Cisco Nexus Dashboard vs. Grafana

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Nexus Dashboard simplifies data-center networks with automation and analytics. The data-center network helps organizations to meet business demands, and provision reliable data-center networking services as fast as possible, when and where organizations need it. As network infrastructure management is becoming more complex, diverse, and distributed, with multiple configuration points, monitoring tools, and vast amounts of data being generated every second. Cisco Nexus Dashboard is…N/A
Grafana
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Grafana is a data visualization tool developed by Grafana Labs in New York. It is available open source, managed (Grafana Cloud), or via an enterprise edition with enhanced features. Grafana has pluggable data source model and comes bundled with support for popular time series databases like Graphite. It also has built-in support for cloud monitoring vendors like Amazon Cloudwatch, Microsoft Azure and SQL databases like MySQL. Grafana can combine data from many places into a single dashboard.
$0
Pricing
Cisco Nexus DashboardGrafana
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Grafana Cloud - Pro
$8
per month up to 1 active user
Grafana Cloud - Free
Free
10k metrics + 50GB logs + 50GB traces up to 3 active users
Grafana Cloud - Advanced
Volume Discounts
custom data usage custom active users
Grafana - Enterprise Stack
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Nexus DashboardGrafana
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Nexus DashboardGrafana
Considered Both Products
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
Chose Cisco Nexus Dashboard
the ticket to entry (knowledge) of Ansible is just too high and it requires a lot of man power to maintain it, nexus dashboard doesnt
Grafana

No answer on this topic

Features
Cisco Nexus DashboardGrafana
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
-
Ratings
Grafana
8.2
7 Ratings
1% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings7.87 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.67 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.37 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
-
Ratings
Grafana
7.9
6 Ratings
1% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings7.86 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.46 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.56 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
-
Ratings
Grafana
8.4
6 Ratings
2% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.16 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.66 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.36 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.46 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.76 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
-
Ratings
Grafana
8.5
6 Ratings
9% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.66 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.46 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.24 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Nexus DashboardGrafana
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Dell PowerConnect Switches (discontinued)
Dell PowerConnect Switches (discontinued)
Score 8.1 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Score 9.3 out of 10
IBM Analytics Engine
IBM Analytics Engine
Score 7.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Nexus DashboardGrafana
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(51 ratings)
9.3
(7 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.6
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.8
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Nexus DashboardGrafana
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Nexus Dashboard is a vital tool for Cisco data center Nexus deployments, in my opinion. By utilizing multiple applications in the suite, a business can utilize orchestration, monitor services and traffic, test deployment scenarios, verify upgrade processes and readiness, etc. The capabilities of the system can allow for SAN MDS controls, traditional Nexus NXOS integration, and/or essential ACI tools
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Grafana Labs
Just about any organization with more than one server and more than one cluster as it scales very well. Configuration of the application takes time and finesse to fine tune to where the balance of load time and getting data quickly meets. The plugins add load time but fine tuning for the application to meet demand needs nailed down at implementation
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Pros
Cisco
  • It is a flexible tool that helps streamline and facilitate the development of new services.
  • Ideal for automating tasks such as network modification, configuration, and removal, which provides great time savings.
  • Ensures services without interruption and without difficult scheduling.
  • It has a simple user interface and excellent support, made up of several providers.
  • It facilitates the administration of managed services.
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Grafana Labs
  • Alerting through many different medium as Slack, Email, Webhook etc
  • Beautiful and unlimited number of dashboards to view your metrics and tweak them as you please
  • Log aggregation and powerful Logql to filter and view your logs
  • Microservices monitoring
  • Large number of plugins and data sources to collect your metrics from almost anywhere
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Cons
Cisco
  • With the latest version release of Cisco Nexus Dashboard to version 3.0.1 I can say that most of the features have already improved but one of the wishlists that I want for ND is the possibility of extracting lists of Anomaly.
  • Include older versions of Firmware in the list of choices when doing the firmware upgrade analysis, currently only the recommended is in the list of choices.
  • If possible, include all the prechecks in the Firmware pre-upgrade analysis same in the script provided by Cisco.
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Grafana Labs
  • There are some settings which we can't configure from UI (Web Console).
  • We've open[ed] up configuration files in command line text editors and manually do the settings e.g. LDAP/SSO configuration.
  • In terms of visualization, it's best, but it doesn't support log analysis otherwise it could destroy business of all other visualization tools.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
We observe significant product development with each release, along with substantial expansion of functionality. The program code has been consolidated into a single image, which simplifies installation and routine system update operations. Additionally, it is possible to install it outside the production network, which further enhances the solution’s availability.Additionally, the new graphical interface is very simplified and user-friendly.
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Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
For the end user, it is relatively easy to use. However, some training and practice is a must because the NSO is not as straightforward as the traditional router CLI. For the administrator, Cisco Network Service Orchestrator (NSO) is just like another program running on the Linux system--there is no big difference.
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Grafana Labs
It is infinitely flexible. If you can imagine it, Grafana can almost certainly do it. Usability may be in the eye of the beholder however, as there is time needed to curate the experience and get the dashboards customized to how it makes sense to you. I know one thing they are working on are more templates, based on data sources
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Performance
Cisco
Great and effective automation functionalities and the tools on network security management are the best and easy data reports building. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller feature for the network monitoring and easy management of various services and even offers the best analytics and also powerful integration tools for easy data migration.
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Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
here was never a need to contact support, as the system includes several commands that allow for self-healing. Even if, after the upgrade process, one of the processes was not running, I was able to quickly find the appropriate sequence of commands that definitively resolved the issue. The entire architecture was designed in such a way as to be resilient to the failure of one node in a three-server setup.
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Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cisco
Honestly, the product implementation took 1–2 days to comprehensively manage the client’s entire infrastructure. The delivered on-premise solution, provided as physical servers, quickly builds the required environment in which individual data centers are rapidly added. The data collection process takes some time but also depends on the number of devices in the network.
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Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
The Cisco Nexus Series switches perform admirably in our blended distributed system. We have been dealing with any of these sorts of switches for over 5 years and have been exceptionally happy with their functionality. Several of our other computer networks in our data rooms have proved effective with Cisco equipment. Because of the simplicity of maintenance and the high quality of technical support provided by Cisco representatives, there is a high level of trust in these switches.
Read full review
Grafana Labs
Grafana blows Nagios out of the water when it comes to customization. The ability to feed almost any data source makes it very versatile and the cost is great.
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Scalability
Cisco
The platform is very well done, and to date, I have had no complaints about the implementation of the platform and no security issues or vulnerabilities. Cisco in all its product releases new versions to resolve security issues or bugs that appear on the platform, this is a big plus.
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Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Bit pricey.
  • Need to be purchased with vendor support. As far as I know, now support other vendors.
  • It's upgrade from DCNM and worth looking into.
  • It's still evolving and may need minor cosmetic adjustment
  • Easy to create and maintain vxlan and non vxlan fabrics.
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Grafana Labs
  • Grafana has replaced many higher priced tools
  • The integrations are seemless with multiple backends
  • Combining graphs and dashboards from multiple data sources is a game changer
Read full review
ScreenShots

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Screenshots

Screenshot of 9324C-SE1U N9300 Smart SwitchScreenshot of 9324C-SE1U N9300 Smart SwitchScreenshot of N9348Y2C6D-SE1U N9300 Smart SwitchScreenshot of N9348Y2C6D-SE1U N9300 Smart SwitchScreenshot of N9348Y2C6D-SE1U N9300 Smart SwitchScreenshot of 9324C-SE1U N9300 Smart Switch