Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs Fortinet FortiSIEM comparison

The compared Cisco and Fortinet solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #16 in NMS , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 0.5% mindshare in the category. Fortinet is ranked #7 in SIEM , with an average rating of 8.1, and holds a 3.3% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabri...

Read 25 Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) reviews

839 Views
822 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiSIEM

Read 74 Fortinet FortiSIEM reviews

5,920 Views
4,203 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabri...

Fortinet FortiSIEM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) and Fortinet FortiSIEM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Network Monitoring Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. Fortinet FortiSIEM Report (Updated: May 2020).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. Fortinet FortiSIEM

May 2020

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Helped 861,170 peers since 2012

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 Nexus Dashboard Fabri...

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (16th)

Fortinet FortiSIEM

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) and Fortinet FortiSIEM aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 0.5%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiSIEM, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 3.3% mindshare, up 3.0% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Featured Reviews

Upul Abhayasena

Manager - Technology at a engineering company with 10,001+ employees

Robust management tool with an easy setup and room for more features

DCNM is used by one of the airline customers in Qatar to manage many data centers and rack switches running on normal Nexus or NX-OS mode. They required a controller platform to manage these Nexus switches, and thus, they utilized DCNM as a Fabric controller. Given that ACI deployment is very low…

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Oliver Jackson

Network Engineer at Laminar Communications Pty Ltd

Systems monitoring enhanced by firewall and intrusion detection features

My primary use case for Fortinet FortiSIEM is systems monitoring and alerting. I use it for standard functions like log monitoring, incident detection, and notification. My customers are mostly medium-sized enterprises ranging from engineering companies, mining companies, independent schools, and…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Cisco Data Center Network Manager are consistency and the core server. The teams have had a good experience."

"Automation of the ILS."

"The product makes the management of our environment simpler."

"The product has excellent stability."

"It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly."

"We use the product to manage access points."

"The feature I find most valuable, is the stability of the solution."

"Data Center Network Manager is absolutely stable."

More Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) pros

"The most valuable feature is auto-discovery. When you send logs from any device to port 514, it helps register those devices automatically."

"I like the various options, including the option for CMDB and the easier access to create rules, playbooks, or use cases. It's also easier to use for creating dashboards and reports."

"Analytics. It can provide log information from the device. With log information, I can see if there is a threat"

"It is used as an alerting platform."

"Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users."

"We're able to get real-timec as well as our customer networks that we're monitoring at all times."

"The advanced agents used to collect logs have been most valuable. We have also made use of the advanced intelligence this solution offers."

"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiSIEM is the correlation of many events."

More Fortinet FortiSIEM pros

Cons

"It would be nice to have the ability to more easily collect information from other software when doing some types of analysis."

"The solution needs to improve reports."

"The visibility of applications is not great."

"The initial setup is challenging."

"It's a relatively expensive product for some clients."

"Could integrate better with VMware products."

"The tool should be more user-friendly and improve AI integration."

"The reporting is not very intuitive and has room for improvement."

More Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) cons

"The solution's interface could be modernized and improved."

"With FortiSIEM, the issue has to do with the ways we can generate a report. It's not as flexible compared to that with other SIEM tools, like Splunk."

"The challenge I face with Fortinet FortiSIEM is the lack of support."

"The tool's technical team's response time is too high, and they are not available even when they know that there are many pending issues."

"The interface needs some improvements because it's a bit cumbersome when you're trying to view items. It takes some time to get used to. Additionally, sometimes the scrolling does not work."

"An improvement would be if FortiSIEM's licensing was based on the number of nodes rather than the EPS."

"Fortinet FortiSIEM could improve by having a signature update."

"The backup and recovery process for this solution needs improvement."

More Fortinet FortiSIEM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."

"The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar platform across all domains."

"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."

"We usually opt for a yearly plan, commonly for three or five years upfront. Some customers may not utilize all the features included in the product, and this can lead to them paying for functionalities they don't need."

"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."

"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."

"The solution is very expensive."

"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive. I rate the tool's price as an eight out of ten. Compared with Splunk or Oracle, Fortinet is cheap."

"Fortinet's products are not expensive, it is less than the competition."

"Please be cheaper and more simplified."

"Fortinet FortiSIEM is cheaper compared to other products."

"We pay for a license for FortiSIEM. We pay for the license and renewal."

"This is probably more on the lower cost end of the spectrum compared to competing products. Fortinet's license model is based on events per second, which makes sense, but that's not typical. It makes it very hard to calculate what your costs are going to be as you scale the platform because some log sources, such as firewall logs, are very noisy, and there are lots and lots of events per second, but some of them are not. So, it becomes a bit of a science experiment trying to guess what your costs are going to be as you scale the solution. This is where other competing products perhaps have a more straightforward license model."

"Its price can be better. We are Fortinet partners, so we can get discounts, but its price can be an issue at the beginning for others. There is a licensing scheme for every case. There are three licensing schemes that we can choose from."

"The tool is really expensive. For what the tool does for our team, the price is fair."

More Fortinet FortiSIEM pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

Real Estate/Law Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Data Center Network Manager?

It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Data Center Network Manager?

The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar plat...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Data Center Network Manager?

In a mixed architecture where Nexus switches are used as border devices and are connected to a Palo Alto firewall (e.g., version 9.1 or 10.1), you might encounter issues with BGP peering. For insta...

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSIEM?

Fortinet FortiSIEM needs to provide better API integrations to users.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSIEM?

The pricing is reasonable, which is why it is preferred by government customers. Windows agent licenses cost around 3,000 Rupees per device per year.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSIEM?

Fortinet FortiSIEM should broaden its remediation part to include more features for incident management. Currently, to manage repetitive incidents or for remediation, I need to use a separate softw...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco DNA Center vs Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)

Compared 61% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)

Compared 15% of the time

SolarWinds Network Automation Manager vs Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)

Compared 14% of the time

Icinga vs Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)

Compared 10% of the time

More Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) Competitors

Wazuh vs Fortinet FortiSIEM

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Security QRadar vs Fortinet FortiSIEM

Compared 12% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Fortinet FortiSIEM

Compared 9% of the time

LogRhythm SIEM vs Fortinet FortiSIEM

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Sentinel vs Fortinet FortiSIEM

Compared 6% of the time

More Fortinet FortiSIEM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)

July 2025

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) report

Download Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiSIEM

July 2025

Download Fortinet FortiSIEM product report

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager

FortiSIEM, AccelOps

Overview

The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) offers a comprehensive solution for managing Cisco NX-OS switches in hybrid-cloud environments, providing automation, visibility, and consistent operations. Designed to simplify and enhance data center management, NDFC integrates with Cisco Nexus Dashboard to streamline network connectivity, reduce deployment times, and ensure seamless transitions with minimal disruptions. Its modular architecture, new user interface, and support for non-Nexus OS platforms make it a robust tool for LAN, SAN, and IP Fabric for Media management. Additionally, NDFC enhances fabric reliability, automates workflows, and supports cloud connectivity with AWS and Microsoft Azure, making it ideal for businesses adapting to increasingly complex digital environments.

Cisco

FortiSIEM (formerly AccelOps 4) provides an actionable security intelligence platform to monitor security, performance and compliance through a single pane of glass.

Companies around the world use FortiSIEM for the following use cases:

Threat management and intelligence that provide situational awareness and anomaly detection
Alleviating compliance mandate concerns for PCI, HIPAA and SOX
Managing “alert overload”
Handling the “too many tools” reporting issue
Addressing the MSPs/MSSPs pain of meeting service level agreements

Fortinet

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia

FortiSIEM has hundreds of customers worldwide in markets including managed services, technology, financial services, healthcare, and government. Customers include Aruba Networks, Compushare, Port of San Diego, Cleveland Indians, Infoblox, Healthways, and Referentia.

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. Fortinet FortiSIEM

May 2020

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