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Cisco DNA Center vs IBM Tivoli NetCool 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 DNA Center
Ranking in Network Management Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (33rd), Network Automation (2nd)
IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 7.6%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 3.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center7.6%
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.7%
Other88.7%
Network Management Applications
 

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.
Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have many people from the team who manage a lot of devices. By using Cisco DNA Center, it has taken some of that burden away, we are impressed with it. We did the investment in CAPEX, but in the OPEX was very low."
"It is a stable solution."
"Automation is another key highlight. With automation, you can automate everything through a single port."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"My advice to others is if you are a large enough company to have the Cisco DNA Center technology, you must try it because for a large enterprise or multi-site organization it's impressive and it saves a lot of money and time."
"It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions."
"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."
"The price is really high, but it's worth every single dollar you pay."
"The solution is a complete package; it has various useful elements including inventory management and incident management packaged inside it, and anything is possible with Tivoli since it is quite a robust system that offers a lot of useful integration capabilities."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"It improves customer satisfaction, deploy-ability, adaptability, flexibility, scalability, and reduces cost of operation."
"It's very easy to use."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
 

Cons

"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."
"Requires more focus on the digital side of things."
"The solution's setup process needs enhancement."
"The tool's IoT integration should be better."
"Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs."
"It's a very good product, however, it comes with a very high price."
"Better compatibility with third parties and to other Cisco products because if versions are not perfectly matching requirements, it gives a lot of problems."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"From a customer perspective, it is quite an expensive solution to initially implement and then support."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"This is another one of those suites glued together from a myriad of acquisitions and it shows once you get under the hood."
"It was a bit expensive to purchase but the benefits outweigh all the cons by far."
"The solution is too expensive."
"I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a three-year license with them."
"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."
"Our licensing agreement is for three years."
"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."
"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 partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"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."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

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 is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
Tivoli NetCool
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.