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Cisco UCS Manager vs Grafana Enterprise Stack comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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 UCS Manager
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Grafana Enterprise Stack
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana Enterprise Stack is 1.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Grafana Enterprise Stack1.2%
Cisco UCS Manager1.2%
Other97.6%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Edwin Mwosa - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced network oversight with rapid issue identification and good efficiency
We mainly use Cisco UCS Manager to integrate and manage our Cisco switches across the building. We also utilize it for network integration. It provides an integrated solution for our Cisco environment, streamlining our operations and managing multiple Cisco devices like switches and routers Cisco…
Gregory Diana - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers very good charting capabilities and capable of automatically generating dashboards, even for a large number of data points
In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party. It's like Node-RED. Node-RED is free, and you can choose an application, but that application depends on the person who's supporting it. If they decide not to support it, then you're stuck. However, I believe that it can't be improved or changed because people have to make money and make a living from it. Nothing will ever be changed. It depends on the software. Same as Windward. Windward just decided it could not support a large number of customers, so it focused on high-income, low-volume clients. Whereas Node-RED has millions of followers and fantastic support, the same as Grafana. Grafana is partly free, but it's your problem. That's how all these companies work. If you're big and you pay a lot of money, they'll pay attention to you.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Creating UCS service profiles for quickly deploying servers and replicating that configuration to another server makes it easier for deployment."
"One of the valuable features is the user interface base."
"It's robust."
"The management is one of the most valuable features of this solution."
"Cisco UCS Manager is overall a good package because it gives a GUI interface and a CLI."
"The solution is highly scalable, mainly because of the templates that make it easy for you to actually edit on the system."
"Ease of management is certainly the most valuable feature in this product."
"Cisco Infrastructure is one of the top vendors and no one can beat them in terms of switching and routing."
"It is truly reliable."
"The most valuable features of Grafana for data visualization are its ability to create intuitive dashboards and its wide range of visualization options like graphs, charts, and tables."
"Grafana has enough features around dashboard management. It's got enough plugins to create your dashboards."
"Grafana's most valuable feature is its ability to provide a graphical representation of data collected from various sources."
"The ability to graph actual, live, or on-the-fly activity is valuable; it is an added value to work with Grafana Enterprise Stack and to display results or logs, which are huge in nature, in graphical characters."
"Compared to other packages, Grafana Enterprise Stack is user-friendly and easy to configure quickly."
"Our productivity has improved with its use."
"Grafana's full observability stack, known as LGTM, is highly valuable."
 

Cons

"The automation within the solution needs to be simplified."
"Getting a CLI report on routers, switches, or any other CLI configuration device is difficult."
"What's lacking in Cisco UCS Manager is the performance dashboard. If a blade has any performance issues, you should be able to create a dashboard on Cisco UCS Manager. Currently, this feature isn't present."
"I would like to see improved visibility into the operating system, enabling us to identify issues directly from the operating system itself."
"Upgrading the firmware is a difficult procedure."
"Some settings are still fairly well hidden, even the basic ones."
"I want to be able to schedule multiple sequential updates in one go."
"The interface and the way it is constructed is very complex. They should work to simplify it. It's quite difficult for somebody who doesn't know the product very well. Users should be able to get proficient with it faster. There's definitely room for improvement there."
"The connection between metrics, logs, and traces could be improved. Currently, one needs to ingest labels and timestamps for them to be connected, however, drilling down sometimes takes time."
"The tool needs to show only fewer updates."
"I have encountered occasional issues with false inputs or incorrect data in Grafana."
"They could use more small tutorials to explain a bit about how Grafana works."
"In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party."
"The connection between metrics, logs, and traces could be improved."
"I find Grafana really hard to configure. It's difficult to build the dashboard, and it's non-intuitive. In my opinion, it's very difficult to work with Grafana."
"Integrating AI capabilities for automated self-healing and reduced manual interventions would be valuable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."
"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."
"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."
"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."
"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."
"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."
"I use the tool's free license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Manager?
When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Manager?
My experience with the pricing of Cisco UCS Manager ( /products/cisco-ucs-manager-reviews ) is that it is reasonable. Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offe...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?
For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks. While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the...
What do you like most about Grafana Enterprise Stack?
The tool's most valuable feature is real-time monitoring. It helps in securing the application or the node by allowing us to monitor and manage resource consumption during peak times. For instance,...
What needs improvement with Grafana Enterprise Stack?
The layout is good, but I think it needs some enhancement based on my experience. I might not have gotten deeper to understand more details, but I believe it needs more improvement. Scalability and...
What is your primary use case for Grafana Enterprise Stack?
I have been working for several months with Icinga, but after that, I moved forward to Zabbix, and now I might switch to Grafana Enterprise Stack. I am trying many alternatives to provide monitorin...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals
1. Uber 2. PayPal 3. eBay 4. Sony 5. Red Hat 6. IBM 7. Cisco 8. Adobe 9. Expedia 10. Booking.com 11. Airbnb 12. LinkedIn 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Spotify 16. Pinterest 17. Slack 18. GitLab 19. Docker 20. Atlassian 21. Salesforce 22. Microsoft 23. Google 24. Amazon 25. Facebook 26. Apple 27. Intel 28. Oracle 29. SAP 30. VMware 31. HP 32. Dell
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Manager vs. Grafana Enterprise Stack and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.