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."We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."
"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out the configuration to branch networks. It also provides visibility into the health of user network devices."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"The solution has the capability to scale."
"The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration."
"It is very versatile in terms of analytics."
"Application Assurance works very well."
"It is very easy to manage. It has good security, and it is working well with our firewall."
"The ability of the product to perform with simplicity of deployment make it a valuable solution."
"The solution scales well."
"It's a simple, functional solution."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use and a single-pane-of-glass that allows us to identify issues across the entire network from one dashboard."
"We've been spending a lot less time on tickets and deployments, so we have more time to do other things."
"Everything is in a single pane and you can look at your network in one centralized place."
"You don't have to be a network engineer to use it."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's integration feature can be better."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities."
"They should include UTM features in the product."
"As a user, it would be good if I could plug in controllers, suites, and devices from other vendors to Cisco DNA Center."
"Third-party switches do not necessarily integrate easily with the system and this could be improved to allow for better adaptation."
"The tool is useful for managing devices and monitoring their current state, but it falls short in troubleshooting network issues, particularly with access points. It does not provide a complete understanding of the root causes of the issues. As a result, network engineers have had to use additional tools to complement it and conduct assessments. The only way to improve the tool would be to enhance its capability to identify and resolve network issues effectively."
"What needs improvement in Meraki Dashboard is its configuration. It'll also be better if the tool has more functionality, and that is what I'd like to see in its next release."
"There is a bit of a problem when you try to log in and you don't have a fixed IP address. If you're granting access, you need to log in by using the IP address. If your administrator's IP address is not a fixed IP address and it has changed, you might need to update the changed IP address in the interface. For this, you need to log in to the interface to update the IP address. This issue might not have so much to do with Meraki interface."
"The downside to the simplicity is that you can't get as granular as you could with the Cisco APs."
"I would like to see an alert event feature to monitor what users are downloading and how to block some applications."
"For my purposes, I don't need to see any other features added to the Meraki Dashboard. I have no criticisms and I do like the tool. If I had a criticism for it, it would be about the pricing because it could be a little less, but again, for the service that you get, I won't complain about that too much."
"The MDM, however, is bad. We're using another MDM now because Meraki was so bad."
Cisco DNA Center is ranked 25th in Network Monitoring Software with 36 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 Apstra Operating System, whereas Meraki Dashboard is most compared with SolarWinds NPM, ThousandEyes, Mist AI and Cloud, Zabbix and Auvik Network Management (ANM). See our Cisco DNA Center vs. Meraki Dashboard report.
See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors.
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