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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs Kentik 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 Nexus Dashboard Fabri...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
34th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kentik is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)0.6%
Kentik0.9%
Other98.5%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Upul Abhayasena - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON - PeerSpot reviewer
Client experience and cybersecurity have improved with an easy setup
The solution is valuable for client experience, especially in the financial sector. The most important feature is cybersecurity. The pricing is good, but the functionality is the most important aspect for clients. The solution is easy to deploy and requires only one person to set up, making it easy and quick. Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like that is easy to work on and straightforward."
"You can integrate all the networks into the software."
"The product makes the management of our environment simpler."
"Automation of the ILS."
"The monitoring capability is the best in Cisco Data Center Network Manager. It helps me improve network management tasks and optimize processes."
"The product has excellent stability."
"It has a very nice dashboard so you can see what's currently happening in the network and the performance of the back story."
"Monitoring system provides a clear indication of what's going on in the network."
"I am able to do a lot of work on the visualization end to create different visualizations and different ways to get information out of it."
"Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives."
"Kentik excels in telemetry within data centers and works well in multi-vendor environments."
"The drill-down into detailed views of network activity helps to quickly pinpoint locations and causes. All the information is there."
"I really love the Data Explorer. I use it all the time to go in and craft exactly what I need to see. I'm able to then take that story and explain it to the executives. I've done that a couple of times and it is helpful."
"Having the API access allows us to do a great deal of automation around a lot of our reporting and management tools."
"One of the valuable features is the intuitive nature of building out reports, and then triggering actions based on specific metrics from those reports. It has a really good UI and the ability to surface data through the reporting functions is pretty good. That's helped a lot in the security space."
"We're also using Kentik to ingest metrics. It's a useful feature, and its response time, whenever we're pulling back the data, is higher than our on-prem solution."
 

Cons

"The tool's pricing strategy could be improved to compete more effectively in the market, especially against competitors like Huawei, Aruba, and Juniper."
"The configuration is too complicated and you have to create templates and use a lot of menus."
"API lacks robustness."
"It is not very easy to monitor or to browse."
"The solution needs to improve reports."
"It's very costly."
"Could integrate better with VMware products."
"The initial setup is challenging."
"I believe they're already working on this, but I would love for them to create better integrations from network flow data to application performance — tracing — so that we could overlay that data more readily. With more companies going hybrid, flow logs and flow data, whether it be VPC or on-prem, matched with application performance and trace data, is pretty important."
"In recent months, I've noticed that while the industry is trending towards AI, Kentik has room for improvement in this area."
"We had faced some issues during an outage and were not able to get the desired results from Kentik tools. It took time to resolve these issues, which is why I give them eight points."
"I've checked out the V4 version of the interface and it's still a little bit clunky for me to use. I still go back to the old interface. That's definitely one that they still need to work on. It doesn't seem like everything that you get in the V3, the older interface, is there. For instance, I was trying to add a user or do the administrative tasks in V4, and I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to do that."
"The product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect."
"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."
"The only downside to Kentik, something that I don't like, is that it's great that it shows you where these anomalies lie, but it's not actionable. Kentik is valuable, don't get me wrong, but if it had an actionable piece to it..."
"They're moving more in a direction where they are saying, "Hey, here's information that you may be interested in or may a need," before the question has to explicitly be asked. Continuing to move in that direction would be a good thing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is very expensive."
"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."
"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."
"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."
"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."
"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."
"We have an annual contract with Kentik that we renew each year for a set number of licenses. We also have some burstable licenses which we can spin up and spin down, and those are paid as they are used."
"The tool is cheaply priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

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.
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
I would say Kentik's pricing is not cheap. From my perspective as part of the technical team, I would not categorize it as expensive, but I know it is not cheap.
What needs improvement with Kentik?
There's always room for improvements and better relations when using any kind of product. We faced some issues with Kentik UI and alerting, which we asked them to fix, and they succeeded. They have...
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
We are using Kentik mostly for synthetic tests, and from one last year, network monitoring as well. We are using it for inter DC BGP tests and server monitoring as well.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. Kentik and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.