No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco DNA Center vs IBM Tivoli NetCool comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 (36th), Network Automation (3rd)
IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
14th
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 November 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 7.2%, down from 19.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 3.9%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center7.2%
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.9%
Other88.9%
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

"The monitoring is very valuable to me."
"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."
"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 solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"It is simple to manage and it is all done from a single dashboard."
"Technical support is excellent. We have pretty good technical support."
"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."
"The biggest lesson that I have learned from working with this solution is that this technology is much easier now."
"It's very easy to use."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"The solution is very fast, there's no lag or delay between the IBM solution and the other solutions like Huawei and Nokia."
"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."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if it could be integrated with a variety of solutions, such as Meraki."
"Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs."
"The network, data center, and SD-WAN are all being treated as different services, but I would like to have only one solution to manage all of them."
"In terms of the clustering part, there are some concerns."
"The weaknesses primarily involve pricing and the ongoing need for increased bandwidth and data throughput."
"When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging."
"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."
"Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"The solution is too expensive."
"IBM's technical support takes a long time to do root cause analysis, and we have to go through several levels of help before getting a solution."
"Customization and integration that you need to do to make the product fit your needs is very complex. It is not a product that somebody could easily pick up without any prior training or experience."
"From a customer perspective, it is quite an expensive solution to initially implement and then support."
"It was a bit expensive to purchase but the benefits outweigh all the cons by far."
"This is another one of those suites glued together from a myriad of acquisitions and it shows once you get under the hood."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"We have a three-year license with them."
"The partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"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."
"I do know that Cisco does offer some really good promotions for DNA Center to bring the costs down."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Management Applications solutions are best for your needs.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing 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: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.