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Cisco DNA Center vs ThousandEyes comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco DNA Center enhances efficiency by reducing configuration time, despite licensing costs, with positive but varied ROI evaluations.
Sentiment score
8.1
Users commend ThousandEyes for its effective ROI, cost-saving benefits, and high impact on network performance and issue resolution.
Although Cisco DNA Center is expensive, we have seen a return on investment in terms of time savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Cisco's DNA Center support is praised for responsiveness but criticized for slow responses and challenges with complex issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
ThousandEyes' customer service is praised for effective support and prompt response times, though some seek faster responses.
Overall, Cisco DNA Center rates eight out of ten as a complete solution.
We contacted the support team, and they resolved it within a couple of hours.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco DNA Center is highly scalable, effectively supports small to large networks, but licensing costs can be high.
Sentiment score
7.3
ThousandEyes scales effectively across industries, supporting diverse enterprises effortlessly, though costs may rise with added agents.
The solution is designed for large enterprise companies.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco DNA Center is generally stable, with some users reporting occasional bugs and needed updates affecting stability.
Sentiment score
8.3
ThousandEyes is stable and reliable, with smooth operation, minor bugs typical, and effective issue management ensures user satisfaction.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco DNA Center needs better integration, user-friendliness, and support, with pricing, scalability, and compatibility issues impacting its effectiveness.
ThousandEyes should improve server monitoring, integration, AI, UI, compatibility, documentation, and reduce operational noise for enhanced user experience.
The AI-driven insights have contributed significantly to faster troubleshooting and predictive analytics.
Having a dedicated incident alert system for URL alerts would help manage noise and streamline operations, especially during patch upgrades.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco DNA Center is costly, justified for enterprises, challenging for mid-market, with SaaS and promotions occasionally aiding affordability.
ThousandEyes pricing varies; some see it as expensive, favoring large enterprises, with potential monthly fee shifts.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco DNA Center provides centralized management, security, AI-driven insights, and automation, enhancing network control and operational efficiency.
ThousandEyes provides comprehensive network monitoring, detailed analysis, user-friendliness, scalability, and integration, aiding efficient troubleshooting and operational enhancement.
The most valuable features include AI-driven insights which make troubleshooting much easier.
I find the most valuable feature of ThousandEyes is the ability to directly see the client's exact issue.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)
ThousandEyes
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (13th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThousandEyes is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

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…
Satyavrat Nirala - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers user monitoring and Internet insights and include customer journeys
It’s evolving; I feel it needs more holistic integration. It needs more improvement. It’s very good, but the integration can be slightly complicated on different platforms. I used it for a healthcare organization, and the integration was slightly challenging. In future releases, I would like to explore AI capabilities. AI would be more valuable because it works across different cloud and server systems. It looks into issue detection and insight modeling, so that is something I feel will be very helpful in the near future. More AI because of compliance and other challenges, not because of the product challenge. It’s about regulations, and we have HIPAA laws in the US and many different kinds of laws. Because of that, these specific elements and certain units don’t allow the tooling system to be fully utilized. We also support a certain segment of healthcare, which is the army healthcare segment, which is more government-controlled. There are certain restrictions in moving into the cloud. That’s where I thought those elements might need some more improvement. Also, looking into how we’ll be able to use more data visualization. It has it, but it doesn’t give you everything. If you look into the elements of use and so many other elements are there, but the UI/UX also has to be improved a bit, I feel. From a developer’s standpoint, it’s very easy, but from a consultant’s standpoint, there can be more enhancement, like one-click view and one-click report generation. Those things should be more seamless.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better from a cloud monitoring or APM monitoring perspective. You can check...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
ThousandEyes could improve by implementing a similar incident management system like BigPanda ( /products/bigpanda-reviews ) or ServiceNow ( /products/servicenow-reviews ). Having a dedicated incid...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. ThousandEyes and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.