Cisco Catalyst Center vs. OpenNMS Meridian

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Cisco 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
OpenNMS Meridian
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
OpenNMS Meridian is a scalable open source network management platform with network traffic analysis, network discovery, alerting, and monitoring. It's presented as a solution to monitor enterprise network performance and ensure the availability and performance of critical network services.
$42,000
per year
Pricing
Cisco Catalyst CenterOpenNMS Meridian
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Essential
$42,000
per year Up to 2 Meridian and cores Up to 25 Minions
Premier
$56,700
per year Up to 4 Meridian cores and Up to 100 Minions
Premier+
Custom
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Catalyst CenterOpenNMS Meridian
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsAdd-Ons: -24/7 Emergency Support: $24,000 / year -Mini OpenNMS Appliance: $750 ea.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Catalyst CenterOpenNMS Meridian
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Cisco Catalyst CenterOpenNMS Meridian
Small Businesses
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Medium-sized Companies
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Score 8.4 out of 10
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Score 8.4 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cisco Catalyst CenterOpenNMS Meridian
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(244 ratings)
8.4
(4 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(32 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Catalyst CenterOpenNMS Meridian
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Security with identity-based access control and segmentation via integration with Cisco ISE, supporting zero-trust architectures. Centralized Management for a large campus environment with centralized management of wired and wireless equipment. Automation of tasks like: provisioning, configuration, and software upgrade, reducing manual effort of those tasks. It could be improved to Multi-Vendor Support.
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The OpenNMS Group
I would recommend all system administrators use some form of network monitoring if they are not already doing so, and I'd definitely recommend people consider OpenNMS if they're shopping around. Small businesses will benefit from the low-cost of entry (it's free!), whilst getting all the enterprise features. Larger businesses can benefit from paid support plans.
However, there's no getting around the fact that you will require some advanced networking and sysadmin knowledge to get the most out of OpenNMS, or at least, be prepared for a steep learning curve. If you don't have the resources to devote this time initially, you may struggle.
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Pros
Cisco
  • I enjoy having a more modern tool for viewing PSIRTs and CVEs on our catalyst devices.
  • I enjoy all the different views I have for my inventory.
  • I think templates work well for zero day configuration.
  • I love the newer features for showing what configuration is going to be changed and deployed before you deploy it.
  • I like that I can see in-band and out-of-band configuration history.
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The OpenNMS Group
  • Report on SLA
  • Group network areas
  • Discovery of elements
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Cons
Cisco
  • Granularity. And so for us, and our use case might not be the same as a majority of customers, but we have a environment which frequently changes. So we're not a traditional corporate environment which stays relatively static or still reprovision. We want to reconfigure our environment to meet whatever the needs of our customers are. And at the moment it's like for some of the ways that we have to configure it, we just want to give something a little tap, but we have to hit it with a sledgehammer, which then often has knock on impacts other services.
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The OpenNMS Group
  • We've had a few issues with delayed alerting.
  • I haven't quite figured out how to make topologies work yet, but I haven't spent a ton of time on it either.
  • We've also had a bit of trouble importing some MIBs, but that usually boiled down to working with the vendor to make sure we had the right MIBs and dependencies.
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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".
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The OpenNMS Group
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.
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The OpenNMS Group
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.
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The OpenNMS Group
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.
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The OpenNMS Group
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
We started out with using Cisco Prime infrastructure and we migrated to DNA center or Catalyst Center from Prime Infrastructure. We found that it wasn't apples to Apples migration. It wasn't exactly, it wasn't a direct upgrade. There were a lot of key differences, but yeah, I think that that was probably the most similar thing
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The OpenNMS Group
OpenNMS's more attractive GUI and its price break were the main reasons our company chose to explore and use this product. However, it never managed to actually replace Nagios which had a much more established hold within the company. Perhaps we were over-monitoring, but our company claimed a $100k loss per hour of downtime.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Yeah, I mean that last one for sure. The software independent of the hardware, I mean, it's just easy. They made it so easy to just, and fast and efficient to upgrade your entire organization within days, weeks, months. And you're not spending, your maintenance windows get a lot shorter. You can schedule more maintenance windows just because you know there's going to be some type of consistency with it and there's just, I'm sure there will be a hiccup one day, but there just hasn't really been too many issues with us using that product, especially for maintenance, window upgrades, things like that.
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The OpenNMS Group
  • Initial adoption required quite a lot of resources and time to get everything right. Totally worth it for us; just be prepared for a gradual process that will get better and better with time.
  • Once setup and running smoothly, it provides us with all the reporting we could hope for, at near zero cost.
  • With OpenNMS, we're able to offer a much more reliable service to our customers, and spend a lot less time dealing with issues.
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ScreenShots

Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

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