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."The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat maps."
"Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible."
"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 gives you the ability to upgrade switches remotely, schedule the upgrade time, perform backups, and monitor the health of all networks."
"The most valuable is the assistance for network support."
"It helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues."
"The VLAN mapping function has been most impactful in simplifying our network management tasks."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"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."
"It is pretty straightforward to set up."
"It is a stable solution."
"The installation is straightforward."
"The configuration compliance aspect of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager allows for easy comparison of configuration settings across branches, ensuring adherence to security guidelines and best practices. Automation capabilities have greatly impacted workflows, enabling tasks such as configuration backups, template deployment, and firmware upgrades to be automated, thereby streamlining processes and saving time. Compliance reporting features provide valuable insights into network compliance, offering pre-built security audit reports and customizable options to meet specific requirements."
"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."
"Configuration refers to the specific settings and options that determine how a device or system behaves. It can include things, such as network settings, security settings, and other options that are specific to the device or system in question. One of the most valuable features of the solution was its ability to track and monitor changes to the configuration of devices on a network. This can be useful for troubleshooting and identifying potential issues. By keeping track of who made changes to the configuration and when it can be easier to determine the cause of any problems that may arise."
"The features we find most valuable is the configuration backup automation, the configuration compliance, the security vulnerability detection and upgrading devices."
"Cisco needs to improve Prime's monitoring tab. If any device goes down, there is a 15-second lapse before we know. It would be much better if we were alerted two or three minutes before a device is about to fail, so we can dispatch a field engineer and avoid network downtime. I would like to see a feature that allows you to access the devices directly from Prime's monitoring tab. That would make work easier for us."
"Cisco Prime's initial setup is complex."
"The product needs to improve its stability."
"The onboarding process could be improved and developed to enhance compatibility for non-Cisco devices."
"I want the tool to improve data visibility."
"The product's pricing can be cheaper."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"The product needs to improve its interface and reporting."
"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."
"Its customer service response could be faster."
"It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or a privileged assessment in the next release."
"I would like to see more integration tools. Something like dialysis, for example."
"For each device, when you open the network performance monitor, it will give you all of the information about the device, but many of the natural configuration management features are not on that page."
"The network logs could be improved. When the error logs come across with those false positive alarms in the error logs."
"The third-party plugins available in the solution could improve. I have received some issues with the templates."
"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."
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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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