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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs Nagios Core 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
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 2.9%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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…
Nishith-Vyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements
The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is the consolidated dashboard, providing insights into parameters and overall usage of network features. It allows us to easily summarize insights through the dashboards. The solution offers automation capabilities, particularly in the context of connecting LAN sites with websites."
"I like that is easy to work on and straightforward."
"The feature I find most valuable, is the stability of the solution."
"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."
"Stability is not an issue."
"The product makes the management of our environment simpler."
"I like running the scripts. With the help of a Python script, we deployed within the configuration and built up the code."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Data Center Network Manager are consistency and the core server. The teams have had a good experience."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."
"The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me."
"The solution is quite efficient."
"Other products are good but from the configuration point of view Nagios is really very lightweight. The price is really good in my opinion. Another important thing is that my Nagios engine still works with Dual core 8GB ram for the last 10 years."
"Provides timely notifications."
"I would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
 

Cons

"The visibility of applications is not great."
"In the next release, I would like to see it merged with Prime and I think that it should be more unified."
"Could integrate better with VMware products."
"We need better performance and reliability."
"The automation feature could be improved."
"More integration features would be beneficial."
"The initial setup is challenging."
"It's very costly."
"It is a bit slow due to latency."
"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."
"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"It would be nice if the company offered a sales or contract manager that was dedicated to our company so that we would have some sort of link to Nagios, and if we had issues or questions, we'd be able to contact them directly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."
"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."
"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 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 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 solution is very expensive."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"The solution is expensive."
"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"It's free."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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.
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 do you like most about Nagios Core?
What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
 

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
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.