We performed a comparison between Cisco DNA Center and Meraki Dashboard 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."The single dashboard is a valuable feature."
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."
"Cisco VXLAN is a protocol that has been around for some time, but the practical implementation and operational capability of Cisco DNA Center bring it to life."
"I like that we can easily configure any new hardware. It's also easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot."
"It offers automation, security enforcement, analytics, and integration with other Cisco technologies, making it a key driver for efficient network operations and compliance with security protocols."
"It does a lot of things automatically, and that's the big thing with it. They're making the software so that you don't need to be as knowledgeable as me on the switching and routing side to get your work done. If you want, you can have DNA troubleshoot your problem for you and give you solutions or fix it itself, if it was something that's just a configuration issue."
"It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out the configuration to branch networks. It also provides visibility into the health of user network devices."
"What I found valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the Software-Defined Access Network, so the entire LAN network can be centralized and managed from a single dashboard. Cisco DNA Center is suitable for centralized management and lets you deploy switches in a centralized fashion. You can also do multiple switch port configurations simultaneously and segregate your traffic into multiple fabrics. Another valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is enhanced security through Scalable Group Tags. Cisco DNA Center can be integrated with your Cisco ISE to enhance the port securities, and this paves the way for Software-Defined Networking in the LAN segment, which is the main advantage of Cisco DNA Center. I also like that you can use Cisco DNA Center for data assurance or correlation. The solution shows your network and client health parameters, which I find convenient for troubleshooting."
"The most valuable feature is knowing the wireless and switch are healthy."
"The hardware of Meraki is very good quality."
"We find that Meraki has all the features you need to be able to enable complex network protocols for AV equipment. We deal with a streaming product over IP, and Meraki is fantastic at that."
"The initial setup was easy."
"It's a simple, functional solution."
"What I found most valuable in the Meraki Dashboard is straight monitoring of the different devices, as well as the ability to easily set up VPNs, for example, both Meraki client VPNs and non-Meraki VPNs for different organizations that work with my company. I also like that the tool is a really good firewall."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"Meraki Dashboard centralizes control of all our equipment into one cloud-based console, so we can manage it from anywhere. We can resolve problems remotely outside of business hours because it is on the cloud. You can use the dashboard to change security settings or configure routers and switches."
"The technical support needs improvement."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The solution's technical support is an area with which my company's clients have a problem. Cisco doesn't provide good technical support unless a user has a big account that Cisco wants to retain."
"Cisco DNA Center was a new technology for us, at the beginning, it was not easy to do, but Cisco did a lot of training with us to a level we could handle everything. The team is managing itself now without the assistance of Cisco."
"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."
"The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities."
"Integration with analytic tools and API integrations would be ideal."
"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."
"An area for improvement in Cisco DNA Center is the latency in data correlation. For example, sometimes, when an issue happens, and I check the logs, I can't find the corresponding log. There's a delay in log replication, so this is what needs improvement in Cisco DNA Center. Reporting in Cisco DNA Center could also be improved because it only has a few templates, and you can't customize it based on your requirements. There aren't many options available in Cisco DNA Center regarding reporting, versus Cisco Prime, which has excellent features for different levels of detailed reports. I'd like to see real-time data replication in the next release of Cisco DNA Center, similar to what's done in Meraki. Data in Meraki is real-time with no delay, so data is immediately replicated in the cloud. Currently, there's a lag in Cisco DNA Center, and addressing that lag is the enhancement I'd like to see in Cisco DNA Center. The solution also needs to be more user-friendly."
"I think this product could be improved with a CLI for more directives."
"One area that could use improvement in the Meraki Dashboard is user-friendliness when navigating to port configurations."
"There needs to be more improvement on the device-connected interface."
"The wait time to speak with a Meraki support engineer is always long, but they get the job done."
"They can improve the landing page in Meraki Dashboard. When I go into an organization, they can include a lot more infographics. They can also simplify it a bit and consolidate it. For example, if I've got five branches and I go into customer A's profile or organization, I'd like to see an infographic on the landing page providing a snippet of the entire network layout, that is, all branches in one snapshot. From there, I would like to go into the network that I want to work on or view."
"The one issue that we have had is that the VPN tunnel would go down unless you worked out with the ISP that you would be using a static IP address on the WAN interface."
"There are some issues with the NAT configuration, it is now impossible to some operations with the solution."
"Price could be reduced."
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Cisco DNA Center is ranked 25th in Network Monitoring Software with 37 reviews while Meraki Dashboard is ranked 9th in Network Monitoring Software with 51 reviews. Cisco DNA Center is rated 7.8, while Meraki Dashboard is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco DNA Center writes "Practical implementation of VXLAN is good and provides centralized control". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Meraki Dashboard writes "Incredibly easy to use, great troubleshooting and prevention of malicious events". Cisco DNA Center is most compared with Cisco Prime, Aruba Airwave, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, Huawei eSight and HPE Intelligent Management Center, whereas Meraki Dashboard is most compared with SolarWinds NPM, ThousandEyes, Mist AI and Cloud, Zabbix and Cisco Secure Network Analytics. See our Cisco DNA Center vs. Meraki Dashboard report.
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