Cisco Catalyst Center vs. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

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
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers application and server monitoring capabilities. SAM allows for self-service for easy setup, 1200+ monitoring templates, and customization options, as well as integrate with other SolarWinds products.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Catalyst CenterSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Catalyst CenterSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSAM pricing starts at $2,995.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Catalyst CenterSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Features
Cisco Catalyst CenterSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Application Performance Management
Comparison of Application Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Catalyst Center
-
Ratings
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
6.5
280 Ratings
17% below category average
Application monitoring00 Ratings7.0270 Ratings
Database monitoring00 Ratings7.0234 Ratings
Threshold alerts00 Ratings6.8275 Ratings
Predictive capabilities00 Ratings6.0219 Ratings
Application performance management console00 Ratings7.3243 Ratings
Collaboration tools00 Ratings5.7151 Ratings
Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications00 Ratings6.5260 Ratings
Application dependency mapping and thresholding00 Ratings5.5220 Ratings
Virtualization monitoring00 Ratings7.3238 Ratings
Server availability and performance monitoring00 Ratings7.0273 Ratings
Server usage monitoring and capacity forecasting00 Ratings6.8254 Ratings
IT Asset Discovery00 Ratings5.7202 Ratings
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User Ratings
Cisco Catalyst CenterSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(230 ratings)
8.8
(278 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(7 ratings)
8.9
(10 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(17 ratings)
8.6
(29 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(32 ratings)
9.0
(21 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
4.5
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Catalyst CenterSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
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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SolarWinds
It is a well-suited software for monitoring and surveillance of your deployed nodes. The error-readability and filter options for filtering out logs and errors could be improved. But overall, it has a good UI design, is user-friendly, and is very easy to learn and access for new users.
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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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SolarWinds
  • Monitor Azure Cloud Severs- We use SolarWinds SAM to monitor Active Directory and DNS on Several DCs published on Azure Cloud.
  • Monitor Hyper V and VMware - SolarWinds SAM monitors applications on both Hyper V and VMware, while also monitoring the physical host machines.
  • It also helps us monitor Warranty expiration for physical servers.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • Custom application monitors can be a little tricky to configure.
  • Logic in custom alerts can be a little hard to follow and figure out.
  • Inability to monitor certificates on custom applications or SQL Server.
  • Can be a little slow at times with on-prem SQL server.
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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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SolarWinds
We are heavily invested in Solarwinds products for a reason. They are generally easy to setup and run with, requiring only some interfacing with support or help articles on rare occasions. They do what we bought them to do and we can't ask for more.
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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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SolarWinds
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is quite easy to use and super versatile. It allows you to do just about anything you can through premade templates or through scripting. You can use an agent on the servers if you want to, or you can monitor through WMI or SNMP credentials. You can customize thresholds for alerting quickly, and you can configure alerts to be as complex or as simple as you want.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
The tool works and monitors items 24x7, it only requires maintenance a little more frequently due to security fixes in the Windows operating system.
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Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
The graphical interface and the performance of the database leave a little to be desired, they could be better explored.Some functionality and screens do not work well depending on the browser used. The integrations never had any problems or caused crashes in other systems.
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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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SolarWinds
I think there was only a couple times I had to open a support case for SAM and one time they got multiple engineers on the phone to get a better idea what I was trying to monitor and was able to point me in the best direction to monitor that system.
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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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SolarWinds
It was sufficient to read their documentation and watch videos.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Make sure SNMP and WMI are configured ahead of time
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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
Read full review
SolarWinds
Nagios requires far more manual work to configure than SolarWinds does, though that also encourages customization and perfect-fit solutions. Nagios also requires far, far fewer resources to run than SolarWinds: SolarWinds wants great gobs of memory and disk, while Nagios is refreshingly humble. Nagios starts working from the first minute, too, whereas SolarWinds needs lots of set-up time.
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
It is hard to find the recommended SQL setup and convince others that is the way you should configure the server when you set it up
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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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SolarWinds
  • Ability to sunset multiple legacy monitoring platforms.
  • A single pane of glass across global locations (Enterprise Operations Console) simplifies monitoring for junior staff.
  • A single toolset allows staff from across the global environment to share knowledge and quickly set up/modify monitoring.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

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

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Screenshots

Screenshot of Multi-vendor application performance monitoringScreenshot of Multi-vendor server monitoringScreenshot of Application dependency mapping with AppStack™ dashboardScreenshot of Microsoft Exchange performance monitoring with AppInsight™ templateScreenshot of Microsoft IIS performance monitoring with AppInsight™ templateScreenshot of Server hardware health monitoring