Aruba Airwave vs Cisco Catalyst Center comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco are both solutions in the Network Management Applications category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while Cisco is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 4.0% mindshare in NMA, compared to Cisco’s 7.9% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Aruba Airwave

Read 26 Aruba Airwave reviews

1,305 Views
1,161 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Cisco Catalyst Center

Read 17 Cisco Catalyst Center reviews

1,133 Views
1,122 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Aruba Airwave

Cisco Catalyst Center

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

Aruba Airwave and Cisco Catalyst Center are network management platforms for enterprises seeking robust infrastructure management. Cisco Catalyst Center has the upper hand with extensive features that justify its premium price, while Aruba Airwave is favored for cost-effectiveness and support.

Features: Aruba Airwave provides comprehensive network visibility, monitoring, and troubleshooting with multivendor support, integrating seamlessly across device types. Cisco Catalyst Center offers advanced features like automation, deep analytics, and proactive network management for centralized control and streamlined operations. The primary difference is Cisco's superior automation and analytics capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Aruba Airwave is known for its straightforward deployment and quality customer support, ensuring minimal disruption and efficient troubleshooting. Cisco Catalyst Center involves a more complex deployment but offers extensive resources and support services for large-scale implementations. The distinction is Aruba's simplicity and responsiveness, compared to Cisco's comprehensive, complex service offerings.

Pricing and ROI: Aruba Airwave promises high ROI with lower initial setup costs and affordable maintenance, appealing to budget-conscious organizations without sacrificing functionalities. Cisco Catalyst Center requires higher upfront investment but offers significant long-term returns through features enhancing operational efficiency. The difference lies in Cisco's focus on value through innovation, while Aruba emphasizes balanced cost against benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Aruba Airwave vs. Cisco Catalyst Center Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Airwave vs. Cisco Catalyst Center

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

5.8

Aruba Airwave provides long-term ROI with efficient troubleshooting, significant cost savings, and improved productivity despite initial hardware costs.

Sentiment score

5.5

The Cisco Catalyst Center offers cost-effective, high-performance network management, valued for easy deployment and stable, tailored solutions.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Aruba Airwave report

They have a long life.

Christopher Dent

Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

The best feature is its availability, easy deployment, and good support for the solution.

Daniel Garcia Montes

Consultant at TECVA

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco Catalyst Center report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.4

Aruba Airwave technical support is praised for effective service, knowledgeable staff, and multilingual communication, despite occasional slower responses.

Sentiment score

7.3

Cisco Catalyst Center provides highly-rated customer service with dedicated support, though some report delays in hardware replacement.

I would rate their technical support as a nine or ten, as it's quite good.

Edward Zeng

Senior Network Engineer at Auckland University of Technology

Angie was very kind and communicated well in both Spanish and English, making it pleasant to connect with her.

reviewer1877184

TI at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Aruba Airwave report

I had a situation where they were present with us overnight to fix an issue for a customer, demonstrating their dedication.

Ahmad Attal

Cyber Security Architect at Spie Ics

I would rate technical support nine to nine and a half out of ten.

reviewer2356428

Lead Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The software platform is very easy to use.

Daniel Garcia Montes

Consultant at TECVA

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco Catalyst Center report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.0

Aruba Airwave is scalable, supporting different user counts and environments, often used with Cisco tools, rated highly for scalability.

Sentiment score

7.6

Cisco Catalyst Center offers scalable, flexible solutions for businesses, excelling in control, automation, and infrastructure robustness despite some limitations.

Aruba Airwave is fully scalable, as we have a large number of tenants using the network with approximately six thousand end users.

reviewer1854369

Executive at a government with 201-500 employees

Aruba Airwave gives good information about SNR value, signal value, and you can get extensive information.

Ahmet Bulbul

Senior Network Consultant at Data Market

For more quotes and insights, download the Aruba Airwave report

They have a feature that allows stacking switches together.

Christopher Dent

Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Cisco Catalyst Center is scalable and quite flexible, allowing for specific model choices like the 9,000 or 2,000 series based on the clients' performance requirements and bottlenecks.

Shubham Chandra

Solution Architect at HCLSoftware

It effectively manages all the devices I have, demonstrating its capability to scale.

reviewer2356428

Lead Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco Catalyst Center report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Aruba Airwave is stable, reliable, and highly rated, with minor manageable issues during high usage and integration.

Sentiment score

7.9

Cisco Catalyst Center is highly regarded for stability and reliability, despite occasional bugs and security concerns.

I have found Aruba Airwave to be stable.

reviewer1854369

Executive at a government with 201-500 employees

As it is centralized, sometimes it disconnects from the cloud, and I need to reboot.

Arun-M

Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Aruba Airwave report

They are very stable, not power cycling, and basically maintaining their stability.

Christopher Dent

Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

They provide a robust and secure solution for critical workloads.

Premnath Jaganathan

Product Manager at Uop Ipl

Cisco Catalyst Center is stable, and I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

Pratap Barik

Data Center Admin at Sysnet Global Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco Catalyst Center report

Room For Improvement

Aruba Airwave requires cost reduction, system integration, UI simplification, pricing changes, and better synchronization, support, and compatibility.

Cisco Catalyst Center needs enhancements in management, interface ease, security, support, flexibility, speed, bugs, and documentation clarity.

The end-to-end users' messages show some details that are not always up-to-date, and sometimes the information from the GUI is not exactly aligned with what's on the website.

Edward Zeng

Senior Network Engineer at Auckland University of Technology

I find the price of Aruba Central compared to Aruba Airwave to be more expensive.

Ahmet Bulbul

Senior Network Consultant at Data Market

When upgrading hardware, there were technical issues with network interfaces and Red Hat, which required escalation to developers.

reviewer1877184

TI at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Aruba Airwave report

Current pricing is too expensive for features that users may not be sure they will use, pricing the company out of the market.

AndrewRichardson

Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board

My customers often complain about numerous software bugs requiring frequent software patches and updates to resolve these issues.

Ahmad Attal

Cyber Security Architect at Spie Ics

In the current setup, incidents are always reactionary, and it would be beneficial if Cisco Catalyst Center could proactively handle issues such as bandwidth crunches and packet drops.

Premnath Jaganathan

Product Manager at Uop Ipl

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco Catalyst Center report

Setup Cost

Aruba Airwave licensing is seen as complex and costly, yet often cheaper than Cisco, with variable pricing flexibility.

Cisco Catalyst Center is valued for quality but seen as expensive compared to competitors like Juniper and Fortinet.

The pricing for Aruba Airwave is acceptable because compared to Cisco, it's slightly cheaper, but not significantly - maybe 5% or 7% less expensive.

Edward Zeng

Senior Network Engineer at Auckland University of Technology

For more quotes and insights, download the Aruba Airwave report

They are also facing competitive pricing challenges from Huawei.

Muhammad Kabir Salihu

Deputy Director at NITDA

Cost is a major factor when any company is buying, and Cisco's products are pricier even compared to other US-based solutions.

Syed Shahnawaz Hussain

Sr. Executive Design Engineering Team at Wateen Telecom (pvt.)

For a hardware refresh, the site switched to Fortinet switching because the cost difference was approximately six thousand dollars per device compared to other solutions.

AndrewRichardson

Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco Catalyst Center report

Valuable Features

Aruba Airwave provides multivendor support, robust reporting, real-time analysis, and easy network management with zero-touch provisioning and Visual RF.

Cisco Catalyst Center provides robust network management with automation, scalability, secure integrations, and user-friendly interfaces for enterprise environments.

It provides near real-time monitoring using AIMON and AURO protocols, which is robust with multiple models and brand support.

reviewer1877184

TI at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aruba Airwave provides good visibility, offering extensive data on network dynamics, such as access point connections, usage, signal strengths, and potential interference from neighboring Wi-Fi networks.

reviewer1854369

Executive at a government with 201-500 employees

The most helpful feature I noticed, yet did not utilize, allowed us to add our Cisco switches for monitoring.

Lulzim Islami

IT Network Operations Manager at KEDS

For more quotes and insights, download the Aruba Airwave report

There is a very wide user base providing support, so I almost never have to contact Cisco support due to the vast accessible knowledge base.

Christopher Dent

Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Their threat intelligence platform is excellent, including Talos Intelligence, which provides a good database and strong threat insights.

reviewer2585343

Analyst at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

This dual functionality is crucial for monitoring large enterprises, providing a robust solution for IT teams.

Premnath Jaganathan

Product Manager at Uop Ipl

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco Catalyst Center report

Categories and Ranking

Aruba Airwave

Ranking in Network Management Applications

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cisco Catalyst Center

Ranking in Network Management Applications

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Aruba Airwave is 4.0%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Catalyst Center is 7.9%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Management Applications Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Catalyst Center	7.9%
Aruba Airwave	4.0%
Other	88.1%

Network Management Applications

Featured Reviews

Edward Zeng

Senior Network Engineer at Auckland University of Technology

Troubleshooting obstacles occur but technical support excels

My general opinion on Aruba Airwave is that it's acceptable, but it's not ideal because we are accustomed to Cisco. We didn't use Aruba much, but once you set it up, you probably don't need to worry about it too much. The version we are using is quite old now, probably around version four. I can't remember the version exactly because a lot of the products require Aruba Central, but we haven't used Aruba Central yet. I face challenges with Aruba Airwave, particularly with troubleshooting. When someone has a problem, we try troubleshooting, but the end-to-end users' messages show some details that are not always up-to-date, and sometimes the information from the GUI is not exactly aligned with what's on the website. If Aruba Airwave can apply AI capabilities, that would be even more perfect. I'd appreciate integration with Aruba Central; it would be great if they could incorporate it into Airwave.

Read full review

AndrewRichardson

Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board

Has improved infrastructure management with customizable reporting and automated deployment

Cisco Catalyst Center's reporting is one of the best features, providing graphs and quick hit analysis in one place instead of having to search elsewhere. Historical data can be stored in Cisco Catalyst Center, and dashboards and widgets can be configured to personal preference. Device deployment can be automated to the point where all someone needs to do is plug it in. Zero Touch Provisioning, while requiring some initial work to set up properly, provides significant benefits. Once configured, it reduces the need for travel by specific network personnel, allowing on-site or other staff to handle device deployment by simply plugging in the cable.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

15%

Government

12%

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aruba Airwave?

I think the solution is quite affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Aruba Airwave?

They have other sensors which can manage and control all the sites. There is an IoT component where we can restrict internet services such as Facebook and YouTube. These things can also be managed....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Aruba Airwave?

For Aruba Airwave, I am using the wireless devices for the Wi-Fi for the full company with access points. This is the top product I feel, and I see in the Gartner also. It is a good product and eas...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Catalyst Center?

During license renewal, the pricing for Catalyst licensing increased significantly. For a hardware refresh, the site switched to Fortinet switching because the cost difference was approximately six...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Catalyst Center?

Cisco Catalyst Center would benefit from different licensing tiers instead of an all-or-nothing model. Some tiers could focus on monitoring and tracking licenses with minimal configuration automati...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cisco Catalyst Center?

The product was used with Catholic schools because that was their primary infrastructure. This is an enterprise-level product rather than an SMB-grade solution.

See all answers

Comparisons

Aruba ClearPass vs Aruba Airwave

Compared 21% of the time

Cisco DNA Center vs Aruba Airwave

Compared 21% of the time

HPE Intelligent Management Center vs Aruba Airwave

Compared 15% of the time

Alcatel-Lucent OmniVista vs Aruba Airwave

Compared 9% of the time

Huawei eSight vs Aruba Airwave

Compared 5% of the time

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Cisco DNA Center vs Cisco Catalyst Center

Compared 55% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Cisco Catalyst Center

Compared 15% of the time

Juniper Mist Wired Assurance vs Cisco Catalyst Center

Compared 9% of the time

SolarWinds Network Topology Mapper vs Cisco Catalyst Center

Compared 7% of the time

ExtremeCloud IQ vs Cisco Catalyst Center

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Catalyst Center Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Airwave

January 2026

Download Aruba Airwave product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Catalyst Center

January 2026

Download Cisco Catalyst Center product report

Overview

Offering granular visibility into wired and wireless networks, AirWave is the only management platform designed with mobile devices and apps in mind. By proactively monitoring the health and performance of all things connected, AirWave lets IT gain the insights they need to support the digital workplace.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Cisco Catalyst Center offers a comprehensive platform for network management, providing scalable solutions and advanced analytics for enterprise-level operations.

Focusing on efficient network management, Cisco Catalyst Center effectively addresses dynamic enterprise environments, ensuring operational scalability and actionable insights through its robust feature set. It emphasizes seamless management with an intuitive interface tailored for professional use, facilitating enhanced network visibility and control among IT professionals and service providers.

What are the standout features of Cisco Catalyst Center?

Automated Provisioning: Simplifies and speeds up network configuration processes by automating repetitive tasks.
Advanced Analytics: Provides real-time insights and trends for network optimization and security enhancements.
Policy-Based Configuration: Ensures consistent network settings adherence with centralized policy management.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Offers in-depth visibility into network performance, facilitating quick identification of issues.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlined operations lead to reduced manual input and increased productivity.
Cost Savings: Automation and analytics reduce operational expenses and enhance ROI.
Enhanced Security: Policy enforcement and monitoring provide robust defense against vulnerabilities.
Scalability: Supports growing network infrastructures and evolving enterprise demands.

Cisco Catalyst Center is widely implemented across industries like finance, healthcare, and education due to its ability to handle complex network requirements. It addresses specific needs by offering tailored solutions designed to enhance operational efficiency and security, catering to professionals managing large-scale IT ecosystems.

Cisco

Sample Customers

Henkel, University of Findlay, University of Minnesota Duluth, University of Iowa

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Airwave vs. Cisco Catalyst Center

December 2025

Free Report: Aruba Airwave vs. Cisco Catalyst Center

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