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Cisco DNA Center vs NIKSUN NetVCR comparison

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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
36th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (2nd), Network Automation (3rd)
NIKSUN NetVCR
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
93rd
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 0.7%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NIKSUN NetVCR is 0.4%, 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 Center0.7%
NIKSUN NetVCR0.4%
Other98.9%
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.
Himanshu Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner at Opticom Data Products
High performance, quick packet monitoring, and helpful support
The solution could improve by having automatic mitigation. For example, as soon as a problem occurs the solution alarms and mitigates the situation immediately. In a feature release of the solution they should add features related to automation and remediation. Automation would help increase level of security the solution provides.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out a configuration to branch networks, and it also provides visibility into the health of user network devices."
"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."
"Scalability in Cisco DNA Center is good; we are using it for Software-Defined Access solution, and we haven't reached our device limit yet— from my experience, we can easily manage numerous devices."
"The monitoring is very valuable to me, as I can easily monitor all my clients through Cisco DNA Center at this point."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"Cisco DNA Center is something that I recommend."
"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 NIKSUN NetVCR are its performance and forensic capabilities. Additionally, the information that the solution provides is highly detailed and useful. When dealing with network traffic packets can be sent at a high speed causing some security issues, but this solution is able to rapidly monitor the packets providing security."
"NIKSUN provides you with the why, what, when and where type of answers to all your network problems."
"The unique selling point of NIKSUN is its ability to scale and its reporting capabilities. NIKSUN captures the packets at a very high speed, from one GB to 160 Gbps also. It offers report granularity in nanoseconds."
 

Cons

"The deployment part is definitely an area for improvement; Cisco DNA Center has some weaknesses that require improvements in that area."
"Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs."
"An area that needs improvement is the integration with other vendors."
"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 DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it."
"They should include UTM features in the product."
"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 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."
"The solution could improve by having automatic mitigation. For example, as soon as a problem occurs the solution alarms and mitigates the situation immediately."
"NIKSUN is a passive solution. It provides you with you data, alerts, reports and the root cause of issues. However, it requires a person to make use of this functionality. If an event is happening and nobody attends to it, the effects of the event could be severe."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved."
"The price of the solution is high. There is an annual license costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
No data available
 

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. ...
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Also Known As

DNA Center
NetVCR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Visa, FedEx, CitiGroup, IDC
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. NIKSUN NetVCR and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.