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Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass vs Cisco DNA Center comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass
Ranking in Network Management Applications
23rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Management Applications
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (19th), Network Automation (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass is 1.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 8.7%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center8.7%
Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass1.8%
Other89.5%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Karthikeyan Ravi - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President of Technology at Netcon Technologies India Private Limited
Has an automated feature for user onboarding and supports heterogeneous devices
We use the product for the automated onboarding of corporate users with secure network access. It helps secure IoT endpoints for specific networks. It allows us to control the devices, including posture, endpoint verification, validation, latest patching, and signatures The product’s most…
Mahir Öztürk - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at NGN Bilgi ve İletişim Hizmetleri
Client history has helped resolve past network issues more efficiently
I mostly use the client history feature of Cisco DNA Center. I didn't use the real-time monitoring capability of Cisco DNA Center because I primarily used it for client history regarding issues and problems. I don't use it for real-time monitoring. If there is a problem, I can inspect the situation and see what is happening, which is beneficial.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I think the best features are the user profiling and the BYOD facilities."
"It helps secure IoT endpoints for specific networks."
"The monitoring features are very useful for network engineers."
"I like that we can easily configure any new hardware. It's also easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot."
"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."
"The most valuable features include AI-driven insights which make troubleshooting much easier."
"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."
"The biggest lesson that I have learned from working with this solution is that this technology is much easier now."
"My advice to others is if you are a large enough company to have the Cisco DNA Center technology, you must try it because for a large enterprise or multi-site organization it's impressive and it saves a lot of money and time."
"Cisco DNA Center is something that I recommend."
 

Cons

"There could be in-built end-to-end map integration features for IoT devices instead of using third-party tools."
"I think the solution would be greatly improved by adding application level visibility on the dashboard."
"The solution can be quite pricey."
"The product has many features that do not work properly."
"The solution’s security side could be improved."
"Integration with analytic tools and API integrations would be ideal."
"Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs."
"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."
"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."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass is an expensive product compared to other vendors."
"Cisco DNA Center is a licensed product with multiple levels of licensing available such as basic, advanced, and essential. I don't have the exact figure, but Cisco DNA Center is costly. For example, the box has information about the essential license and costs a considerable amount of money. You need to pay extra to use advanced features in Cisco DNA Center. My company sees Cisco DNA Center as a solution that's worth the money, which is why it invested in the solution. If you want centralized management for your network, especially when upgrading it, Cisco DNA Center is perfect, but it's more suitable for a large-scale rather than a small-scale network."
"Our licensing agreement is for three years."
"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"Affordability is a problem because it's created for large enterprises only. So, some customers, even if their engineers want the solution, might have problems with budget limitations."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco DNA Center?
After evaluating other solutions, we will provide feedback.
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
The deployment of Cisco DNA Center was complex due to the fact that on the data center side, we have a Juniper infrastructure, which created some complexity, though not significant. The deployment ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco DNA Center?
In my organization, we currently have some Cisco devices such as access switches, and we also have infrastructure, but that is not part of our responsibility. We do not manage that infrastructure. ...
 

Also Known As

Alcatel Lucent ClearPass, ClearPass Policy Management System, ClearPass
DNA Center
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blickle and Scherer, Loughborough University, CSF Inox, Caritas Speyer
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass vs. Cisco DNA Center and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.