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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs Zabbix 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabri...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zabbix
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 12.3%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Upul Abhayasena - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust management tool with an easy setup and room for more features
DCNM is used by one of the airline customers in Qatar to manage many data centers and rack switches running on normal Nexus or NX-OS mode. They required a controller platform to manage these Nexus switches, and thus, they utilized DCNM as a Fabric controller. Given that ACI deployment is very low…
B Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity
I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Monitoring system provides a clear indication of what's going on in the network."
"After installation, you almost forget that it is working."
"It has a very nice dashboard so you can see what's currently happening in the network and the performance of the back story."
"The product makes the management of our environment simpler."
"You can integrate all the networks into the software."
"Fabric suite automation is a great feature."
"The monitoring capability is the best in Cisco Data Center Network Manager. It helps me improve network management tasks and optimize processes."
"The product has excellent stability."
"The most valuable feature is the support for monitoring Cisco switches."
"We value the auto-host discovery, template import, bulk import/export features. Newer versions also add nice features, such as multi-IP per host."
"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."
"During my testing, the features that I like the most are that it can be integrated with my system, and it provides me with reports of all of my servers."
"SNMP monitoring, source discovery, and alert triggering are most valuable."
"Every new asset placed in the environment can be automatically detected, predicting human failures."
"The best thing about Zabbix is the integration and the APIs that are included are very fast"
"The most valuable features of Zabbix are flexibility and a single interface for different types of monitoring."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve reports."
"The delivery Cisco Data Center Network Manager could improve if it was easier. Additionally, some feature improvement is needed."
"Automation for the RMA process can be added."
"It is not very easy to monitor or to browse."
"The initial setup is challenging."
"API lacks robustness."
"The reporting is not very intuitive and has room for improvement."
"Could integrate better with VMware products."
"Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need."
"Zabbix isn't a great tool for cloud-specific monitoring - its connection to public clouds needs to be improved. Other areas for improvement would be the lack of dashboards and integrations."
"If Zabbix had a better dashboard then it would be nice."
"The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly."
"Documentation terminology could be improved."
"We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."
"The reporting features need improvement, especially detailed inventory reporting. Since it's freeware, reporting may not be a major focus."
"It would be helpful if they translated the documentation to Cyrillic languages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar platform across all domains."
"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."
"We usually opt for a yearly plan, commonly for three or five years upfront. Some customers may not utilize all the features included in the product, and this can lead to them paying for functionalities they don't need."
"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."
"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."
"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."
"The solution is very expensive."
"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."
"Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."
"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"The product is an open source and free solution."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"It’s free of cost."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar plat...
What needs improvement with Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
In a mixed architecture where Nexus switches are used as border devices and are connected to a Palo Alto firewall (e.g., version 9.1 or 10.1), you might encounter issues with BGP peering. For insta...
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.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.