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Cisco DNA Center vs NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG 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
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
73rd
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 0.7%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center0.7%
NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG0.5%
Other98.8%
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.
Michael Gideon Genita - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate System Engineer at SMS Global Technologies, Inc.
Easy to set up with good documentation and helpful support
I'm using it for a customer The packet flow switch is the most valuable aspect of the solution.  It's an easy product to set up. We can scale the solution if we need to. It's stable.  The documentation is well-written and quite useful. It's compatible with other products.  Under the pocket flow…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is excellent. We have pretty good technical support."
"What I found valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the Software-Defined Access Network, so the entire LAN network can be centralized and managed from a single dashboard. Cisco DNA Center is suitable for centralized management and lets you deploy switches in a centralized fashion. You can also do multiple switch port configurations simultaneously and segregate your traffic into multiple fabrics. Another valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is enhanced security through Scalable Group Tags. Cisco DNA Center can be integrated with your Cisco ISE to enhance the port securities, and this paves the way for Software-Defined Networking in the LAN segment, which is the main advantage of Cisco DNA Center. I also like that you can use Cisco DNA Center for data assurance or correlation. The solution shows your network and client health parameters, which I find convenient for troubleshooting."
"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."
"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"The price is really high, but it's worth every single dollar you pay."
"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."
"In terms of software-defined networking, I think it's an outstanding product."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"It's an easy product to set up."
"The ability to troubleshoot customers' connectivity has been very beneficial."
"Go with NETSCOUT."
"An issue that used to take days is now fixed within minutes to an hour."
"Because we are doing proactive monitoring instead of reactive, the end users don't even see that there is something wrong."
"The solution has helped to increase application and network uptime, reduced our mean time to repair significantly for application and network issues, and cut our overall troubleshooting time from an hour down to five minutes."
"We have seen a lot of return on investment: We have been able to recover radios in the field, we know exactly what is going on, we cut down fines from the service commission, and we have seen a measurable decrease in mean time to know, cutting troubleshooting down by days as we can now see the issues."
"This solution has saved us hours (three to four) per problem when troubleshooting."
 

Cons

"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"The solution needs to improve the dashboard."
"We encountered issues with their response times, which had a big impact on our workflow."
"When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging."
"In my opinion, the client history in Cisco DNA Center can be longer than 10 days, perhaps extending to 15 or 20 days."
"DNA Center has been on the market for a few years and they need to update it."
"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."
"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."
"The monitoring and reporting tool needs improvement. Users want more information, such as the level of detail when doing a packet analysis. They want more detail to be able to isolate down to a specific point."
"The stability depends on who is using the tool, because you only can get as much out of the tool as you put into it. There are a lot of patches for this particular environment, so you have to keep on them. If you lose track of them, then the product is not useful anymore."
"Being able to manage the packet flow switches in nGeniusONE would be great."
"The single pane of glass feed still needs work."
"Sometimes, we can't access it."
"The monitoring and reporting tool needs improvement."
"It can be scalable. It just costs too much."
"Only problems that we have had are fiber issues going into the TAPs or vSTREAMs, which are usually local site issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"The solution is a little bit expensive but depends a lot on the customer's usage. If you use it in the right place, you can easily pay for it."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is very costly."
"This product could be cheaper."
"I would like it to be more scalable with less spend."
"The scalability is good, but it comes at a cost. E.g., if you need 100 InfiniStream because you are sending gigs or terabytes of data to one InfiniStream, then you will have to purchase another InfiniStream, which are not cheap."
"To capture more with the solution that we bought, you have to buy another InfiniStreamNG, and there are only four ports in the back."
"It can be scalable. It just costs too much. With a company as big as ours, it gets too expensive to accommodate every single site."
"The price is a little high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

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?
The deployment of Cisco DNA Center was complex due to the fact that on the data center side, we have a Juniper infrastructure, which created some complexity, though not significant. The deployment ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco DNA Center?
In my organization, we currently have some Cisco devices such as access switches, and we also have infrastructure, but that is not part of our responsibility. We do not manage that infrastructure. ...
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Also Known As

DNA Center
InfiniStreamNG, NETSCOUT ISNG, Infinistream
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
U.S. Department of Defense
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.