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Cisco DNA Center vs HPE Aruba Networking UXI 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

Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
HPE Aruba Networking UXI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
48th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed  Helmy - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience unified visibility and monitoring for enterprise campus and significant time savings and enhanced troubleshooting with reliable support
We have been working with Cisco DNA Center for ten years. Our clients use Cisco DNA Center for unified visibility/monitoring across Enterprise Campus both LAN & WLAN along with Access and fast technical issues troubleshooting The solution provides fast troubleshooting capabilities and fast…
Fabricio Nonato - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides seamless network setup and efficient management with potential for security integration improvement
Areas where the HPE Aruba Networking UXI can improve include the integration of SD-WAN and security in a single solution. Now, Aruba has developed an SD-WAN solution that is among the best, alongside WLAN. In Brazil, it's common to see many hospitals and government locations utilizing Aruba solutions. However, Fortinet is well-known here for combining SD-WAN with security in a single box, whereas Aruba and Cisco typically have separate solutions for each. This separation can be expensive for companies in Brazil as they have to acquire multiple boxes. Currently, around 50% of firewall sales in Latin America are from Fortinet, but I believe this trend is changing as Aruba develops its offerings.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It does a lot of things automatically, and that's the big thing with it. They're making the software so that you don't need to be as knowledgeable as me on the switching and routing side to get your work done. If you want, you can have DNA troubleshoot your problem for you and give you solutions or fix it itself, if it was something that's just a configuration issue."
"DNA Center is scalable."
"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."
"I like that we can easily configure any new hardware. It's also easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot."
"The most valuable features of Cisco DNA Center are wireless assurance and visibility."
"It is very versatile in terms of analytics."
"Automation is another key highlight. With automation, you can automate everything through a single port."
"The performance, elasticity, and efficiency of Aruba products have been exceptional."
"Aruba products have significantly improved our network reliability, as none of my teammates have logged a call to Aruba in the past year."
"The most valuable feature of HP Aruba Networking UX-I is its 24/7 monitoring capability."
 

Cons

"DNA Center has been on the market for a few years and they need to update it."
"Requires more focus on the digital side of things."
"Cisco DNA Center was a new technology for us, at the beginning, it was not easy to do, but Cisco did a lot of training with us to a level we could handle everything. The team is managing itself now without the assistance of Cisco."
"They can improve the network visibility. Licensing and its maintenance are also needed."
"There is a limitation with the number of VRFs that you can have in your network, and this has caused us problems with some customers."
"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."
"The solution’s security side could be improved."
"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."
"It would be beneficial if the tool offered a less expensive subscription as it is currently costly for our clients."
"Some manual administrative tasks still need to be triggered manually, leading to lower efficiency."
"Some manual administrative tasks still need to be triggered manually, leading to lower efficiency."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive."
"The solution is a little bit expensive but depends a lot on the customer's usage. If you use it in the right place, you can easily pay for it."
"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 licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."
"The product is very costly."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Insurance Company
45%
Healthcare Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
We have utilized the software-defined access (SDA) feature of Cisco DNA Center. The AI-driven needs enhancements and Integration and unification of visibility and monitoring to include other areas ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Aruba Networking UXI?
With the pricing and setup cost and licensing for the HPE Aruba Networking UXI, it depends and varies. Many people use these for a short-term solution just to gather their information. Many leverag...
What needs improvement with HPE Aruba Networking UXI?
They could improve their services. The AI-driven insights of the HPE Aruba UXI for optimizing network operations are pretty comprehensive. There is still room for improvement in that sense, but it ...
What is your primary use case for HPE Aruba Networking UXI?
I have used the HPE Aruba Networking UXI more in complex types of environments, mainly in enterprise environments. I have used them extensively in healthcare industry where certain areas within hos...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. HPE Aruba Networking UXI and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.