Cisco DNA Center vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Cisco and VMware are both solutions in the Network Automation category. Cisco is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0, while VMware is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.8. Cisco holds a 13.9% mindshare in NA, compared to VMware’s 10.3% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Cisco DNA Center

Read 41 Cisco DNA Center reviews

2,518 Views
1,554 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Automation

Read 170 VMware Aria Automation reviews

1,778 Views
1,076 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco DNA Center

VMware Aria Automation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

VMware Aria Automation and Cisco DNA Center are leading solutions in the automation and network management sectors. VMware Aria Automation has an edge in automation across diverse infrastructures, while Cisco DNA Center excels in network-centric environments.

Features: VMware Aria Automation offers server deployment, cross-platform support, and integration with various infrastructures. Its extensibility supports remote execution and efficient server management. Cisco DNA Center provides robust network automation, security enhancements, and unified management capabilities, with features that enable comprehensive network monitoring and control.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Automation requires better integration with third-party tools and simplified documentation for complex scenarios. Users call for enhanced troubleshooting guides and streamlined configuration updates. Cisco DNA Center needs to address its high cost and improve scalability for different network services. It also requires better integration with older hardware, error reporting, and reduced license costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Automation is valued for its flexible deployment options and solid technical support, although customizability can complicate support. Cisco DNA Center is praised for strong network deployment support and reliable customer service, though pricing concerns remain.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Automation has a higher upfront cost but promises significant long-term savings. It is ideal for organizations needing versatile automation solutions. Cisco DNA Center, though expensive, offers a substantial ROI through outstanding network management capabilities, making the choice largely dependent on organizational preferences for network versus automation priorities.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco DNA Center vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center vs. VMware Aria Automation

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 Automation

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Management Applications (1st), Network Monitoring Software (12th)

VMware Aria Automation

Ranking in Network Automation

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

170

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (1st), Configuration Management (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 13.9%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 10.3%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Automation

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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Le Quang Long

Cloud Engineer at BIDV - Ngân hàng TMCP Đầu tư & Phát triển Việt Nam

Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows

It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

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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 product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."

"Application Assurance works very well."

"The monitoring is very valuable to me."

"The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration."

"The solution has the capability to scale."

"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."

"Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."

More Cisco DNA Center pros

"Our time to deliver a fully unified three-tier app, at the right version, is one-twentieth what it was before. There is no manual intervention. No IP management. It just dramatically simplifies all of our processes."

"The solution is user-friendly and intuitive."

"We use it to deploy databases and testing environments. It spins up quickly and also break down fast."

"The most valuable features are the Catalog View and the access control business group. Access provisioning is probably the main use case for us, so we can separate access to different Catalog items among the different business groups and have that tied back to our AD LDAP systems."

"We provided the ability to request virtual machines to our end users. Before, this was a very manual process, which took engineers to do. Now, it's an automated process."

"The customer can set up multiple machine blueprints. Therefore, we are able to customize the template of three machines, then the customer can deploy without knowing anything about the IT business."

"Now the customer can manage their own server requirements directly. This is very important because, before that, the process included signing off on forms and sending them to the IT Director. It took at least 10 days to create a VM and send it to the person who needed it. Now, it's no more than a half hour to activate a new VM at the customer's site."

"It's much more stable than the highest available variant."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"Cisco DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it."

"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."

"An area for improvement in Cisco DNA Center is the latency in data correlation. For example, sometimes, when an issue happens, and I check the logs, I can't find the corresponding log. There's a delay in log replication, so this is what needs improvement in Cisco DNA Center. Reporting in Cisco DNA Center could also be improved because it only has a few templates, and you can't customize it based on your requirements. There aren't many options available in Cisco DNA Center regarding reporting, versus Cisco Prime, which has excellent features for different levels of detailed reports. I'd like to see real-time data replication in the next release of Cisco DNA Center, similar to what's done in Meraki. Data in Meraki is real-time with no delay, so data is immediately replicated in the cloud. Currently, there's a lag in Cisco DNA Center, and addressing that lag is the enhancement I'd like to see in Cisco DNA Center. The solution also needs to be more user-friendly."

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

"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."

"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."

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

"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."

More Cisco DNA Center cons

"The setup needs coding. It's not easy. It's not straightforward."

"I would like to see more integration to do things like DR, from a court perspective. Today, for us, SRM doesn't scale because each of our customers has a local vCenter environment as well as the vCenter in our environment. So we can't get SRM to scale to the point to which we need. From an integration perspective, DR inside of that would be good."

"I would like to see more automation, more ways to automate automation tasks."

"Most of the time the upgrade experience has been good but sometimes things break after upgrading. For example, some API codes stopped working."

"It has a learning curve."

"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."

"I know you can spin up virtual desktops in vRA, but they're not thin-provisioned. I don't know if that's because the other product, Horizon View, is there, but it would be nice to see more integration."

"I want to see HTML5. I want to get rid of JavaScript... we have a lot of issues with Java crashing when we're using vCenter. I obviously don't want that to happen with the vRealize Automation and Orchestrator side."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."

"The tool's licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."

"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."

"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."

"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."

"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."

More Cisco DNA Center pricing and cost advice

"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."

"We do plan to see ROI with any new implementation of new technologies being implemented within our environment."

"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."

"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being very expensive."

"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."

"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."

"I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."

"It is an open-source product."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco DNA Center?

The cost is very high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?

The system is working fine for me currently.

See all answers

What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?

vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...

See all answers

Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?

When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...

See all answers

Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?

I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...

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Comparisons

Cisco Catalyst Center vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 11% of the time

Juniper Mist Wired Assurance vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiManager vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 6% of the time

Meraki Dashboard vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco DNA Center Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 16% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 14% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 11% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center

April 2025

Download Cisco DNA Center product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

April 2025

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

DNA Center

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack

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

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features.

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.
Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.
DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.
Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.
Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.
Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.
Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.
Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.
Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.
Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.
The solution offers high levels of security and control.
This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.
VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.
The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.
The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

VMware

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Buyer's Guide

Cisco DNA Center vs. VMware Aria Automation

April 2025

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