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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
19th
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
43rd
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 June 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

"What I found valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the Software-Defined Access Network, so the entire LAN network can be centralized and managed from a single dashboard."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"I like that we can easily configure any new hardware. It's also easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot."
"In terms of software-defined networking, I think it's an outstanding product."
"The product gives a consolidated view."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution has the capability to scale."
"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."
"It is very easy to add devices; just be aware that it requires SNMP to be enabled."
"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."
"Downloads and records are the most valuable features."
"I can get it to run a report showing, for instance, what root drives are in the critical range in terms of being full, like 90 percent full, and disseminate that information to the other areas of the organization."
"The out-of-the-box dashboards are valuable, in terms of being able to visualize performance data in ways that we haven't in the past."
"The most valuable of CA Performance Management is consolidated network infrastructure monitoring and reporting."
"The ability to very quickly and graphically navigate around, being able to zoom in to a timeframe, apply it to all the other panels - things of that nature - are all very intuitive."
"There is a good amount of vendor certification which comes with the product. That's all factory-loaded, no need to load any custom-made files. Most of the metrics are calibrated and captured from the devices based on the defaults available from vendor certification."
 

Cons

"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
"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."
"Better compatibility with third parties and to other Cisco products because if versions are not perfectly matching requirements, it gives a lot of problems."
"One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process."
"The weaknesses primarily involve pricing and the ongoing need for increased bandwidth and data throughput."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"The pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco DNA Center are expensive."
"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."
"Even though we can see when something is not available, it would also be it would be nice if some sort of alerting took place to that you could know immediately if something went down."
"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."
"This tool gathers so much data, which makes it hard to convert over. To upgrade it, you really need the solution backed up. That is the issue that we are facing right now."
"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."
"The quantity of views which are tied to specific metric families is too high. Also, the problem is the view doesn't tell you which metric family it uses, so you don't know why you don't see data."
"​Global synchronization errors. Sometimes it just doesn't finish in time due to the load."
"There are some issues. We started supporting UTA and began to see both major and minor problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a three-year license with them."
"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
"Our licensing agreement is for three years."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
"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. ​"
"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 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. ...
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: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.