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Cisco DNA Center vs Zenoss Cloud 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)
Zenoss Cloud
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
65th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (19th), Event Monitoring (14th), Server Monitoring (26th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (52nd), Container Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (41st), AIOps (28th)
 

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 Zenoss Cloud is 0.9%, 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%
Zenoss Cloud0.9%
Other98.4%
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.
ClaudiaChen - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect - Senior Technology Architect at Telstra
Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features
As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"In terms of software-defined networking, I think it's an outstanding product."
"Cisco DNA Center is a user-friendly solution."
"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."
"The product's most valuable feature is the visual representation of the switch's front panel."
"The most valuable features include AI-driven insights which make troubleshooting much easier."
"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."
"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."
"With this solution, they can have one million users at the same time with no crashes."
"The most valuable feature is the flexible discovery mechanism."
"Overall, it's a great solution, and I consider it to be one of the best."
"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."
"It is the most flexible solution of this type, but it takes time to adapt."
"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."
 

Cons

"There are some software problems from version to version. It takes a long time for DNA Center to recognize the video and control access devices."
"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."
"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."
"It's a very good product, however, it comes with a very high price."
"It seems to be a little bit more centered toward wireless than wired. You've got more options you can do wirelessly than you can with the wired switches, but it works for what we need it to do. We would like to see a little bit more about the traffic, and we're looking at what's out there to see about that. We are looking at something that might give us a bit more insight into the actual traffic. If they had the full functionality on the wired side, as they do on the wireless side in terms of being able to view traffic and everything, it would be good."
"Integration with analytic tools and API integrations would be ideal."
"As a user, it would be good if I could plug in controllers, suites, and devices from other vendors to Cisco DNA Center."
"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 inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."
"This solution is complex for beginners so it takes some time to learn."
"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"
"Technical support is 3/10, poor: Incomplete and poor documentation Undocumented processes Inconsistent solutions to problems depending on source"
"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."
"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."
"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."
"The AI aspect needs to improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is medium-priced."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."
"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."
"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."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."
"It depends on the customer, what he wants."
"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."
"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Transportation 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 Business4
Large Enterprise5
 

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. ...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a large-scale company is Zenoss, due to its ability to monitor completely hybrid and a...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. Zenoss Cloud and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,005 professionals have used our research since 2012.