Cisco DNA Center vs New Relic comparison

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Cisco DNA Center

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

New Relic and Cisco DNA Center are competitors in the IT performance monitoring and networking management space. New Relic has the upper hand with its application performance monitoring features, while Cisco DNA Center excels in providing robust networking insights and security management.

Features: New Relic offers real-time metrics and traces for identifying application bottlenecks, easy installation, and broad compatibility, making it ideal for seamless integration into various operations. Cisco DNA Center provides centralized management of network health and security, robust insights into networking capabilities, and simplified policy implementation, enhancing automation.

Room for Improvement: New Relic needs to work on data privacy controls and alerting features, and provide more detailed metrics. Cisco DNA Center requires better integration with third-party solutions, improved compatibility with older hardware, and a simplified user experience through easier configuration processes and better error reporting.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: New Relic offers flexible deployment options on public and hybrid clouds, facilitating integration into diverse environments. Cisco DNA Center focuses on on-premises and private cloud deployments, providing greater control for larger enterprises. New Relic is praised for its extensive online resources, whilst Cisco benefits from a dedicated technical support team.

Pricing and ROI: New Relic is competitively priced, especially for its advanced monitoring capabilities, though it may seem pricey to some. Its ROI is high due to swift problem identification and resolution. Cisco DNA Center is viewed as expensive, mainly for large enterprises. Its centralized management and extensive features justify the cost for complex network environments, providing significant ROI for organizations reliant on network applications and security.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco DNA Center vs. New Relic Report (Updated: April 2025).

Cisco DNA Center vs. New Relic

April 2025

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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

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)

New Relic

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

158

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), IT Operations Analytics (3rd), Mobile APM (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (4th), AIOps (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of New Relic is 2.0%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

AvrahamSonenthal

Senior Network Engineer at Inside Global

Efficiently manages our wireless network and provides valuable monitoring features

The platform's biggest benefit has been in managing our wireless network. Having a single pane of glass to control all wireless controllers and access points and to monitor activity has been a significant advantage. We're a small federal agency with around 300 network devices, so automation is a minor focus. It's more relevant for larger networks. The main benefits we've seen are in inventory management and the potential for configuration automation. However, I recommend using the DNA Centre only for larger networks with over a thousand devices; otherwise, it may not be cost-effective. Before proceeding, ensure that your devices are compatible with DNA Center, as not all Cisco devices are supported. Also, investing in proper training is different from plug-and-play. I rate it an eight.

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Iqbal Khowaja

Chief Technology Officer at State of Hawaii

Has a simple user interface and end-to-end monitoring and self-healing features

My organization uses many application performance management solutions, such as AppDynamics, New Relic APM, Splunk, and Datadog. I'm the CTO for the state of Hawaii, and across the board, different departments use different APM tools. I'm using the latest version of New Relic APM, but I cannot recall the exact version. My company has a dozen engineers using and monitoring New Relic APM. I'd tell anyone planning to use New Relic APM that it has to fit what you have. For example, most of my company's payload is in AWS, and the tool has adopters and features that CloudWatch cannot provide. Still, New Relic APM can, so you should do a demo or trial run first and see if it's a tool that'll help you with end-to-end monitoring. New Relic APM is working well for my company, so an excellent way to start is to do a trial run to see how the tool works out for your current applications. My rating for the tool is nine out of ten because my experience with it has been great. New Relic also worked closely with my company and has always been upfront on what's available and what's not. My company is a New Relic APM customer.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The monitoring features are very useful for network engineers."

"Cisco is a leading network company."

"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."

"It is a stable solution."

"The most valuable features of Cisco DNA Center are wireless assurance and visibility."

"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."

"Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning."

"I think that their LAN automation is a very good feature."

More Cisco DNA Center pros

"We use it for monitoring, identifying when services go down, or when they are outside of what we would consider normal operations."

"The solution is scalable, and it is easy because all the documentation is available."

"Every time there is a crisis, high traffic, or if we see a problem with a server, we go to New Relic and monitor it to determine the cause."

"The initial setup is straightforward. It is easy to track and easy to follow."

"It is a one stop shop and integrated with PagerDuty seamlessly. The solution is pretty self-contained."

"They have baseline level alerting."

"The most valuable features are infrastructure monitoring and application performance monitoring (APM)."

"The alert mechanism is quite accurate when something goes wrong in your system. For example, if you have hundreds of APIs on your server, and any of the APIs is not performing well, you get an alert. When there is a drop or change in the threshold value, the beauty of New Relic is that within a fraction of seconds, all the stakeholders who are configured in the New Relic system will get an alert. That's one good thing."

More New Relic pros

Cons

"There is a limitation with the number of VRFs that you can have in your network, and this has caused us problems with some customers."

"The solution can be quite pricey."

"An area that needs improvement is the integration with other vendors."

"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."

"As a user, it would be good if I could plug in controllers, suites, and devices from other vendors to Cisco DNA Center."

"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."

"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."

"In terms of the clustering part, there are some concerns."

More Cisco DNA Center cons

"New Relic needs to improve is the user data schema."

"We would like a dashboard feature to be created for this product. This would allow us to monitor both the front and back-end of our UIs performance, and then report on it."

"The initial setup can be made easier. Like Mixpanel, New Relic can also have a step-by-step guide for the setup process."

"The solution only supports the cloud platform and not on-premises."

"One of the things that our enterprise actually had a challenge with was the licensing structure for New Relic."

"The solution must provide better support for Azure Web Apps service."

"There are times when you restart the engines and the servers have a unique ID for the host and you need to remove the server. It is difficult because some are on-premise and others are production hosts. Having downtime is not very good when updating. However, it is not a constant issue."

"There has been some problem with the agent, and it is just not working well. It is not able to record information with the application server. They have been able to fix the issue, but it took quite a long time. This is the main issue in the APM products and also in New Relic. The mobile application monitoring has been pretty difficult to set up and also quite expensive. It should be a little bit easier and cheaper. Because it is pretty difficult and expensive, many customers don't take it."

More New Relic cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."

"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"The tool is medium-priced."

"The product is very costly."

"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."

"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."

More Cisco DNA Center pricing and cost advice

"The solution is less expensive than AppNeta."

"The price of the solution could be less expensive. You have to pay a lot for each user. There is an additional cost for extra features."

"It would be nice if we could buy it annually instead of monthly."

"The pricing is fine."

"Comparatively, the pricing is expensive."

"The solution is cheap, but prices can go up when users grow."

"Cost is significant with a lot of extras."

"They gave us aggressive discounts when they were brought in for the first time, but they have also kept them for the year-on-year renewals, which has been absolutely fine."

More New Relic pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

46%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

The cost is very high.

What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?

The system is working fine for me currently.

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

What do you like most about New Relic Insights?

The product's initial setup phase was very easy.

What needs improvement with New Relic Insights?

Email alert customization is limited; it cannot be tailored much, which makes the system more rigid than optimal. The handling of logs from integration tools is not as advanced compared to other to...

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Datadog vs New Relic

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs New Relic

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Monitor vs New Relic

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Cisco DNA Center product report

Cisco DNA Center

May 2025

Download New Relic product report

April 2025

Also Known As

DNA Center

New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM

Overview

Cisco DNA Center offers a comprehensive platform for network automation and management, providing detailed analytics, enhanced security, and streamlined operations for both wired and wireless networks.

Cisco DNA Center integrates with Cisco infrastructure to deliver efficient network automation and management, helping organizations improve network visibility, security, and control. It supports AI-driven analytics and automated workflows to enhance operational efficiency and reduce errors. Challenges include compatibility with third-party systems, steep learning curve, and complex deployment. Its interface facilitates centralized control, vital for troubleshooting, policy management, and configuration management, with support for zero-touch provisioning and SD-Access.

What are the key features of Cisco DNA Center?

Robust Analytics: Provides detailed insights into network health with AI-driven analytics.
Centralized Security: Integrates with ISE for comprehensive security management.
Automated Device Management: Simplifies device provisioning and configuration transfers.
Wi-Fi Analytics: Offers deep insights into wireless network performance.
Zero-Touch Provisioning: Streamlines new device deployments with minimal human intervention.
Scalable Segmentation: Efficiently segments network traffic ensuring security and performance.

What benefits should users consider?

Operational Efficiency: Automation reduces potential errors and streamlines workflow.
Enhanced Security: Integration with Cisco ISE bolsters security capabilities.
Network Visibility: Comprehensive dashboards and analysis tools enhance monitoring.
Troubleshooting: Real-time monitoring aids in identifying and resolving issues swiftly.

In sectors such as healthcare, finance, and retail, Cisco DNA Center is utilized for its ability to enhance security and compliance, manage large-scale networks, and provide detailed analytics for better operational decision-making. Its support for location tracking and policy automation ensures efficient network management across diverse environments.

Cisco

New Relic is a powerful tool for optimizing web pages, tracking user behavior, and monitoring application performance. It helps detect anomalies, generate metrics, and create dashboards for synthetics monitoring, container workloads, stress tests, and more.

New Relic provides organizations with comprehensive insights into APIs, infrastructure, and scalability. It supports mobile and web applications with features like java tracking, health maps, customizable dashboards, and drill-downs. Users benefit from its easy initial setup, accurate alerts, UI monitoring, error tracking, and traceability. New Relic supports multiple ecosystems with straightforward pricing and new feature introductions, offering end-to-end monitoring, thorough data analysis, and effective problem resolution.

What are New Relic's most important features?

Java Tracking: Efficiently monitor Java applications.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Comprehensive overview of infrastructure health.
APM: In-depth application performance monitoring.
Tight Integration: Seamless integration across different system layers.
Health Maps: Visual representation of system health.
Customizable Dashboards: Personalized data display and insights.
Drill-Downs: Detailed analysis at multiple levels.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Application Insights: Detailed understanding of application performance.
Accurate Alerts: Immediate notifications for issues.
Traceability: Enhanced end-to-end traceability for problem resolution.
Scalability: Accommodation of growing infrastructure.
Flexible Query Design: Adaptable search and analysis functionality.
Reliable Performance: Consistent application monitoring and upkeep.

New Relic is leveraged in industries such as e-commerce, finance, and technology. It helps monitor web traffic, evaluate load balancing, and ensure applications meet performance standards. Companies use it for stress tests, container-based workloads, API monitoring, and infrastructure management. Its integration capabilities are valuable for maintaining performance and scalability across diverse ecosystems, aiding in thorough data analysis and problem resolution.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

World Fuel Services, Verizon, FootLocker, McDonald's, Trainline, Mondia Media, Confused, Costa Coffee, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer, William Hill, Delivery Hero, Skyscanner, BASF, DAZN, Veygo, Virtuo, movingimage, talabat, Australia Post, Tokopedia, Seven Network, Virgin Australia, Zomato, BigBasket, Mercado Libre, Lending Club