Cisco Catalyst Center vs. N-able N-central

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.3 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
N-able N-central
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
MSPs and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex networks remotely. N-central provides visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users: 1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers and workstations—and troubleshoot. 2. Stay on top of threats with features like MFA, antivirus, integrated endpoint detection and response, data backup, disk encryption, email protection,…N/A
Pricing
Cisco Catalyst CenterN-able N-central
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Catalyst CenterN-able N-central
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
Cisco Catalyst CenterN-able N-central
Monitoring Tasks
Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Catalyst Center
-
Ratings
N-able N-central
5.9
3 Ratings
21% below category average
Remote monitoring00 Ratings5.43 Ratings
Network device monitoring00 Ratings5.03 Ratings
Management Tasks
Comparison of Management Tasks features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Catalyst Center
-
Ratings
N-able N-central
6.0
4 Ratings
16% below category average
Patch Management00 Ratings6.04 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Catalyst CenterN-able N-central
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI
Score 9.0 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI
Score 9.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Catalyst CenterN-able N-central
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(85 ratings)
5.2
(22 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(16 ratings)
2.0
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(31 ratings)
1.0
(8 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Catalyst CenterN-able N-central
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
So if a company is big with highly complex networks, lots of VLANs, lots of subnets, and dynamic people moving from one location to another location, that's good because you can guarantee that in building A the user experience will be exactly the same as in building B. On the other hand, if you are fairly small and localized and quite static, you probably don't need to go through the complexity of learning that big product.
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N-able
In my opinion, N-able N-central is a good "learn your lesson and move onto something better" tool. I've used many RMM tools over the years and I feel that this one is slow, does a terrible job with reporting, alerting, monitoring, software deployments, etc. The ability to turn on services like AV, backup, etc easily is cute, but you're not going to be able to use your own tools with this easily. In my experience, if you do turn those tools on for testing during the trial, you'll be charged later (despite it being a trial). They also turn off your ability to monitor these increased costs or to turn them off yourself. As a company, I found that they were impossible to work with. The sales team is right there if you want to buy something - but if you need anything other than to buy something, in my experience, they take days or weeks to navigate. I found that they are not a terribly ethical company and are more concerned with making a few dollars than creating a partnerships with MSPs. I can see value is in the advertised price of $99 for a hundred endpoints. However, you need to remember to not trial any other tools (like AV, backup, etc).
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Pros
Cisco
  • Up until recently, I have been able to use DNA to upgrade the IOS on our 3850 switches.
  • Dashboard shows significant issues and problem areas at a glance.
  • Assist in troubleshooting of wireless clients (still have to get more experience at this)
  • Wireless coverage maps
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N-able
  • Remote tasks - entry-level techs can run basic tasks without physically touching a piece of equipment.
  • Remote support - remote controlling user devices is easy and saves a lot of time with having to initiate a remote session.
  • Management of devices, particularly patch management and anti-virus management - you can automatically approve and deploy patches and schedule automatic AV scans.
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Cons
Cisco
  • The configuration template (Cisco Prime User created templates were much easier)
  • The Location based scheme (not all industries can go based on location for buildout)
  • An easier home dashboard to add a new device, instead of having to search through the menus
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N-able
  • Expensive software
  • The support team are terrible
  • Sales team will promise the world to get you over the line
  • Subscription management is tedious
  • Old software with very little development and the support team will not provide any further information on this - no roadmap
  • Integrations galore - but none of them are effective
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
No answers on this topic
N-able
Overall we have liked our solar winds experience, however, as our company has grown to support larger enterprises, this product does not have the functionality that our teams need in order to fully support them. The lack of granularity with backups and lack of ability to support nutanix environments is slowly drawing us into the use of other tools.
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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.
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N-able
The user interface is fairly straight forward, with logic groupings for objects. I did not deploy this software, but am one of the daily administrators. Once you get the correct agent package (Which can be a challenge) the integration into AD is not bad. The UI could be more customized, but that may have been a design choice.
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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.
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N-able
Every time we have reached out to SolarWinds they are quick to respond, even offering support chat 24/7. Their support team is great and works with you to find solutions to issues. They have taken items we had issues with before and used those to create updates so that the issue is handled better in the future.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
No answers on this topic
N-able
Make sure if you your using a vm you follow the instructions for provisioning to the letter or it will be starting from square one
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco is still the top of its class in switching/routing even with an increase in competition over the years. Support is great but more documentation is needed so we can find information for ourselves and not always open a TAC case.
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N-able
Our version of SolarWinds was old and running on old hardware, but it was way easier to setup and do things with. It did not do everything N-able does such as patch management, or at least we didn't have a module to do so if one existed. However it definitely seemed easier to use and possibly more stable.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • ROI is difficult to answer as we are providing this to customers. We have certainly had more opportunities staying on top of this emerging technology.
  • Our business objective to be a value-add partner has had a strain, as Cisco Sales has often times cut us at the knees as we try to push the product to customers.
  • DNA Center has been a great "toy" to play with, but until Cisco let's the partners do the work, we are severely hindered.
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N-able
  • Reduced time to manage and support servers and endpoints.
  • Provides support dept with more accurate information to assess and resolve issues quicker and more efficiently.
  • The subscription cost associated with N-central, to our clients has a good profit margin for us.
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ScreenShots

N-able N-central Screenshots

Screenshot of N-able N-central DashboardScreenshot of Remote desktop access with Take Control