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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs LiveNX comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 26, 2025

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
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
LiveNX
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
35th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (39th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LiveNX is 0.9%, up from 0.8% 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)0.7%
LiveNX0.9%
Other98.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jagdev Dhaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Flow monitoring has improved planning for east-west traffic and real-time capacity decisions
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) helps to understand the flows and data plane capacities, which are the primary use cases. Usually, people struggle with east-west traffic flow when they need to decide on firewalls or products. People typically understand north-south traffic flows but usually miss the east-west traffic flows in data centers. I was focusing more on this so that people can accordingly plan, such as after F5, the number of servers, the number of sessions needed, and whether we need to plan the interface for groups from the line capacity perspective. This kind of information was valuable to us. The real-time telemetry feature was beneficial. When experiencing performance issues, I could determine if there were any issues related to flows or areas where bottlenecks were occurring.
Ashwani Bansal - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Consultant at Orange
Network management and diagnostics improved through effective monitoring and reporting capabilities
The solution is handy. I have not used that particular feature. Maintenance is required for the system. If you want to use something on the endpoints or end-user devices, then using LiveAction LiveNX in place of other tools would be quite beneficial. The solution impacts operational costs and resources. On a scale of 1-10, I rate LiveAction LiveNX a nine.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the product to manage access points."
"Cisco's support I would rate as a 10 compared to all other vendors."
"Fabric suite automation is a great feature."
"The monitoring capability is the best in Cisco Data Center Network Manager. It helps me improve network management tasks and optimize processes."
"It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly."
"I like that is easy to work on and straightforward."
"It has a very nice dashboard so you can see what's currently happening in the network and the performance of the back story."
"The automation capability is more than enough. It depends on how we consider and integrate the automation engine. We need to ensure the automation engine and then how to perform it. It depends on the policy making, API integration, and other integrations."
"The intention and the idea of the filter is great."
"LiveAction LiveNX provides valuable real-time and historical network traffic visualization capabilities that help monitor and analyze network performance."
"One of the valuable features is the ability to create CLI scripts on the fly to fix any issues. We were using it for QoS modeling to ensure that we were properly modeling QoS, and it basically said here is what you need to fix to get this QoS done, whether it is ACL or something else. It would either push or recommend. If you have the right credentials, you could also push. It is very good if you are a Cisco shop. It gives you reporting, latency, and bandwidth utilization for your applications, so you can do good capacity management planning. There are a lot of pieces that LiveNX can give you. It is a total NPM solution for SD-WAN."
"We don't have any complaints about the software. According to my team, it's a very good tool that's very intuitive."
"All in all, LiveAction LiveNX has become an indispensable tool for maintaining and improving our network's reliability and performance, ultimately supporting our organization's goal of providing timely and dependable delivery services."
"Its analytical capability is really good."
"We provide a tool for our customers to manage their reports. It's an extremely highly featured platform capable of producing a lot of data. We spent quite a long time working with customers and LiveAction to create template reports, and they're very good and configurable. You get a lot of data if you don't configure them."
"On a scale of 1-10, I rate LiveAction LiveNX a nine."
 

Cons

"Could integrate better with VMware products."
"The tool's pricing strategy could be improved to compete more effectively in the market, especially against competitors like Huawei, Aruba, and Juniper."
"The initial setup is challenging."
"The visibility of applications is not great."
"It would be nice to have the ability to more easily collect information from other software when doing some types of analysis."
"Automation for the RMA process can be added."
"If the customer thinks about using additional solutions, Cisco should make sure they are not left out."
"Sometimes the product gives us problems that require support."
"The customer service and technical support of LiveAction LiveNX are rated at 4 out of 10."
"Maintenance is required for the system."
"The tool crashes sometimes when we try to pull reports simultaneously."
"The only downside to this software is the price."
"The product is weak in multi-tenancy. We have to install multiple instances of LiveAction, whereas we would like to build it once for our customers."
"Sometimes the solution does not register devices properly and that is a bug."
"They need to create a more simplified UI."
"It is not as robust as other NPM solutions. For instance, there is a problem while labeling specific applications. It works well with well-known applications, but when you have to put in new applications that are not very known and set them up with names, ports, URLs, or some protocols, it is not as intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"The solution is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It's very expensive."
"We use the free version."
"The solution is fairly expensive compared to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise9
 

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?
I do not believe it integrated well with different infrastructures for hybrid environments. I am uncertain because we have never attempted that in our environment, so they could perform better in t...
What needs improvement with LiveAction LiveNX?
The solution could be enhanced by implementing custom patterns for each customer.
What is your primary use case for LiveAction LiveNX?
The customers use LiveAction LiveNX for network monitoring and management purposes.
What advice do you have for others considering LiveAction LiveNX?
I work as an integrator with LiveAction LiveNX. Most customers prefer deploying it on premises rather than in the cloud. The advanced diagnostics capabilities, including flow-based surveillance and...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
LiveNX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
Tampa Electric, Digital First Media, Allscripts, Boxwood Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. LiveNX and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.