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Cisco DNA Center vs IBM Tivoli NetCool comparison

 

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
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (13th), Network Automation (2nd)
IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
13th
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 August 2025, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 23.6%, down from 29.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 2.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications
 

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…
Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable features were the monitoring, maintenance, and configuration."
"It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions."
"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."
"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."
"The most valuable features include AI-driven insights which make troubleshooting much easier."
"Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"It's very easy to use."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco DNA Center are 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."
"The product has many features that do not work properly."
"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."
"The cost is very high."
"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 would like is to have a small information pointer available. It could be a plus feature that I want to implement. When I hover my mouse over the user interface, it should provide a brief explanation. It would be helpful to have it incorporated into the UI."
"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"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."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"The solution is too expensive."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."
"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"The product is very costly."
"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 licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"The tool's licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
32%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 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...
What do you like most about IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The tool had many built-in automation capabilities.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
 

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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.