We performed a comparison between Cisco Prime and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Management Applications solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Cisco Prime, from a management perspective, has good reporting."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management."
"We use the solution to control the physical service station that is part of the SCADA network. We connect and control them remotely."
"Cisco Prime allows us to manage all the wireless controllers and access points."
"We use Cisco Prime for network mapping and surveys."
"The hardware Cisco provides is excellent. It's a well-made product."
"The interfaces are a valuable feature."
"What I found most beneficial from Cisco Prime is that it gives you an insight into what your network does, even when you're not actively monitoring what's going on with your network."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution's view is very nice, and they have a great customized dashboard."
"It allows us to manage backups in big companies. It is also useful in managing the configuration changes."
"What's nice with NCM is you can set up policies that you can then check against the configs to ensure that your device configs adhere to a baseline or standard that you've set in place."
"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."
"I use it for monitoring the entire network for the company. We oversee nodes down, we oversee devices heading up to crossing the threshold for CPU usage. We oversee power so power backups on the switches, we oversee if they're down or if they're failing. We oversee any node down or any router from any vendor."
"SolarWinds NCM provides updates on the status of your network infrastructure. If any issues arise, such as a link failure or a device going offline, you will receive notifications and alerts. Additionally, if someone unplugs a cable, SolarWinds NCM will detect it. It also features a Topology Mapper that displays the connectivity of your network devices, giving you a visual representation of the network's structure. With SolarWinds NCM, you have a clear understanding of what's happening within your network and can generate comprehensive reports."
"The most valuable Real-time fault detection is beneficial as it enables the identification of changes made to a device's configuration through the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. This makes it easy to pinpoint which configurations were added or removed, potentially causing network issues. Such changes are saved in logs for future reference."
"The product needs to improve its interface and reporting."
"Some improvements are needed, specifically in the form of more updates and enhancements."
"The solution has issues with real time monitoring of devices and NetFlow such as inadequate visualization for reports, sources, and destinations."
"I want the tool to improve data visibility."
"This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"They can also improve the management of more enterprise devices."
"The reporting feature of Cisco Prime should be improved."
"The only thing that requires some experience, and training doesn't fix, is how to set up your custom policy-based reports to check compliance."
"I would like to see more integration tools. Something like dialysis, for example."
"Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues."
"When it comes to the way of managing the network devices, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager should provide the simplest way that devices can relate to the server. For example, when we want to get the devices on board, we go by SSH to make the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager create the connectivity with the device. After that, we pull the configuration. It would be helpful if they could combine both so that everything will be done in one step."
"It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or a privileged assessment in the next release."
"When we run the SolarWinds NCM jobs at the cellular line, it runs in the morning. They're just not finishing. We're getting false processing."
"The third-party plugins available in the solution could improve. I have received some issues with the templates."
"The network logs could be improved. When the error logs come across with those false positive alarms in the error logs."
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Cisco Prime is ranked 2nd in Network Management Applications with 35 reviews while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is ranked 10th in Configuration Management with 22 reviews. Cisco Prime is rated 7.8, while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Prime writes "Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager writes "Streamlines network configuration and compliance processes through its centralized dashboard, although its compatibility with multi-vendor devices may present limitations". Cisco Prime is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, Aruba Airwave, Huawei eSight, Fortinet FortiManager and HPE Intelligent Management Center, whereas SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, OpenText Network Node Manager i, VMware NSX and IBM Tivoli NetCool. See our Cisco Prime vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager report.
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