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Cisco DNA Center vs Pandora FMS comparison

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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
34th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (2nd), 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 (26th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (58th), Log Management (59th), Cloud Monitoring Software (38th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 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 0.6% 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.
Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
Asociado/ at Infraestructura Informática
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

"The price is really high, but it's worth every single dollar you pay."
"The monitoring is very valuable to me, as I can easily monitor all my clients through Cisco DNA Center at this point."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions."
"Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration."
"Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"Network monitoring is fun again with Pandora FMS."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"The support from Pandora FMS is legendary."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if it could be integrated with a variety of solutions, such as Meraki."
"The solution can be quite pricey."
"The weaknesses primarily involve pricing and the ongoing need for increased bandwidth and data throughput."
"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."
"Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs."
"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."
"The cost is very high."
"The solution's technical support is an area with which my company's clients have a problem. Cisco doesn't provide good technical support unless a user has a big account that Cisco wants to retain."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"Pandora could deliver better analytics out of the box."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems and we have issues with monitoring."
"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."
"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."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"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 product is very costly."
"Affordability is a problem because it's created for large enterprises only. So, some customers, even if their engineers want the solution, might have problems with budget limitations."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
20%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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
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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: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.