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Cisco Catalyst Center vs. Darktrace vs. NETSCOUT ISNG Platform

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst Center

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ACisco Catalyst Center provides an intent-based platform for managing enterprise networks across campus, branch, and edge environments. It combines automation, analytics, and assurance to streamline IT operations, improve security posture, and reduce manual tasks. With integratedAI/ML-driven insights, policy-based controls, and end-to-end visibility across wired and wireless infrastructures, Catalyst Center empowers IT teams toproactively detect issues, enforce compliance, and accelerate…N/A

    Darktrace

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ADarktrace AI interrupts in-progress cyber-attacks, including ransomware, email phishing, and threats to cloud environments. It's able to detect and establish baselines for your organization so it can make the distinction between what is and what isn't normal network activity for your organization. This allows it to tackle complex cyber-attacks as they happen and prevent future cyber-attacks from happening.N/A

    NETSCOUT ISNG

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AThe NETSCOUT ISNG Platform available as software or in an appliance (InfiniStreamNG) consolidates data from a variety of specialized analytics tools and provides service assurance, application performance management, cybersecurity and business intelligence. NETSCOUT's next-generation InfiniStreamNG (ISNG) software and hardware convert high-value network packets to smart data in real time to deliver accurate and actionable insights for service assurance and cybersecurity applications.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Catalyst CenterDarktraceNETSCOUT ISNG
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterDarktraceNETSCOUT ISNG
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Catalyst CenterDarktraceNETSCOUT ISNG
    Considered Multiple Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Darktrace
    No answer on this topic
    NETSCOUT
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    306 Answers
    90%
    Would buy again
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    245 Answers
    86%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    319 Answers
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    195 Answers
    80%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    229 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    No answers on this topic
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterDarktraceNETSCOUT ISNG
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.4
    (343 ratings)
    8.0
    (13 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (9 ratings)
    9.7
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    7.9
    (19 ratings)
    6.5
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (33 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst CenterDarktraceNETSCOUT ISNG
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Would recommend Cisco Catalyst Center to medium to large scale organizations that have many cookie-cutter sites and the resources to properly provision all their devices. I would not recommend to teams that do not have a strong network engineering team that can navigate the various intricacies of the platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    Darktrace is a product well suited for the vast majority of infrastructures and helps monitoring and responding to threats based on the network in a very elastic way. This is a product based on on-premise infrastructures that hosts its machines locally, of course it can be technically difficult to monitor an entire On-Cloud infrastructure but even there there's room for sensors and monitoring, not to mention the SaaS and mail integration that completes the product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Pros
    Cisco
    • Again, the ease of use of the APIs and the API Explorer provides the tools needed to write these custom workflows that allow us to do a lot of the automation we’re doing now, saving hundreds of hours by using those tools.
    • The product is very intuitive, and there is a lot of support out there in the DevNet community to help with that.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    • Uses it Al model UEBA to detect anomalies in the behaviour of not only the users in a corporate network but also the routers, servers, and endpoints in that network.
    • Provides a visualisation of both egress and outbound network traffics flowing in and out of the organisation.
    • Darktrace comes with it autonomous AI model detection and responses capabilities.
    • Darktrace as an AI next generation NDR solution, prevents ,contains and quarantines malicious traffics from and into the corporate network.
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Cons
    Cisco
    • Within its Tasks - Audit, it can sometimes allow plaintext data, including passwords, to be seen. There should be functionality to detect password usage and appropriately obfuscate the data.
    • Occasionally, Catalyst Center does not sync changes properly within templates, which requires deleting and reconfiguring the template version. Better processes here would be beneficial.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    • There are few areas that I would say need to be improved; their customer support portal allows you to log tickets with any suggestions or things you feel the product is missing, and they will generally show you how to achieve what you want, or in some cases, introduce it as a feature in a later update.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    I think new products are often "half-baked" or over hyped when they release, as was the case with DNAC. We were well ahead of the curve in acquiring it. But as it has matured it is now a fantastic addition to our infrastructure. I think we are easing into a stage where it is hard to envision a large organization NOT having Catalyst Center in place. If for nothing outside of the mapping and troubleshooting aspects; using it as a "source of truth".
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    It's a powerfull product that help administrators to provide email security to our organization.
    Good metrics about received emails that help us to determine in doubt case if the email is a false positive or it's malware.
    They're improving the product releasing continuous updates and have mobile phone app to manage it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    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.
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    The Darktrace toolset is very expansive, allowing it to handle many different tasks, but this leads to a user interface that is sometimes not at all intuitive. Icons don't always make sense visually, and the associated tool tips do not always provide enough detail on what action the button performs
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    Darktrace support is excellent in my experience. They send a competent engineer on-site to provide on-boarding training. They were also very responsive in responding to questions and concerns. Having an individual point of contact who is a competent network and security engineer is not a common experience, at least for me.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Cisco
    It was informative, but the labs were not available long enough for us to get intimately familiar with CCNA before it was closed. The course instructor was well informed and got us as close to ready as she could.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    No answers on this topic
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco Catalyst Centeris basic zero-touch provisioning out of the box. You just rack and stack the switches, patch 'em in, and the controller pushes the config automatically. No need to console into every single box or spend hours script-running over CLI.The AI-driven assurance and telemetry are top-tier. Instead of getting flooded with useless syslog alerts when a link drops, it correlates the telemetry data to give you proactive health checks. It literally pinpoints wireless anomalies and bandwidth chokepoints before the users even start opening tickets.It handles fabric microsegmentation like a boss through SD-Access and TrustSec. You can easily enforce group-based policies right at the hardware level. It drops IoT gear, guests, and corporate traffic into their own secure buckets dynamically, without you having to manage a trillion messy VLANs and ACLs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    We did NOT select Darktrace. OSSIM/AlienVault is a more mature product and it provided better intelligence and reporting. The end user interface is much easier to use - and you can tell built form engineers who have had to do the work. My suggestion for anyone considering Darktrace, is to get the price upfront; do a 30/60 onsite trail; and do the same thing, at the same time, with AlienVault. AlientVault will win every time. I say that because that's exactly what I did.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • I have used it for upgrading devices, and it's does a great job at that, however out operations team for whatever reason has not adopted the feature.
    • Overall it feels like Cisco Catalyst Center has been huge waste of time. I feel like my time would be better spent on other projects and looking at other products and tools
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Darktrace
    • One big positive is how it helps us with the security assessments that clients have done on us. They are looking to see if we know how we might have unusual/malicious traffic running on the network.
    • If you have a small network and only need 1 appliance, it can be a good ROI and peace of mind.
    • You could go down a hole in trying to spend time looking at all of your traffic with this software. You need to focus only on what it is showing as potential bad traffic.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETSCOUT
    No answers on this topic
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

    Screenshot of AIOpsScreenshot of BaselinesScreenshot of PoliciesScreenshot of HealthScreenshot of Network HierarchyScreenshot of PoE