We performed a comparison between Cisco DNA Center and WhatsUp Gold 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."We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The single dashboard is a valuable feature."
"We have many people from the team who manage a lot of devices. By using Cisco DNA Center, it has taken some of that burden away, we are impressed with it. We did the investment in CAPEX, but in the OPEX was very low."
"It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out the configuration to branch networks. It also provides visibility into the health of user network devices."
"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."
"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 automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"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."
"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."
"It is a stable solution."
"The user interface is good enough."
"The solution effectively monitors network devices and servers."
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"It is easy to access and discover devices, as well as monitor them automatically. The topology discover is also a useful feature."
"The interactive mapping interface for scrolling, zooming, and drilling down on an element to learn about a network issue is good. When we see a network there will sometimes be a spot that has one link. You can go into a particular part of the topology map, scroll in, and see exactly which module it is."
"The most important features of WhatsUp Gold are the server health and uptime it provides. Additionally, WhatsUp Gold is a Windows-based solution which is a benefit."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The technical support 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."
"There are some software problems from version to version. It takes a long time for DNA Center to recognize the video and control access devices."
"I would like is to have a small information pointer available. It could be a plus feature that I want to implement. When I hover my mouse over the user interface, it should provide a brief explanation. It would be helpful to have it incorporated into the UI."
"We encountered issues with their response times, which had a big impact on our workflow."
"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."
"It seems to be a little bit more centered toward wireless than wired. You've got more options you can do wirelessly than you can with the wired switches, but it works for what we need it to do. We would like to see a little bit more about the traffic, and we're looking at what's out there to see about that. We are looking at something that might give us a bit more insight into the actual traffic. If they had the full functionality on the wired side, as they do on the wireless side in terms of being able to view traffic and everything, it would be good."
"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"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."
"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."
"Regional product team support is not very good."
"One of the biggest things that made us start to look at another product is we're not able to have an end to end monitoring from a user perspective throughout the system and back to the user. All the monitoring is from inside out, we need something that also can give us from outside in."
"WhatsUp Gold should work on real-time monitoring and configuration management. If they succeed in doing this, the solution will cover all the network troubleshooting aspects and will be a benefit."
"I would like to see them do an enhancement to the application monitoring. A lot of other products do better application monitoring so they should do some improvements to the application monitoring."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future."
"The interface needs some work."
"The product is old and not updated."
More Juniper Mist Premium Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco DNA Center is ranked 25th in Network Monitoring Software with 37 reviews while WhatsUp Gold is ranked 35th in Network Monitoring Software with 22 reviews. Cisco DNA Center is rated 7.8, while WhatsUp Gold is rated 7.8. 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 WhatsUp Gold writes "If CPU, memory, or disk space is over-utilized, it alerts us immediately via text or email if there is an issue". Cisco DNA Center is most compared with Cisco Prime, Aruba Airwave, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, Juniper Mist Wired Assurance and Huawei eSight, whereas WhatsUp Gold is most compared with Grafana, SolarWinds NPM, Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor and ServiceNow IT Operations Management. See our Cisco DNA Center vs. WhatsUp Gold report.
See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors.
We monitor all Network Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.