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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
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
43rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd), Log Management (37th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)
 

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 Pandora FMS is 0.5%, down from 0.6% 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…
Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
Personalized metrics; simplicity of data
My primary use case for Pandora is monitoring This solution has helped us improve our organization by allowing us to create a lot of metrics on several platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Unix. We then use these Pandora metrics to create an interface. We then pass the interface off to the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It offers automation, security enforcement, analytics, and integration with other Cisco technologies, making it a key driver for efficient network operations and compliance with security protocols."
"Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning."
"DNA Center is scalable."
"The product gives a consolidated view."
"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."
"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"The solution has the capability to scale."
"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"It is easy to create your own custom modules if you just know a little bit of scripting. If you have unique requirements, you can just make your own modules. You can even grab checks from other vendors. There are open-source checks for various things such as SMTP, etc. There is a long list of different ones from Nagios. You can just use them, and within seconds, you get yourself a check that is monitoring whatever you need. It is really flexible. I guess that's why they call it Pandora Flexible Monitoring System (FMS). It is reliable. It does the job, and it alerts. It is also surprisingly feature-rich. Our network guy just recently asked about a particular protocol to monitor the bandwidth on the network, which is not a common protocol. When I looked it up, and I found that they cover it. It is very mature for a not-so-known product."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
 

Cons

"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 I want to see in Cisco DNA Center in the future is more support for other platforms so that you can manage third-party products, such as Fortinet."
"The solution needs to improve the dashboard."
"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 solution can be quite pricey."
"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."
"Cisco DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it."
"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."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"We have a three-year license with them."
"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 price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
"The tool is medium-priced."
"Our licensing agreement is for three years."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"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."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"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."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are 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
11%
Media Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
 

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 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
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: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.