No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco DNA Center vs Pandora FMS 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)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
66th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (27th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (58th), Log Management (61st), Cloud Monitoring Software (39th)
 

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 Pandora FMS is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center0.7%
Pandora FMS0.7%
Other98.6%
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.
MM
Independent Consultant at Maack Consulting
The open architecture is easy to extend and enhance
Pandora could deliver better analytics out of the box. You can work around these limitations with the help of other tools like Grafana. The shortcomings are mostly on the graphical side. The built-in report generators are a bit limited in some areas. They could improve their management console's ability to monitor large environments could be improved. For example, SNMP management is only partially integrated into the management console.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Cisco DNA Center are wireless assurance and visibility."
"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."
"The product gives a consolidated view."
"I think that their LAN automation is a very good feature."
"I like the visibility, instant build, network, policies, and the ability to control access. I also like that you can visualize your whole network."
"It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out a configuration to branch networks, and it also provides visibility into the health of user network devices."
"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 easier to use than Fortinet FortiManager."
"Network monitoring is fun again with Pandora FMS."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"Pandora FMS (the Flexible Monitoring System) is an all-in-one package solution, and we can monitor our whole system with Service perspective."
"We are consultants and thanks to Pandora can detect a lot of disasters that other companies can't, and we can offer high availability of the system to the client."
"Thanks to Pandora FMS, we've been able to adapt to every new monitoring challenge over the past seven years."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
 

Cons

"It's quite good, however, it's not ideal for smaller organizations as it's cost-prohibitive."
"An area that needs improvement is the integration with other vendors."
"It's a very hard software to learn. It's very deep, and when we first got it, there wasn't a whole lot of documentation on it."
"The solution's setup process needs enhancement."
"They should include UTM features in the product."
"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."
"The features of Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Prime could have more parity."
"I would like is to have a small information pointer available. It could be a plus feature that I want to implement. When I hover my mouse over the user interface, it should provide a brief explanation. It would be helpful to have it incorporated into the UI."
"In its versions for Linux, in the beginning, it can be somewhat complicated to configure and implement."
"Their support is good, but it is just online communication. It would be great to be able to just call someone and talk to them instead of always writing. It works well for me because I am a decent communicator in email, but some people might find it difficult to describe in a written fashion and communicate with them that way. There is a learning curve to the interface, but once you get used to it, it is actually very powerful. They have a lot of options, but people struggle with the interface. They've improved it though, and it is getting better. They need to keep improving the learning curve to help buy-in. I'm the guy that manages it, so I'm comfortable with it. They can refine the upgrade agents to be easier. They can also do more refinement in end-user usability because not everyone is strong technically, and people who aren't strong technically might be averse to the product, even though it has come a long way. It has a complete GUI and everything."
"In the future, we may have double the number of devices, and we do not want to have any issues with performance in the data display."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems and we have issues with monitoring."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"Our licensing agreement is for three years."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"My rule of thumb would be that if you need more than thirty agents, and you lack an automation tool such as Chef or Puppet, you will save a lot of time and money going to the Enterprise edition."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"You have to pay for the number of agents and models that you are monitoring. I would rate the cost at three with one being the most expensive and five being the cheapest."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
 

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. ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.