Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued) vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution is discontinued. Current users are encouraged to explore Cisco Catalyst Center as a modern solution.N/A
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Considered Both Products
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
Chose Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
Although there are many powerful tools available in the market such as Solarwinds, Micro Focus, CA Spectrum with advanced configuration options and customization options available still Cisco Prime [LAN Management Solution] is the preferred tool for following reasons -
1. If you …
Chose Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
There are various 3rd party tools available in the market which not only supports monitoring of cisco devices but also supports non-cisco devices, even with these capabilities in these 3rd party tools Cisco Prime has maintained a uniqueness in its products being the native tool …
Chose Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
It's obvious that Cisco has all the knowledge of their own products, such as switches, routers, etc., and Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution works well integrated with them. Also, you can use Cisco Prime with non-Cisco products and have some benefits. No other product can have …
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
SolarWinds NCM is vendor agnostic so it is a more versatile tool than the competition. Prime does well in a purely native environment, but not many organizations have the luxury of a single vendor approach. I have used both products and I prefer NCM for most engagements. The …
Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
We have used PRTG as a network monitoring tool, but it doesn't have the configuration or IPAM modules that SolarWinds possesses.
Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
SolarWinds NCM was much more dynamic and full featured than WhatsUpGold.
Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Have not used any other products.
Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
SolarWinds NCM was much easier to install and maintain and manage on a daily basis than what Cisco Prime LMS was able to provide. Also, the capabilities of Prime LMS do not match all the features that are built into SolarWinds NCM.
Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
The primary benefit when compared to the three listed are:
  • Rancid: Commercial support, plus pre-built remediation templates. Config auto-deploy as well
  • Prime and Panorama: These two products have strengths, but only when in a network compromised only of the vendor's gear
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Auvik
Auvik
Score 8.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Intermapper
Intermapper
Score 8.6 out of 10
PingPlotter
PingPlotter
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Score 8.8 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(12 ratings)
9.1
(141 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(6 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.1
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(3 ratings)
7.7
(9 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
Although Cisco Prime [LAN Management Solution] is a nice tool and no other 4rd party tools can match its native monitoring and managing capabilities still i have given less rating and that's because it is only for Cisco vendor Devices. Hence if you have only Cisco infrastructure then go for it or else look for another 4rd party tool in conjunction with Cisco prime.
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SolarWinds
If your IT team isn't proficient in automation and scripting, Solarwinds NCM can fill that gap (assuming your company's security team signs off on approving SW in your environment given the hack.) Basic device configuration, pushing mass changes reliably and backups are NCM's strong suites. If you have a complex scenario where if/then cases are needed, NCM is a bit lack luster. Auto discovery isn't as easy either as certain parameters need to be met for that feature to work 100% of the time
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Pros
Discontinued Products
  • Wireless file detection and planning mode has helped us expand into new areas of our buildings.
  • Alerting is detailed when we have issues with hardwired and wireless devices, and Rogue Access Points are easily identifiable.
  • Cisco equipment information is much more detailed than other management products' SNMP queries and is an excellent tool for troubleshooting end-device connectivity issues.
  • Our KPI reporting for senior management and centralized management of our WIPS 'Wireless Intrusion Prevention' setup have both benefited significantly from the detailed reporting capabilities.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • Integrates with Network Performance Management for Alerting and Reporting.
  • NetPath and detects issues due to Configuration Change.
  • Keeps a record of which user made the change.
  • Which devices are not being backed up, devices where backups are failing, dashboard and alerting available.
Read full review
Cons
Discontinued Products
  • Maps. One thing that I miss is the fact that you can't see both wired and wireless equipment in the same topology map. For visualization and troubleshooting purposes, that would help a lot, and I honestly don' t think it's that much harder to implement.
  • I'd love to see an option to show 'live dashboards,' maps, or other visual tools to publish in a NOC room, or even just to broadcast in a big monitor to allow multiple workmates to check that information. Again, I don't think that would be too hard to implement. I remember a similar feature was available in the first versions of the product, way back in the 90's (yes, I'm that old :-) )
  • Sometimes, depending on what screen you are, the solution can be a little slow. I'm not saying the whole system is slow, but sometimes that slowness can bother a little.
  • Talking about areas for improvement, one area I think can be improved is the upgrade process. Even for not so large deployments, it can take a lot of time. Having this time decreased would be the right thing to do.
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SolarWinds
  • For our use case, it does everything great and some of the features we underutilize but I would like to be able to set a configuration baseline when initially adding a node instead of after the configuration is pulled but it's not a particularly big deal to let it pull the configuration then set it as the baseline.
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Likelihood to Renew
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Medium complexity to set up in the beginning if using any non-standard devices or configurations, else fairly easy (e.g. Cisco Nexus or IOS-based devices). Reports are fairly straightforward to set up. Updates to the platform are fairly straightforward and don't take a major effort. Easy to add or remove devices.
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Usability
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
The user interface is lacking. It is difficult to navigate at times and things can be done multiple ways. Quite often I am confused by how their notification structure works. It is not very intuitive. They do offer a free Academy. They also offer a community of other technical folks. I have enjoyed both.
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Support Rating
Discontinued Products
We are very happy using Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution for the following reason: 1- Ease of use with the GUI. 2- Very well organized dashboard which can view many statistics on your devices. 3- Customized dashboard for different views ( for technical team and executives ) 4- Schedule configuration templates to use whenever we need on whatever device we want.
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SolarWinds
To be fair, I have not had to involve Support in a number of years, but when I did, I was greeted with enthusiastic engineers who wanted to understand and solve the issue. It was a fairly complex scenario and I have discovered in my most recent implementation that engineering included that option as a standard now.
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Online Training
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Solarwinds has actually produced new training since I last used it that is available on their site at any time. Their previous training was more than enough to get us started but now there is significantly more content. Since I'm comfortable with the Orion platform and the products we use I haven't checked the new training out yet but we have new staff go through portions of that training and they always come away with an understanding of the platform and ready to use it
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Implementation Rating
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
it was a fairly easy implementation and everything was pretty straightforward. only challenge we had was getting all the snmp communities updated on the networking equipment
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Alternatives Considered
Discontinued Products
There are various 3rd party tools available in the market which not only supports monitoring of cisco devices but also supports non-cisco devices, even with these capabilities in these 3rd party tools Cisco Prime has maintained a uniqueness in its products being the native tool from Cisco. The uniqueness is about product supportability for given devices and some of the edge features such as configuration management, detailed heatmaps etc
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SolarWinds
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a great tool and matches much of the functionality of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. Nothing about Ansible will likely be overwhelming to an engineer with a little time to spare, but that spare time combined with SolarWinds already being our monitoring tool made the decision easy. Time is at a premium in small teams and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is very easy to use right out of the box without all the tweaking required by powerful command line driven tools like Ansible.
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Return on Investment
Discontinued Products
  • It has helped us with our quarterly wireless security testing by pinpointing the location of non-approved access points vs. hunting for them via signal strength.
  • Saves time by helping to identify network health issues before they become a definitive problem causing downtime.
  • With errors detected early, we have noticed our wi-fi network is much more stable thus freeing up our engineer's time elsewhere.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • The time savings from automatic daily backups is significant
  • The compare configuration tool is super helpful at spotting errors when small changes occur that are hard to detect otherwise.
  • The compliance check tool saves countless hours going through configurations for errors.
Read full review
ScreenShots

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Screenshots

Screenshot of Network Automation -  manage rapid change across complex and multi-vendor networks, reduce time needed to complete repetitive tasks, and maintain standards and service levels for uninterrupted ITScreenshot of Config Backup - rest easy knowing you can locate the most current configuration and quickly apply it to a replacement spare, or to roll back a blown configuration.Screenshot of Vulnerability Scanning - Take the hassle out of vulnerability scanning using NCM's integration with the National Vulnerability Database and access to the most current CVE’s to identify vulnerabilities in your Cisco devices.Screenshot of Inventory Management - Be able to know what devices are connected to your network, their hardware and software configurations, and when they approach end-of-service and end-of-life, with NCM device configuration management tool.Screenshot of User Management - Use NCM's integrated console to lock down devices from unauthorized access, delegate who can view device details and make configuration changes, and determine when network changes can occur.Screenshot of Baselines and Diffs - IT professionals can get a more comprehensive view by leveraging baselines across multiple nodes. Diff view in NCM’s network configuration management tool is designed to highlight only those lines that changed.