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Cisco DNA Center vs ITRS Geneos 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
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
ITRS Geneos
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
68th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (33rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (45th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ITRS Geneos is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco DNA Center1.0%
ITRS Geneos0.6%
Other98.4%
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.
Durai CT - PeerSpot reviewer
Head FM Monitoring at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A stable, scalable, and flexible monitoring tool
Real-time data is one of the unique features that ITRS Geneos offers. For example, if there is an impact on a particular server and a particular application, I want to see what the impact is or what the CPU or hardware usage information is, as well as the service in the same application. I can see the real-time data and the impact by accessing ITRS Geneos and looking at the tree. I don't want a tool that tells me when something is broken. I want the tool to tell me when something is going to break. That is the difference between ITRS Geneos and other tools. I want proactive monitoring, not reactive. I don't need to be notified after the fact that something has broken. If something is broken, I get a notification by email, and some of my customers are going to call me. ITRS Geneos provides proactive monitoring. The great advantage of this tool is real-time monitoring. ITRS Geneos not only alerts us but also gives us a real-time view of the data. This is the tool's first great advantage. It is also lightweight and flexible and can adapt to monitor even low-latency systems, which is the tool's second advantage. Another great feature of this tool is its good presentation layer, which allows us to build custom dashboards to present to business stakeholders. This gives them a high-level status of what is being monitored. If we compare ITRS Geneos to other tools, we will find that each one specializes in a specific area, but the ITRS Geneos tool is more comprehensive. This is its great advantage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"DNA Center is scalable."
"Cisco VXLAN is a protocol that has been around for some time, but the practical implementation and operational capability of Cisco DNA Center bring it to life."
"The solution has the capability to scale."
"It is very versatile in terms of analytics."
"Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning."
"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."
"Scalability in Cisco DNA Center is good; we are using it for Software-Defined Access solution, and we haven't reached our device limit yet— from my experience, we can easily manage numerous devices."
"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."
"I would say that it is an easy-to-use monitoring tool. Amongst the available monitoring tools, it is a really good option."
"The solution is used across the entire investment banking division, covering environments such as electronic trading, algo-trading, fixed income, FX, etc. It monitors that environment and enables a bank to significantly reduce down time. Although hard to measure, since implementation, we have probably seen some increased stability because of it and we have definitely seen teams a lot more aware of their environment. Consequently, we can be more proactive in challenging and improving previously undetected weaknesses."
"The solution's log monitoring and alerting mechanisms are very user-friendly and easy to plug and play."
"Custom script toolkits"
"The remarkable feature of Geneos is the dashboard. Geneos' flexible dashboard sets it apart from other monitoring tools. Other solutions have limitations in their dashboard design and can't be customized as much. The Geneos dashboard allows unlimited creativity."
"ITRS uses SNMP to communicate with our devices as well as SNMP net probes installed on our servers."
"Tons of default modules which are available out of the box"
"One thing we're utilizing in Geneos is the Gateway-SQL. That's really helpful for us. Using Gateway-SQL, we are able to merge two different views into one. Suppose we have to check something in the log and that we have to check something in the database and do a comparison before publishing a result. We can achieve that using Gateway-SQL."
 

Cons

"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"There are some software problems from version to version. It takes a long time for DNA Center to recognize the video and control access devices."
"An area that needs improvement is the integration with other vendors."
"We encountered issues with their response times, which had a big impact on our workflow."
"Cisco DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it."
"The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities."
"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."
"Cisco DNA Center was a new technology for us, at the beginning, it was not easy to do, but Cisco did a lot of training with us to a level we could handle everything. The team is managing itself now without the assistance of Cisco."
"For the solution to stay relevant in the cloud-based monitoring environment Geneos needs more plug-ins with more features. Instead of offering clients workarounds, the solution should have a cloud-based out-of-the-box version."
"I would like to see ITRS integrate its setup editor with a SVN to check-in setup XML after major changes."
"Their cloud monitoring solution needs to be improved. I have already given them the feedback that it's not capable of meeting the latest technology needs."
"Geneos' application monitoring could be improved a lot. Products like AppDynamics and Dynatrace provide the process thread-level monitoring, but Geneos lacks these capabilities."
"ITRS Geneos is not on the cloud at a time when everyone is moving to the cloud."
"Currently, it is difficult to monitor secure websites using SSL or with SSO enabled."
"There is one drawback to using lightweight data collection: we lack the feature of observability based on time series, such as historical model data. This makes it difficult to view data in ITRS. ITRS needs to improve this feature."
"ITRS have started to make some major changes that we haven't taken on board yet, in the creation of dashboards and more visibility of the metrics that we collect. At the moment, that's something that's lacking, but I know they have addressed it. Still, it’s not that easy to create stuff to help with visibility and dashboarding in Geneos."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"The tool's licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server 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 product is very costly."
"Pricing is the touchy subject, even here. Upper management always wants us to find a cheaper solution. But we have so much integrated with ITRS... It's expensive, but it does its job very well. And you set it and go."
"ITRS Geneos is not a cheap tool. It's a moderate price for the banking industry. The reason we are not able to add the ITRS monitoring tool for the non-banking industries, and non-finance industries, is that the pricing is too high."
"Its price is reasonable. It isn't too expensive, and it isn't too cheap, but it also depends on a company's volume and negotiation."
"I can say it's not that cheap because the licensing is a little bit costly"
"Based on feedback from colleagues and friends working in the financial sector, Geneos is relatively costly. Many companies have been switching from Geneos to Dynatrace, Sysdig, or other monitoring tools in the past two years because of the price."
"The market tools are on par with this solution, but if the solution included more features, then it would be well within the range for the cost."
"The licensing cost may seem expensive upfront. However, the service is outstanding, the tool does things that no other tools can do, and the customizability more than makes up for the cost of licensing."
"Pricing and licensing is based on the requirements."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
70%
Computer Software Company
5%
Construction Company
3%
Outsourcing Company
2%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise39
 

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 ITRS Geneos?
The pricing is high. Licensing fees might be around 500$ per server monthly.
What needs improvement with ITRS Geneos?
ITRS Geneos is a legacy system. It predicts or provides proactive measures once an issue is resolved. It doesn't offer any predictive capabilities or root cause analysis. They throw a lot of data i...
What is your primary use case for ITRS Geneos?
ITRS offers multiple products, including upgrades for synthetic monitoring and a SaaS platform. Geneos is used for infrastructure monitoring, covering KPIs such as CPU, memory, processes, network l...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
Geneos
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ITRS Geneos is used by over 170 financial institutions, including JPMorgan, HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Clients range from investment banks to exchanges and brokers.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. ITRS Geneos and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,176 professionals have used our research since 2012.