Auvik vs. Cisco Catalyst Center

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Auvik
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Auvik Network Management is a vendor-agnostic cloud-based network monitoring and management solution providing automated network discovery. Auvik requires no service hardware or disruptive maintenance cycles and provides onboarding and training for new and existing users. Auvik delivers visibility and automation to reduce friction for IT teams and allow them to give end users the freedom to work wherever and however they…N/A
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Catalyst Center (formerly Cisco DNA Center) is a network management system that leverages AI to connect, secure, and automate customer’s network operations. It harnesses the Catalyst family of switching and wireless through AI-enabled automation that simplifies the IT experience and streamlines complex network operations. Offering operational flexibility, Cisco Catalyst Center can be deployed on-premises on a physical appliance or in a VMware virtual environment, or in a…N/A
Pricing
AuvikCisco Catalyst Center
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AuvikCisco Catalyst Center
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing is calculated per number of switches, routers, firewalls, and controllers. Everything else is monitored for free.
More Pricing Information
Features
AuvikCisco Catalyst Center
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Auvik
7.8
106 Ratings
5% below category average
Cisco Catalyst Center
-
Ratings
Automated network device discovery9.5105 Ratings00 Ratings
Network monitoring8.8106 Ratings00 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation7.883 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts8.4105 Ratings00 Ratings
Network capacity planning7.783 Ratings00 Ratings
Packet capture analysis7.265 Ratings00 Ratings
Network mapping8.4104 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable reports4.878 Ratings00 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring7.485 Ratings00 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring7.796 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AuvikCisco Catalyst Center
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI
Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AuvikCisco Catalyst Center
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(118 ratings)
8.3
(128 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(1 ratings)
8.2
(16 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(4 ratings)
8.9
(31 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AuvikCisco Catalyst Center
Likelihood to Recommend
Auvik Networks Inc.
Auvik is well suited for managed service customers and small-scale SMB customers who do not have enough technical resource to manage and monitor their network. Also for customer who has distributed networks spreaded across worldwide or nation wide, Auvik is well suited since it does not need any on-premise setup at each site except for a collector. For customer who has already adopted and used cloud network and hosting services, Auvik is better as Auvik is also fully cloud based offering
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Cisco
Cisco Catalyst Center does a good job configuring the switches and forming the fabric using recommended configuration and specific switch setup. Managing switches through inventory is another job Cisco Catalyst Center does well. On the other hand managing access to infrastructure (host onboarding for example) is one tedious job. To set 48 access ports on a switch takes more time than it would take an engineer connected to a switch using CLI.
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Pros
Auvik Networks Inc.
  • Auvik is the big pic tool of choice for network diagramming, helps layout of our network infrastructure, and we'll know immediately the status of the devices that are successfully communicating, and those that may have, for example, credentials issues.
  • Auvik's "Traffic Insights" are key accelerators for intuitively isolating and resolving traffic-related issues quickly and easily, and the historical information makes it simpler to deduce what aspects may need replacement, capacity improvement, or possibly even re-architecture.
  • Auvik integration tools are excellent solution enhancers - that are of particular interest to our company, as we make use of MS Teams and Connectwise products; we would like to see some features to integrate to ServiceNow as well.
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Cisco
  • I think it abstracts the technical detail of what actually needs to be configured on the devices. So you can specify the intent and it'll do complex technical commands on the devices. You do not necessarily need to know I'm from a technical background, so I do know that, but on a scale, it's very easy just to click a few buttons and say what you want and it'll just do it for you.
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Cons
Auvik Networks Inc.
  • The map is not easy to quickly zoom in and out of or pan around. Usually requires a lot of filter toggling. Keyboard shortcuts for this would be nice.
  • Better global settings that can be pushed to multiple client organizations
  • Security groups/RBAC for user permissions across multiple clients
  • Ability to change the URL
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Cisco
  • Learning curve is pretty steep
  • Setting golden images is tricky and cant always get it to work as advertised. Takes a couple times. Having a recent problem where it stopped working and Cisco TAC only explanation is that 3850 is no longer supported.
  • When I initially set up, couldnt find documentation. I set up a lot of IP addresses and assigned them to DNA. Cant find where these are located.
  • Troubleshooting with TAC, they always want me to run some scripts that I have no clue how to do.
  • Ability to be able to access configuration backups would be great.
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Likelihood to Renew
Auvik Networks Inc.
Because it's an amazing product.
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Cisco
No answers on this topic
Usability
Auvik Networks Inc.
The program can be a bit unwieldy at times, however the majority of information is displayed in a readable and friendly way. The maps and popup information box from the bottom can be harder to use on a smaller screen but on a 1080p+ display tends to work fine.
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Cisco
Cisco DNA Center is going to help us in security, simplicity and ease of administration. Cisco DNA Center is complete management and control platform that simplifies and streamlines network operations. Cisco DNA Center offers a single dashboard for every core function in your network. With this platform, IT can become more nimble and respond to changes and challenges faster and more intelligently.
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Reliability and Availability
Auvik Networks Inc.
We have never had a major outage or impact that was noticeable.
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Cisco
No answers on this topic
Performance
Auvik Networks Inc.
Pages can be slow to load on larger sites but tends to be fine for most clients.
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Cisco
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Auvik Networks Inc.
Fast response and knowledgeable. If the technician does not know, they will look for the information and get back to you.
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Cisco
El soporte de CISCO DNA Center es muy bueno, responden a mis dudas pero no he tenido oportunidad de reportar un incidente o determinar un tiempo de respuesta critico. The support of CISCO DNA Center is very good, they answer my questions, but I have not had the opportunity to report an incident or determine a critical response time.
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Alternatives Considered
Auvik Networks Inc.
Auvik can stand up against any of the big network management and monitoring solutions on the market. I've implemented and used SolarWinds at many organizations for over 15 years. The paradigm that SolarWinds, PRTG, Prime, etc., work under is completely different than Auvik. It's apparent that Auvik was aiming to solve a different problem and built that solution from the ground up. For any organization responsible for multiple other organizations' infrastructure, Auvik is invaluable in comparison to the other products listed.
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Cisco
The software upgrades and ability to integrate with the wireless telemetry data set Cisco DNA Center ahead. However the automation with Change Control, Intent and better path mapping (even across MPLS and WAN Circuits) make NetBrain a needed tool to get that gives you that visibility and flexibility. Solarwinds has the ablity to view Netflow which would be an interesting add to DNA Center or an easier path to get or integrate with Stealthwatch.
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Scalability
Auvik Networks Inc.
Auvik has worked on sites with 15+ offices connected with VPN's and we have not encountered any issues with the monitoring. On larger sites the map can be a bit cumbersome to read however it can be cleaned up easily with device filters.
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Cisco
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Auvik Networks Inc.
  • the ROI for Auvik comes from the time it saves in updating documentation and onboarding, new clients. We no longer have to spend a day investigating a network and documenting it, this is life and up to date so you always have true information for reporting and troubleshooting.
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Cisco
  • Initial cost is pricy, but management needs to understand the value this provides so make them aware
  • Reporting could be improved in more detail in our opinion, but it gives a great overview of your environment. High level overview for managers would be greatly appreciated with as little or much detail as needed for certain Cisco gear.
  • Does not work as well with some older Cisco equipment because they want you to buy new, again the cost impact comes into play.
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ScreenShots

Auvik Screenshots

Screenshot of a display of the big network picture used to narrow down possible devices to investigate. Auvik pulls data from sources like CDP, LLDP, and forwarding tables to meticulously model the Layer 1 network diagram. Layers 2 and 3 are built from ARP tables, IP assignments, and VLAN associations to show what’s on the network, where it is, and how it’s connected.Screenshot of Auvik’s automated inventory, which uses network protocols to detect and capture full details for every device on the network including make and model, serial number, IP address, and the physical switchport the device is connected to. If the device is known but not its location, Auvik can find the device and every other device it’s connected to.Screenshot of lifecycle data, pulled from supported devices to show whether they’re on current or expired support contracts, whether there are more up-to-date software versions available, if devices are eligible to receive critical security updates, and if devices are still available for purchase.Screenshot of Auvik's over 50 pre-configured alerts tuned to industry best practices and ranging from informational to emergency. Its pre-configured alerts can be tweaked, added to, and the frequency of how often notifications are sent can be changed.Screenshot of Auvik TrafficInsights, which leverages machine learning and traffic classification to show which applications—like Dropbox, Netflix, or Slack—or protocols are using up the bulk of the network’s bandwidth.Screenshot of Auvik's centralized syslog for all network devices where they can be viewed directly from the device dashboard for more context, to more quickly troubleshoot network issues.