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Cisco DNA Center vs Zenoss Cloud 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)
Zenoss Cloud
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
64th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (19th), Event Monitoring (14th), Server Monitoring (25th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (51st), Container Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (41st), AIOps (28th)
 

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 Zenoss Cloud is 0.9%, 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%
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

"DNA Center is scalable."
"The most valuable features of Cisco DNA Center are wireless assurance and visibility."
"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."
"My advice to others is if you are a large enough company to have the Cisco DNA Center technology, you must try it because for a large enterprise or multi-site organization it's impressive and it saves a lot of money and time."
"In terms of software-defined networking, I think it's an outstanding product."
"I think that their LAN automation is a very good feature."
"The best feature of Cisco DNA Center is the visibility page, where you can see everything on the dashboard, and you don't have to be a technical person to view the issues."
"Deployment is easier than it was five or six years ago."
"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."
"Overall, it's a great solution, and I consider it to be one of the best."
"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."
"It's easy to use."
"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past."
"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."
"With this solution, they can have one million users at the same time with no crashes."
 

Cons

"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"The deployment part is definitely an area for improvement; Cisco DNA Center has some weaknesses that require improvements in that area."
"The features of Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Prime could have more parity."
"In my opinion, the client history in Cisco DNA Center can be longer than 10 days, perhaps extending to 15 or 20 days."
"There should be an option for automation of template deployment by using the stored data."
"We have had a lot of problems with the Cisco switches and have needed to upgrade the operating systems, which means that we have to upgrade the DNA."
"The cost is very high."
"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"
"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."
"Technical support is 3/10, poor: Incomplete and poor documentation Undocumented processes Inconsistent solutions to problems depending on source"
"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."
"This solution is complex for beginners so it takes some time to learn."
"The AI aspect needs to improve."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is medium-priced."
"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"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."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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 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%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing 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: September 2026.
915,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.