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Aruba Airwave vs Cisco Prime [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Aruba Airwave
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (2nd)
Cisco Prime [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Prashant-Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution has multi-vendor support, and it can be used for network management
Aruba Airwave is an on-prem solution, so you have to manage it with your servers to be deployed. You can also deploy it on the cloud if you have your own private cloud. All the configuration guides and the different types of designs you need are available from Aruba Airwave's portal. I would recommend Aruba Airwave to other users. Overall, I rate Aruba Airwave ten out of ten.
ZeeshanAli1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve
We are extremely satisfied with the reliability and robustness of Cisco Prime Infrastructure, which we have been using for many years. Compared to newer products such as DNS centers or others, it has proven to be much more stable, which is important for large-scale operations. Stability is a primary concern for us, and we are glad that Cisco Prime Infrastructure meets our expectations in that regard. Furthermore, in regards to Legacy Plus new hardware, Cisco Prime has proven to be a reliable and adaptable solution thus far. Not only can it support older hardware, but it also has the capability to handle new features with the latest updates. If we consider new solutions such as DNS Center, we may have to sacrifice some legacy features that we still rely on. We may need to continue using these legacy features for a few more years due to various reasons such as budget constraints or the site not being a high priority. However, if we switch to a new product at this stage, we may lose a lot of the monitoring and other capabilities that we have with Cisco Prime. We have a close relationship with Cisco and understand that they are not prioritizing investments in Cisco Prime as they are encouraging customers to adopt the Cisco DNA Center. This means that we don't anticipate many new features to be added to the product in the future. While we know that we will eventually have to transition to a new solution, in the meantime, we plan to do a quick refresh of our legacy products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Clarity feature makes it easy to use and understand what is going on with your network in a nice dashboard.​"
"The most valuable features of the solution are its dashboard and simplicity."
"It can interact with other vendors better than Cisco, which is a good point of AirWave. It is easy to use, and its reporting is good."
"The most valuable features are the error log and intrusion log. It also provides an overview of your assets. It gives a good database for wireless coverage."
"Aruba Airwave provides a robust solution for monitoring and configuring Wi-Fi networks."
"This solution is definitely stable."
"The solution is not overly expensive."
"AirWave definitely helps us troubleshoot and get to the root cause of the issues. It gives you an excellent indication of what's going on within your network at different locations. You can get to the area, take a look at the AirWave analysis, and make informed decisions."
"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."
"The technical support team is very good."
"It helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues."
"The dashboard is a valuable feature. It's very clear, and the metrics make it easy to see the current network situation."
"The interfaces are a valuable feature."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"Cisco Prime has been around for a long time, and it keeps getting better and better."
"Cisco Prime is helpful as it provides us with real-time monitoring. This allows us to be proactive in our environment."
 

Cons

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"Cost is always a big issue for partners."
"Its pricing and support could be improved."
"I want a management solution to manage and monitor everything from a single dashboard. This is not there with Airwave."
"The overall monitoring of this solution could be improved."
"When upgrading hardware, there were technical issues with network interfaces and Red Hat, which required escalation to developers."
"I am not deeply familiar with the solution, so if I mention a feature, it might already exist, yet I may be unaware of it."
"We encounter delayed ETAs in the manufacturing of hardware."
"Cisco can only be used for Cisco environments and is not compatible with other vendors."
"This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes."
"I rate Cisco Prime seven out of 10 for affordability. All Cisco solutions are expensive."
"The onboarding process could be improved and developed to enhance compatibility for non-Cisco devices."
"The user interface of Cisco Prime could be more user-friendly and increase its performance."
"Cisco Prime could improve the notifications in the system. Having more details about what is happening would be useful, such as traffic numbers or who is connected. We can see them through the firewall controller, but it would be better if you can see them from one place."
"They could consider offering more flexible pricing options for their customers."
"The solution is not easy to configure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing and pricing are extremely straightforward."
"It is an expensive solution."
"This product is not expensive."
"Aruba Airwave is an expensive solution."
"It's device-based licensing. One device requires one license."
"The licensing cost for Aruba Airwave increased from $72 to $210 within a few months. It would be better if the pricing for the solution were cheaper."
"The tool is expensive. If one is bad or expensive, and ten is very good or cheap, I rate the product's price as a six."
"Run a 90 day free Proof of Concept (PoC) for each product by implementing and using it fully in your environment. This way you will be educated on its features, functionality, and manageability."
"We update the license every five years."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"The price of Cisco Prime was reasonable because we purchased it as part of a Cisco One package. The package was a bundle of Cisco solutions together, such as Cisco ISE and CMX. The price is reasonable com compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Aruba Airwave?
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with Aruba Airwave?
When attempting to copy a floor plan, it does not copy well, so I often have to redraw the walls. It's somewhat annoying since other Wi-Fi design software we use is easier for drawing walls and inc...
What do you like most about Cisco Prime?
The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management.
What needs improvement with Cisco Prime?
The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Prime?
We use Cisco Prime for centralized configuration management backups and monitoring.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cisco Prime Infrastructure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Henkel, University of Findlay, University of Minnesota Duluth, University of Iowa
Mohawk Industries, Universidad EAFIT, Halton Healthcare
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetScaler and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.