Cisco DNA Center vs Zabbix comparison

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Cisco DNA Center

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Zabbix and Cisco DNA Center are leaders in the network monitoring and management category. Based on the analysis, Cisco DNA Center stands out with superior integration and comprehensive network insights, appealing to large-scale deployments.

Features: Zabbix offers open-source monitoring with customizable options, sophisticated network discovery, and low-level discovery without extra costs. Meanwhile, Cisco DNA Center provides strong network automation, centralized analytics, and seamless Cisco device integration, offering valuable network health insights from a single dashboard.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix requires improvements in its user interface, reporting, and documentation; users find setup and dashboard refinement challenging. Cisco DNA Center is noted for its high cost and complexity, requiring better vendor integration and cost-effective reporting enhancements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix supports diverse deployment options including on-premises, hybrid, and public clouds, but often needs technical expertise and community-driven support. Cisco DNA Center is primarily on-premises, with robust technical support despite a complex deployment and steep learning curve.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix, as an open-source platform, incurs no licensing fees, attractively lowering costs with significant ROI from savings on licensing and support fees. Cisco DNA Center involves high licensing and operational costs, deemed worthy for extensive features in large deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco DNA Center vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: April 2025).

Cisco DNA Center vs. Zabbix

April 2025

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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

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Management Applications (1st), Network Automation (2nd)

Zabbix

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

106

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 13.0%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

AvrahamSonenthal

Senior Network Engineer at Inside Global

Efficiently manages our wireless network and provides valuable monitoring features

The platform's biggest benefit has been in managing our wireless network. Having a single pane of glass to control all wireless controllers and access points and to monitor activity has been a significant advantage. We're a small federal agency with around 300 network devices, so automation is a minor focus. It's more relevant for larger networks. The main benefits we've seen are in inventory management and the potential for configuration automation. However, I recommend using the DNA Centre only for larger networks with over a thousand devices; otherwise, it may not be cost-effective. Before proceeding, ensure that your devices are compatible with DNA Center, as not all Cisco devices are supported. Also, investing in proper training is different from plug-and-play. I rate it an eight.

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ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Automation is another key highlight. With automation, you can automate everything through a single port."

"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."

"People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network."

"The best feature of Cisco DNA Center is the visibility page, where you can see everything on the dashboard, and you don't have to be a technical person to view the issues."

"The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health."

"Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."

"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."

"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."

More Cisco DNA Center pros

"The most valuable feature is monitoring."

"It has improved our server performance monitoring overall. We know right away when there are problems. It has built-in statistics, so we can go back and see if there's spiking. We can check what's happening every day around the same time and check the configuration to see if there's something that's running and needs to be fixed."

"The solution allows for good integration with other products."

"The solution is quite mature and very stable."

"The solution allows you to configure and customize how you want to collect information from servers or other systems."

"Its overall flexibility is most valuable. When our customers have some custom applications that are not necessarily covered by the community or a standard monitoring tool, we use Zabbix to build our own modules with our own templates. This feature has been useful in using Zabbix for infrastructure and IT monitoring. It has also been useful for industrial equipment monitoring. Zabbix is very lightweight. It is efficient in terms of performance because it doesn't use a lot of resources."

"The calculations part is the most valuable."

"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the ease with which we can set it up at customer sites with our custom Zabbix proxy and tools."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"The solution's setup process needs enhancement."

"They can improve the network visibility. Licensing and its maintenance are also needed."

"From the recent DNA point of view, there are some stability challenges with Cisco, but very minor."

"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."

"The solution needs to improve the dashboard."

"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."

"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 solution's technical support is an area with which my company's clients have a problem. Cisco doesn't provide good technical support unless a user has a big account that Cisco wants to retain."

More Cisco DNA Center cons

"When using this solution in enterprise monitoring, you are able to see that there are some issues with equipment that could be causing a problem. Sometimes you want to make a root command that you do not want to be executed automatically. What we have tried to do is open an SSH session directly from the solution's interface but it is not possible."

"Even though it’s such a powerful monitoring system, it would be more helpful if it had a flexible UI."

"The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly."

"I would like to see a more flexible mobile client, and better HA out of the box."

"One of the things we don't like is that Zabbix has a license structure with a price that is high compared to the competition. It's very high, for example, compared to something like Microsoft Teams."

"We had some scalability issues with a large number of nodes."

"My company wanted to do an exercise command to access IT from Cameroon. They wanted to access an FSS to a second host with second equipment that was on another coast but it is not possible on Zabbix to do it. They want to directly access from the front-end of Zabbix to access a prompt in Zabbix to an access terminal. In the front-end, there is no way to do that. That would be an important improvement."

"The user web interface is a little bit too basic, we need to link Zabbix to Grafana to have more options, such as graphs and charts. The interface needs to be improved. Additionally, there could be better integration with Grafana API."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We have a three-year license with them."

"The solution is expensive."

"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."

"The tool's licensing may not come across as something that may be friendly for users."

"The tool is medium-priced."

More Cisco DNA Center pricing and cost advice

"There are no licenses."

"The product is an open source and free solution."

"We are using the free, open-source version."

"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"I use the tool's free version."

"For pricing, it's free. We don't pay anything for it. They open-source the code, and people pay for support."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

30%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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?

The cost is very high.

What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?

The system is working fine for me currently.

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.

Cisco Catalyst Center vs Cisco DNA Center

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Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiManager vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 6% of the time

NetBrain vs Cisco DNA Center

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

NetXMS vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Centreon vs Zabbix

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Product Reports

Download Cisco DNA Center product report

Cisco DNA Center

May 2025

Download Zabbix product report

April 2025

Also Known As

DNA Center

No data available

Overview

Cisco DNA Center offers a comprehensive platform for network automation and management, providing detailed analytics, enhanced security, and streamlined operations for both wired and wireless networks.

Cisco DNA Center integrates with Cisco infrastructure to deliver efficient network automation and management, helping organizations improve network visibility, security, and control. It supports AI-driven analytics and automated workflows to enhance operational efficiency and reduce errors. Challenges include compatibility with third-party systems, steep learning curve, and complex deployment. Its interface facilitates centralized control, vital for troubleshooting, policy management, and configuration management, with support for zero-touch provisioning and SD-Access.

What are the key features of Cisco DNA Center?

Robust Analytics: Provides detailed insights into network health with AI-driven analytics.
Centralized Security: Integrates with ISE for comprehensive security management.
Automated Device Management: Simplifies device provisioning and configuration transfers.
Wi-Fi Analytics: Offers deep insights into wireless network performance.
Zero-Touch Provisioning: Streamlines new device deployments with minimal human intervention.
Scalable Segmentation: Efficiently segments network traffic ensuring security and performance.

What benefits should users consider?

Operational Efficiency: Automation reduces potential errors and streamlines workflow.
Enhanced Security: Integration with Cisco ISE bolsters security capabilities.
Network Visibility: Comprehensive dashboards and analysis tools enhance monitoring.
Troubleshooting: Real-time monitoring aids in identifying and resolving issues swiftly.

In sectors such as healthcare, finance, and retail, Cisco DNA Center is utilized for its ability to enhance security and compliance, manage large-scale networks, and provide detailed analytics for better operational decision-making. Its support for location tracking and policy automation ensures efficient network management across diverse environments.

Cisco

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba