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Cisco Meraki Dashboard vs. SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Meraki Dashboard

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AAs a cloud-managed network management solution, the Cisco Meraki Dashboard enables users to provision, configure, and troubleshoot global networking and IoT deployments.N/A

    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds® Engineer’s Toolset (ETS) helps users monitor and troubleshoot a network with over 60 tools for network management. ETS allows users to monitor and receive alerts in real time on network availability and health, and perform network diagnostics for faster troubleshooting and resolution of complex network issues. With ETS users can deploy an array of network discovery tools including Port Scanner, Switch Port Mapper or advanced Subnet Calculator, manage Cisco® devices with specialized…

    $1,585

    Per Instance

    Pricing
    Cisco Meraki DashboardSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    One Time Price
    $1,585
    Per Instance
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Meraki DashboardSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Meraki DashboardSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Meraki Dashboard
    Point is more difficult to manage requires a lot more technical expertise.
    Incentivized
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    113 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    106 Answers
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    112 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    11 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    79 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    99%
    Implementation went as expected
    97 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
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    Cisco Meraki DashboardSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
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    Score8.5 out of 10
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    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
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    User Ratings
    Cisco Meraki DashboardSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (116 ratings)
    8.6
    (11 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.9
    (115 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Meraki DashboardSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Well suited is if you do configuration one time and roll out to multiple sites, multiple networks, multiple wireless S societies. You create a profile and rollout, and you use automation that takes care of a lot of your manual work. So it's pretty suitable for those divers. Anything related to customization that a Cisco Meraki Dashboard doesn't offer and you use your other automation tool, I think there is an improvement for Cisco Meraki Dashboard to involve all those features and integrate with other third party services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    I have found the toolset especially useful for scanning subnets to discover devices, and for setting up temporary real-time monitors when we are troubleshooting or setting up new connections. The most useful aspect has been the ability to apply the tools to help troubleshoot and pinpoint intermittent issues. More general tools like Orion often do not have the granularity to detect issues like intermittent packet loss which are especially impactful to applications like Voice. The toolset gives us another level of capability to dig into issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • Oh, just the ease of use. I am not an IT technical expert by trade—I’m more on the leadership side. So this makes it easy for me to understand everything that is going on and be able to provide an honest review of how the organization is doing at that particular time.
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Various monitoring
    • Stores history
    • Suggests indices
    • Helps to find the SQL query text
    • Helps to see what machines/users the bad queries are coming from
    • Shows current blocking session
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • Some features are unavailable when the network doesn't have a switch (network topology, for example)
    • I wish there was an overview for all organizations with pending firmware updates, rather than going through one-by-one.
    • I would like to have some of the switch tools available for firewall devices (port cycling, line testing).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • The unifying component that is intended to be the initial interface to the tools seems clunky. I prefer to start the tools individually rather than using it.
    • The port scanner could use some improvements to make it easier to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    Very pleased with he product overall. it is used as expecting + easy to use and very scalable if we want to add new orgs
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cisco
    Cisco Meraki Dashboard is a modern interface that makes it easy to find devices and their health status. It has powerful remote tools that can help you manage every aspect of the network at a granular level. Something that may be frustrating is that some advanced settings are sometimes oversimplified, and the customization is limited.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Very easy to use and intuitive. Just be careful with the WAN Killer...it does what it says.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    Support seems very knowledgeable and provides detail summary about the call. They even follow up later to check on your case.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Our organization uses it regularly. It is reliable, and we keep finding new uses for it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco Meraki Dashboard is easy to use compared to other vendors. They do not have all the intricate configurations offered by products from competitors, but for the price point and what it gives you there is nothing better. The lower learning curve with onboarding a new hire and get them familiar with Meraki is much easier which our company loves.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    I haven't compared any tools similar to SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset. This might be because I'm pretty biased when it comes to monitoring, and reporting solutions. I've found that SolarWinds provides the biggest bang for the buck in my opinion. I'm sure there are other solutions on the market that compete, but I haven't tried any of them because I've been very satisfied with SolarWinds.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • When there's an issue with communication to the cloud. EX: unable to fetch configs. This due to like new device being installed or if you have to factory reset the device. This has been a negative impact.
    • Incorrect status. Sometimes the status of the device or network is not reflected as it should be. This has had a negative impact in the past. However, for the most part, the Status is fairly accurate.
    • Incident response has been very good. Anytime an issue has been reported to Cisco regarding Cisco Meraki Dashboard, the issue is quickly investigated and doesn't take long to resolve.
    • Customer support and Cisco's technical team has been very helpful and responsive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Spend less time downloading free buggy tools
    • All the tools in one spot, so you don't have to look around for tools
    • Get to the solution sooner
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Meraki Dashboard Screenshots

    Screenshot of Connect MS225 24portScreenshot of ConnectMS225 24portScreenshot of SECURITY MX64WScreenshot of SECURITY MX64WScreenshot of Connect MS225 24port

    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset Screenshots

    Screenshot of Perform network stress tests with Engineer's Toolset WAN Killer. You don’t need to use real traffic for studying network activities, like testing traffic and load balancing. Instead, deploy Engineer's Toolset WAN Killer to help interactively test connections and adjust the IP traffic generated to achieve the desired network load based on your requirements.Screenshot of Quickly troubleshoot your network with enhanced ping capabilities and packet route tracing, among other network bandwidth usage and monitoring tools included in ETS.Screenshot of Using ETS, you can run scans to gain insight into how routers, hubs switches, and other devices are configured by analyzing SNMP queries and viewing MIB attributes. ETS is designed to help you more easily understand whether your network and ports are using appropriate settings.Screenshot of Config Compare, a part of ETS, is built to compare the running configuration of a Cisco router with the startup configuration. With the Cisco configuration compare tool, you can easily detect the changes made to the network, switch, and router configurations that are not committed to non-volatile memory (NVRAM).Screenshot of Manage your IP network from discovery to address tracking. Discover subnets on a seed router and scan the subnet or a range of IP addresses, generate a list of subnets along with their mask, size, range, and broadcast address and actively monitor subnets to identify and track which IP addresses are in use on your network.