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Cisco Catalyst Center vs Huawei eSight comparison

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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

Cisco Catalyst Center
Ranking in Network Management Applications
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Huawei eSight
Ranking in Network Management Applications
15th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (57th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco Catalyst Center is 3.8%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei eSight is 4.4%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Catalyst Center3.8%
Huawei eSight4.4%
Other91.8%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

AadishBahati - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Solution Architect at EchoStor
Unified automation has transformed network operations and simplifies multi‑site management
The learning curve is better with Cisco compared to other products. Everyone has a learning curve because everyone is bringing new technologies, new interfaces, and new ways of doing things. The other products have a steeper learning curve. When comparing Cisco with VMware, I am not comparing Cisco with Arista, Juniper, or HP because those are companies which are doing a very basic level of automation. Cisco is doing way more advanced things. In terms of advanced handling and the advanced orchestration and advanced management plane control that Cisco is delivering, the only competitiveness in advancement is VMware NSX. However, it is really complex. Cisco's platforms are much easier to understand and learn compared to VMware.The only disadvantage with Cisco would be their services and licensing, which is a bit complex and a bit too expensive. Because their services are so expensive, companies end up buying Cisco, but they end up not buying Cisco services to do it. When they turn to external partners, not many people outside know the technology as well as Cisco does. People deploy it, but they do not get the right resources to deploy it.
Gary Strydom - PeerSpot reviewer
Desktop Analyst at Transnet
Used to monitor devices and provides the hardware alarms feature
Huawei eSight has helped me overcome many monitoring aspects of the hardware. From a single view, I can monitor all the hardware. Instead of logging on to each piece of hardware and monitoring it individually, I can monitor them from one single point. I would recommend the solution to other users because it provides a single point of view of the hardware. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features I appreciate most about Cisco Catalyst Center are user accessibility."
"The solution primarily focuses on visibility into Cisco products and day zero, day one, and day two operations, enabling plug-and-play features, device onboarding, hierarchy definition, and telemetry data collection to offer a comprehensive 360-degree view with basic automation and visibility assurance at its core."
"Cisco tech support is one of the best in the industry, which is a strong feature available across their products."
"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."
"It gave us details like the operating system, device type, vendor, and the OUI of the MAC address, providing deep insights into the clients and users."
"Cisco's technical support is excellent."
"Our customers are very happy with Cisco technology and they suppose it is the best solution for them."
"The best feature Cisco Catalyst Center offers is the centralized network health and device visibility, which I could use to get device inventory, device health, network health, site health, and issues through the consistent APIs and bring all of that into our own FloodGaurd dashboard."
"I like the real-time location monitor or RTLS feature. It is similar to the monitoring feature in Cisco Prime."
"The most important features are alarm management and the visualization of the health of our network devices."
"We can scale the solution."
"eSight allows me to monitor and solve any problem in the backbone and any switch in real-time."
"Technical support is good from Huawei."
"We have found the product to be stable and reliable."
"One of the most beneficial features of Huawei eSight is its simplicity and ease of use."
"Since we have a central monitoring system, we can proactively monitor those devices, easily capture any abnormalities before major downtime, and quickly address the issues before they become a bigger problem in the future."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in introducing auto-heal AI capabilities. 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."
"If they can add a layer of portable hotspots with some licensing flexibility for 20 to 50 users, it would be a great feature."
"The price to get in the door is quite high."
"I evaluate customer service and tech support as sometimes being questionable; if it is not labeled as a high priority, it is not treated as such, so if it does not require a very fast response, I can go weeks without hearing anything on a ticket, and I sometimes have to put things in as higher priority to get an initial response, but it always gets changed down to a lower priority."
"The retention period of data could be improved from seven days to 30 days. This change would help in cases where users are on leave for extended periods."
"When I first installed Cisco Catalyst Center, it required a lot of hardware resources during the installation process."
"The main drawback of Cisco Catalyst Center is that it can only manage and monitor Cisco devices with a DNA license, specifically the Catalyst 9000 series."
"From my first experience, the menu is not very user-friendly for new people because I thought it could not be so hard when I am working with Firewall Management Center and Cisco ISE."
"In my experience with eSight, I can tell you that you will experience a number of alerts that can be stressful to the administrator monitoring plenty of devices."
"The price is very expensive."
"The price could be less costly."
"It will be better if they can make the simple network topology part more presentable. It would also be better if they had API integration and integration with third-party devices."
"eSight has many features and options, but sometimes, we feel that it should be more advanced, like Cisco. It would be good if they can enable some automation part in eSight. Most of our customers want automation in their network. They don't want a dependency on everything. That's why the automation part must be improved in Huawei. It will be beneficial for customers. Cisco has different products, and there are multiple products for monitoring, automation, etc. In the software-defined network, Cisco has ACI, and VMware has NSX. Such options must be there in Huawei to move to a software-defined network. Unlike Cisco, in the case of eSight, there is only one product. I am not aware of any other product. It would be good to enhance it with at least some automation options so that we can use it effectively in the campus network or big data center environment. When I implemented this Huawei solution, I faced some limitations in particular areas like wireless scanning. This is another part that they can improve. Wireless reporting option is not as effective as other monitoring solutions. For a particular use case, if a customer is asking for some reports, sometimes they are not 100% satisfactory. The reporting structure must be improved."
"The solution and the operating system come separately. It would be easier if we did not have to deploy anything. A bundle feature would be better."
"This solution could be improved by offering monitoring for all devices and not only Huawei devices."
"Something that could be improved is the lack of integration with Cisco switches. In the next release, I would like to see better reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing for Huawei eSight is reasonable, especially with the base license and incremental licenses for additional devices. However, the variety of license types can be a bit complex. We used to sell eSight but switched to another solution, so we're not actively trading it anymore."
"The price is very expensive."
"I would rate this solution a nine out of ten for pricing. The pricing depends on which features you use and can become expensive."
"Pricing depends on the competition. If your competitor is like Cisco, then Huawei is much more competitive when it comes to pricing."
"Its pricing is better than any other Huawei product. Some products are cheaper in Huawei, and some products are cheaper in Cisco. Cisco has more benefits and options than Huawei if you consider different network environments."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Catalyst Center?
We did not purchase Cisco Catalyst Center through the AWS Marketplace as we used the Cisco DevNet always-on sandbox which gave us temporary access to a hosted Catalyst Center environment for testin...
What needs improvement with Cisco Catalyst Center?
I think Cisco Catalyst Center can be improved overall by making the sandbox setups and documentation more straightforward, as it was a little confusing because the DevNet page documentation, contro...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Catalyst Center?
My main use case for Cisco Catalyst Center in the sandbox is to test APIs and integrate network data into the FloodGaurd project, where I tested device inventory, device health, network health, sit...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Marina Bay, CITIC Pacific Mining
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst Center vs. Huawei eSight and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.