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Cisco DNA Center vs NetCrunch 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
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
NetCrunch
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
83rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (28th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (67th), Log Management (76th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetCrunch is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

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…
RP
A network monitoring platform with a useful reporting feature, but permission-based options could be better
The initial setup is fairly easy. Most of it's wizard-based. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to set it up. But if you don't know certain things related to protocols and everything else, it might be difficult. If you know how SNMP works, it'll be fairly simple to set up.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."
"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."
"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."
"The product gives a consolidated view."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"The most valuable features were the monitoring, maintenance, and configuration."
"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."
"Reporting on NetCrunch is pretty good. It's very similar to SolarWinds. It's just a different interface. The majority of everything there was beneficial."
 

Cons

"We encountered issues with their response times, which had a big impact on our workflow."
"One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process."
"The solution's setup process needs enhancement."
"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."
"When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging."
"Cisco DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it."
"There should be an option for automation of template deployment by using the stored data. It is not easy to save configuration information for lots of devices without using other tools. There should be a tighter, better repository of information that can be merged with the templates."
"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
"I didn't care for the role-based, permission-based options, which were not the best."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."
"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."
"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."
"The partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
Information not available
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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
16%
Agriculture
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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.
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
The system is working fine for me currently.
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Also Known As

DNA Center
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
AER Kooperation, AON Corpration, Advance Financial services, Airbus SAS, Bauer Net consult, Banco Soal, Bertelsmann, Burke County public, COF training services
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. NetCrunch and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.