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Cisco DNA Center vs DX Performance Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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 DNA Center
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
DX Performance Management
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
41st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure Capacity Planning (1st), DX NetOps (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 0.8%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Performance Management is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center0.8%
DX Performance Management0.6%
Other98.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer1810893 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Operations Specialist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Flexibility and detailed performance stats enable effective network monitoring
Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations. It enables me to take action based on network issues. The Performance Management provides detailed network performance stats, including CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth. Additionally, Spectrum is flexible and allows me to organize and treat devices uniquely without impacting other devices.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."
"The advice I would give to other people who want to use Cisco DNA Center is to go for it, particularly if they have Cisco infrastructure, though these days integration could be an issue."
"The product's most valuable feature is the visual representation of the switch's front panel."
"It is very versatile in terms of analytics."
"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."
"It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions."
"The price is really high, but it's worth every single dollar you pay."
"The most valuable features include AI-driven insights which make troubleshooting much easier."
"Since the implementation of the tool, it has cut down on probably 60% of our outages and letting us know what is going on."
"The solution's performance itself is very good because it is a vertical database that loads very fast in comparison to other products."
"Mainly as an MSP configuration, the multi-tenant model helps us to segment the customer and users, as well as providing our operation the capability to oversee all tenants."
"It's a solution which is highly recommended."
"Technical support is very responsive and knowledgeable."
"We're able to present data from multiple back-end collection sources into a single dashboard for the users. So they don't have to go to multiple locations to get data about a particular item, or device."
"Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations."
"Scalability is great."
 

Cons

"DNA Center has been on the market for a few years and they need to update it."
"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."
"There should be an option for automation of template deployment by using the stored data. It is not easy to save configuration information for lots of devices without using other tools. There should be a tighter, better repository of information that can be merged with the templates."
"An area that needs improvement is the integration with other vendors."
"The solution’s security side could be improved."
"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
"The weaknesses primarily involve pricing and the ongoing need for increased bandwidth and data throughput."
"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."
"I think it would be helpful having a more comprehensive set of certifications so that I could natively deploy devices to my environment and the tool would immediately recognize and immediately be able to provide relevant performance information without a lot of tuning on my part."
"Some of the individual report views, the way some of the columns sort, there's room for improvement in giving us more flexibility in being able to sort reports based, for example, on what columns the metrics fall under."
"Product has issue collecting IP SLA data."
"I'm not a fan of many extra features since they usually burden the software and reduce its reliability."
"We would like to be capable of reporting network performance with a report strictly focused on the times outside business hours, which CA PM does not currently support. We have discontinued the use of the Business Hours Filtering until CA engineers are able to resolve or offer guidance."
"When it goes through discovery, or whatever it is doing in the back-end that slows it down, sometimes we get some failures with it. ​"
"I would say the initial setup is complex."
"The certificates are not complete. CA needs to provide more support for the product through certificates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is medium-priced."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"We have a three-year license with them."
"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 product is very costly."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"The tool's licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
"We were looking at other vendors in the marketplace for NetFlow, and CA just beat everybody else in price, cost, and the size to implement. ​"
"Do your homework and know how many devices you will be managing out of the gate. Be sure to project what your growth will be each year."
"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."
"We purchase a license to use the solution every three years and we have multiple contracts. They have been increasing the price annually. We have a baseline for three years and then we need to pay the difference from the baseline, and we are in the process of negotiating a new price for all the licenses we need. The price overall is affordable."
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco DNA Center?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it gives some kind of ease in operations, especially since our company is moving from CLI to GUI-based configuration.
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 needs improvement with DX Performance Management?
Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved.
What is your primary use case for DX Performance Management?
I have used Spectrum for monitoring all network faults, configurations, and troubleshooting network issues. It provides network performance stats, such as CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth detai...
What advice do you have for others considering DX Performance Management?
I would recommend this solution based on its functionality, flexibility, customizability, and ease of use. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I am just a customer and not a par...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
CA Performance Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Jack Henry & Assoc, Target, CenturyLink, Bell Canada, BrightHouse Networks, Telus, Unisys, Verizon, Southern California Edison, GEICO, Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo, American Family Insurance Group, Deutsche Telekom AG 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. DX Performance Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.