."
"If you have a small infrastructure or a small number of devices that you want to monitor, then I think it's a good solution."
"The most valuable feature is one that not many are even aware of, as Icinga has a self-healing event handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted, and you can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction."
"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
 

Cons

"In terms of the clustering part, there are some concerns."
"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."
"Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs."
"The initial setup is straightforward except for the issue that this solution is incompatible with switches or access points from other vendors. That is very bad."
"The solution can be quite pricey."
"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 tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"Better compatibility with third parties and to other Cisco products because if versions are not perfectly matching requirements, it gives a lot of problems."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."
"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The solution is free to use."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is cheap."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

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.
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?
In my opinion, the client history in Cisco DNA Center can be longer than 10 days, perhaps extending to 15 or 20 days. I am using it in a huge factory in Turkey, and sometimes I need to see what occ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
What is your primary use case for Icinga?
We use Icinga as a monitoring solution to monitor customers' infrastructures. We work as a managed service provider, so we offer monitoring and many other services to our customers. So we use it in...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
Icinga Cloud Monitoring
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. Icinga and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.