Checkmk vs. Cisco Catalyst Center

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Checkmk
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Checkmk is a solution for IT Monitoring of servers, applications, networks, cloud infrastructures (public, private, hybrid), containers, storage, databases and environment sensors. It can be deployed under all major Linux distributions or users can run it as Docker container or virtual appliance on other operating systems including Windows. The tool is available as a Raw Edition, which is open-source, and as an Enterprise Edition with a many additional enterprise features. The…
$0
up to 10 systems
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.6 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
Pricing
CheckmkCisco Catalyst Center
Editions & Modules
Checkmk Free Edition
$0.00
up to 10 systems
Checkmk Raw Edition
$0.00
unlimited & always free
Checkmk Enterprise Edition
starting at $600.00
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CheckmkCisco Catalyst Center
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$600 for up to 3,000 Services / around 100 hostsNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CheckmkCisco Catalyst Center
Considered Both Products
Checkmk
Chose Checkmk
We moved over to Checkmk from Nagios which felt like a natural evolution at the time as the raw version is based on Nagios, I vaguely not having any major issues moving over at the time. We still use the Raw version but we are planning to move to the enterprise version in the …
Chose Checkmk
Checkmk free version is far superior to PRTG free version. For the paid versions PRTG was more efficient and easier to use. Checkmk provides unlimited services on their free version while PRTG is limited. We like to use the free version to avoid monthly or annual costs while …
Cisco Catalyst Center
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
It provide a consistency on the configuration. and you can push configure to all switches. before we managed the switch independently and use prime to push config and we always miss the devices and end up the switch is not have the standard configuration. and Cat Center can …
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
We are still deploying to Meraki. The dashboard does have many similar features but not a 1:1
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
I think in many ways they are very similar. Cisco Catalyst Center seems more like an evolution of Prime which was already a great solution. Main difference being that Catalyst center is significantly more powerful, with that power though comes complexity and so by extension …
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
My manager always wants to go with Cisco. He is a die hard Cisco fan and will not look for anything else. I will say that Cisco is revolutionary in the sense that I have not seen Cisco Catalyst Center with any other vendor, so it is unique. It is perfect for us.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Meraki Dashboard
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
We love Cisco ISE. Cisco's new controllers, 9800 controllers. They are awesome. Completely different than the old 5520 and 5508. So new product with Cisco is bringing like 9, 9 93, 3, 600 gig port switches. They're awesome.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Catalyst Center is great
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Firepower 9300 Series, Cisco Catalyst Switches and Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Secure Firewall, Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points and Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Embedded Wireless Controller and Cisco Catalyst Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Webex App, Cisco Firepower 1000 Series and Cisco Meraki MX
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
It gave the missing visibility and speed up the troubleshooting. Centralized management toll to management LAN switches and wireless devices.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Having the capability to have all devices under one umbrella is a great option; routers, switches, firewalls, Cisco Catalyst center, etc. Cisco catalyst center is a great option to optimize all of these, manage and analyze.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Catalyst Center is less intuitive
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco ThousandEyes, Cisco Meraki MX and Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers and Cisco Catalyst Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Best Alternatives
CheckmkCisco Catalyst Center
Small Businesses
ConnectWise Automate
ConnectWise Automate
Score 8.3 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Icinga
Icinga
Score 7.8 out of 10
Intermapper
Intermapper
Score 8.4 out of 10
Enterprises
ScienceLogic SL1
ScienceLogic SL1
Score 8.9 out of 10
Cisco Meraki Dashboard
Cisco Meraki Dashboard
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CheckmkCisco Catalyst Center
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.9
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CheckmkCisco Catalyst Center
Likelihood to Recommend
In our organization which is a mash up of different hardware, software it was important to use an independent tool that wasn’t linked to one manufacturer incase a piece of hardware was dropped from support for example, we also value open-source software highly in our field. It’s important to in our IT environment to be able to customize and tweak software that we run. We don’t use the cloud monitoring aspect so Cannot comment on that side of the software.
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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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Pros
  • monitoring
  • alerts
  • Graphs
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  • I really like the assurance. I like that I can go through and find problems on the network that could be a mismatch VLAN between two interfaces, port errors, like physical errors that we otherwise probably would need to wait for a customer to complain or we have that we can see that ahead of time and be proactive and say, Hey, I'm noticing that this port is having some errors on it. We might want to check that out ahead of time before it becomes an issue. So that's really useful. And then also being able to configure the network. I think that the programmability part of it, I think I have, I've been having some struggle with that initially, just having to apply. So I have my script, my template that I want to deploy, but in order to deploy it, I have to apply it to a template or a profile and then I have to assign that profile to a group of switches that I want to program. I think it gets a little bit messy and a little bit convoluted, but other than that, I mean it's really helpful. It does automate right now, I think it seems a little convoluted with the process.
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Cons
  • Layout
  • Ease of Use
  • Upgradability
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  • The one thing that we had to get used to was really breaking down our wireless. We integrated our 9800 controllers into it, and the breakdown of our tags being floor specific and not just being campus specific was a challenge for us. And so we had to create all new tags and it wasn't necessarily a problem, it just required a little bit redesign on our wireless. And so it would've been nice for us to be able to assign a tag to an entire campus versus a floor, but that's a small complaint.
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Likelihood to Renew
Very helpful software and I highly recommend to have on hand as a tool for testing, troubleshooting, and monitoring.
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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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Usability
Overall Checkmk is a great product that is made and ran by a European company that is open source and highly customizable, great support if needed. On prem support is a must for our organization which Checkmk supports. Our organization has been using Checkmk for over 5 years now Performance of the software runs excellent on its own Linux server, for any company with a good Linux admin, you can have a lot of un tweaking and creating custom checks for every aspect of your environment.
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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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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
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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Online Training
No answers on this topic
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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Alternatives Considered
We moved over to Checkmk from Nagios which felt like a natural evolution at the time as the raw version is based on Nagios, I vaguely not having any major issues moving over at the time. We still use the Raw version but we are planning to move to the enterprise version in the next 6 – 12 months as our needs expand.
Read full review
We went with Cisco Catalyst Center, we evaluated, I think it was called Rainbow from Altel, Lucent Enterprise because we were an Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise customer. But since we seeded with Cisco DNA Center and SD Access back in 2019, we haven't been out to evaluate anything which is a direct competitor. There are tools which we are looking to purchase and implement to provide functionality which Cisco Catalyst Center can't, but they're more value add tools, not to necessarily directly drive the capability of our infrastructure.
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Return on Investment
  • avoid downtime
  • Plan updates based on usage of a VM or network switch to avoid impacting users
  • User satisfaction increased due to less visible downtime or issues with our IT infrastructure.
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  • I have used it for upgrading devices, and it's does a great job at that, however out operations team for whatever reason has not adopted the feature.
  • Overall it feels like Cisco Catalyst Center has been huge waste of time. I feel like my time would be better spent on other projects and looking at other products and tools
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ScreenShots

Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

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