Cisco DNA Center vs NetBrain comparison

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4,393 views|2,460 comparisons
87% willing to recommend
NetBrain Logo
1,423 views|909 comparisons
75% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco DNA Center and NetBrain based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Red Hat, SolarWinds and others in Network Automation.
To learn more, read our detailed Network Automation Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I think that their LAN automation is a very good feature.""It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions.""Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy.""It is a stable solution.""The best feature of Cisco DNA Center is the visibility page, where you can see everything on the dashboard, and you don't have to be a technical person to view the issues.""We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product.""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."

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"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions.""Enables maps to be drawn out.""NetBrain is a very simple tool.""A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings.""This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."

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Cons
"Integration with analytic tools and API integrations would be ideal.""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 solution's technical support is an area with which my company's clients have a problem. Cisco doesn't provide good technical support unless a user has a big account that Cisco wants to retain.""DNA Center has been on the market for a few years and they need to update it.""They can improve the network visibility. Licensing and its maintenance are also needed.""An area for improvement in Cisco DNA Center is the latency in data correlation. For example, sometimes, when an issue happens, and I check the logs, I can't find the corresponding log. There's a delay in log replication, so this is what needs improvement in Cisco DNA Center. Reporting in Cisco DNA Center could also be improved because it only has a few templates, and you can't customize it based on your requirements. There aren't many options available in Cisco DNA Center regarding reporting, versus Cisco Prime, which has excellent features for different levels of detailed reports. I'd like to see real-time data replication in the next release of Cisco DNA Center, similar to what's done in Meraki. Data in Meraki is real-time with no delay, so data is immediately replicated in the cloud. Currently, there's a lag in Cisco DNA Center, and addressing that lag is the enhancement I'd like to see in Cisco DNA Center. The solution also needs to be more user-friendly.""What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive.""Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."

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"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging.""It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities.""The IP interface brief isn't consistent.""Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network.""The solution could integrate more automation."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Our licensing agreement is for three years."
  • "I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
  • "The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
  • "Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
  • "We have a three-year license with them."
  • "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 price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
  • "It is an expensive solution."
  • More Cisco DNA Center Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
  • "Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
  • More NetBrain Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated
    Top Answer:When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging.
    Top Answer:NetBrain is a very simple tool.
    Top Answer:The solution is licensing and on-premises. You need to download the software and enable the license on any X86 machine server. We pay a yearly subscription fee. It's economical. It was not very… more »
    Top Answer:NetBrain is a very simple tool, however, it's not an NDR. It doesn't have the capabilities to run PCAPs and so on. The solution could integrate more automation. If the product has to be evolved, it… more »
    Ranking
    1st
    out of 22 in Network Automation
    Views
    4,393
    Comparisons
    2,460
    Reviews
    26
    Average Words per Review
    465
    Rating
    7.8
    5th
    out of 22 in Network Automation
    Views
    1,423
    Comparisons
    909
    Reviews
    0
    Average Words per Review
    0
    Rating
    N/A
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    DNA Center
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cisco DNA Center is a robust, intuitive network controller and management platform that provides secure, safe access to applications and networks. Cisco DNA Center allows you to take control of your network to increase the effectiveness of your Cisco products, lower your TCO, and improve your ROI.

    Your organization’s network is an integral part of your business’s success. In today’s aggressive marketplace, organizations need a network management system in place that can effectively automate deployments and connectivity, and manage the health of their infrastructure. Additionally, management systems also need to be able to strategically maintain the quality and safety of their systems so that the organization can direct valuable IT resources to concentrate on projects that can improve the overall effectiveness of the organization. An intent-based network controller such as Cisco DNA center will help your organization do that.

    Cisco DNA Center is a group of software solutions that will automate all your virtual devices, provide secure administration of your network, and ensure the best network experience for all users on the network. Cisco DNA Center does away with all the tedious, mundane tasks and simplifies workflow device installations, upgrading from hours to minutes using Plug-and-Play (PnP) and Software Image Management (SWIM).

    Cisco DNA Center’s intuitive, robust assurance feature makes every network point a sensor, continually communicating user connectivity and application performance in real time. This ensures all issues are resolved immediately.

    Cisco DNA Center integrates with Cisco security solutions, Cisco Umbrella, and Cisco Secure Network Analytics, which provide an extra level of extensive security protection against threats. The entire solution can be easily managed from one single dashboard, making Cisco DNA Center a very robust, secure, complete solution.

    Benefits of Cisco DNA Center

    • Cost-effectiveness: Policy automation and remediation minimizes the amount of time IT staff spend managing mundane network tasks.
    • Improved performance: AI/ML automation improves workflow and overall user experience. A clean, crisp dashboard makes management easy.
    • Enhance your network: Cisco DNA Center delivers the latest, most intuitive cloud services and applications to optimize your network.

    • Improved security: Cisco DNA Center utilizes the most robust zero-trust policies based on overall endpoint user behavior to keep networks secure.

    Features of Cisco DNA Center

    • Easy automation: Cisco DNA Center offers zero-touch device deployment, automated quality of service (QoS), automated device discovery, and drag-and-drop policy creation.

    • Clear analytics: Cisco DNA Center offers more than 150 workable insights, such as guided remediation, endpoint tracking, context-guided analytics, and more.

    • Simplified management: Users have complete control from a user-friendly single dashboard that provides a completely transparent view of the network, devices, applications, and services. Additionally, there is integration with Cisco Prime or APIC-EM for the importation of maps or other configurations as needed.

    • Security: Cisco DNA Center provides a highly secure segmentation, encrypted traffic analytics, and robust threat detection and response, and also uses Stealthwatch and ISE integration.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Mostafa G., Network and Data Center Supervisor at a hospitality company, says, “Since using the solution, three or four people can do what 10 people could previously. It has been a benefit to the organization. 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.”

    Nihar K., Managing Director at Allot Group, relates, “In day-to-day operations, especially post-pandemic, the majority of our customers have to work from anywhere. It's not just work from home, it's work from anywhere. Due to this work from anywhere concept, the traditional silos of a network for the data center architecture, managing everything from anywhere, and having that single integrated dashboard for each and every activity while being able to correlate those activities in line with a business objective, has been very well addressed by Cisco DNA. The solution's most valuable aspect is its simplicity and the complete automation of the network workflow, which we can use that correlate with the business. It's not only limited to STXs or a data center. It completes everything, which really helps us.

    Managing today’s networks with yesterday’s manual processes is no longer a viable solution. NetBrain’s network automation platform provides actionable insights into your network to help you make better and faster decisions - particularly when you’re troubleshooting, securing, and making changes to the network.

    Sample Customers
    Information Not Available
    CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider19%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Hospitality Company10%
    University10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Healthcare Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Government10%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise61%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise70%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise70%
    Buyer's Guide
    Network Automation
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Red Hat, SolarWinds and others in Network Automation. Updated: March 2024.
    768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco DNA Center is ranked 1st in Network Automation with 36 reviews while NetBrain is ranked 5th in Network Automation with 6 reviews. Cisco DNA Center is rated 7.8, while NetBrain is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of Cisco DNA Center writes "Practical implementation of VXLAN is good and provides centralized control". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetBrain writes "Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility". Cisco DNA Center is most compared with Cisco Prime, Aruba Airwave, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, Huawei eSight and Junos Space Network Director, whereas NetBrain is most compared with ThousandEyes, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, SolarWinds Network Automation Manager, Forward Enterprise and ScienceLogic.

    See our list of best Network Automation vendors.

    We monitor all Network Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.