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Cisco DNA Center vs Pulseway 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)
Pulseway
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
74th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (28th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (17th)
 

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 Pulseway is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco DNA Center0.7%
Pulseway0.7%
Other98.6%
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.
reviewer2132892 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Hogan's Systems Consulting, LLC
Great notifications, a wide variety of features, and excellent monitoring capabilities
It would be nice if it also had a desktop application, similar to the phone app, which would allow me to monitor and control computers from my desktop. It's nice to be able to do things remotely using my phone; however, in many cases, it would be very helpful to be able to do things from a desktop or laptop computer. This would be especially useful for things like remote access to computers. It's too hard to do much on a Windows computer using a tiny phone screen. Being able to do things from a desktop or laptop computer would be much more productive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco DNA Center is a user-friendly solution."
"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."
"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."
"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."
"Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."
"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."
"Cisco DNA Center is something that I recommend."
"It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions."
"They provide a lot of features; it's good and easy software."
"The setup is simple."
"It gives you remote control and has a mobile app."
"It has been very helpful to get notifications about various issues with my servers and network to help me take action to resolve problems before they become major issues."
"It has made life a lot easier for the administrators."
"Using this platform has allowed us to reach and assist our remotely based clients, regardless of their location provided they have an internet connection."
"We like the patching of the window updates in the client's systems. You can automatically do updates with a single click."
"One of the applications I have used the most was to troubleshoot users and I've never faced difficulties or issues with the application itself."
 

Cons

"The cost is very high."
"The deployment part is definitely an area for improvement; Cisco DNA Center has some weaknesses that require improvements in that area."
"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."
"What I want to see in Cisco DNA Center in the future is more support for other platforms so that you can manage third-party products, such as Fortinet."
"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."
"One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process."
"It's quite good, however, it's not ideal for smaller organizations as it's cost-prohibitive."
"We have had a lot of problems with the Cisco switches and have needed to upgrade the operating systems, which means that we have to upgrade the DNA."
"Sometimes the speed is a problem. When I've been remote controlling people, from time to time, there were some issues with people in Hong Kong."
"Remote Desktop Assistance for Mac endpoints - not having this functionality is a major inconvenience in having to have two systems for clients using this platform."
"There are some bugs or glitches."
"They have good technical support but it's not excellent."
"It would be nice if it also had a desktop application, similar to the phone app, which would allow me to monitor and control computers from my desktop."
"Support needs to be improved because we've sometimes had to wait 24 hours to get a response."
"However, the solution does not allow you to make a script for just one customer, so it would be great if that is improved."
"GUI needs to be improved and the solution lacks a process for monitoring VOIP calls."
 

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."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions."
"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 price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Dell, Canon, Siemens, Harvard University, Northwestern University
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. Pulseway and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.