# Witina AI — Frequently asked questions > Direct answers to the questions buyers actually ask: credential storage, vendor support, > cloud requirement, gateway networking, cost, lock-in, and AI access. Source: https://witinaai.com/ai/faq.md Part of the Witina AI machine-readable corpus — index: https://witinaai.com/llms.txt Last updated: 2026-10-20 ## Do you store our device passwords? **No.** Device credentials are not stored in Witina's cloud. They are relayed to a gateway on your own network and kept encrypted there, on infrastructure you run. Detail: https://witinaai.com/ai/security.md ## Which vendors do you support? Discovery and monitoring work across Cisco, Juniper, Arista, UniFi, Netgear, EdgeRouter and more, using standards like LLDP/CDP, SNMP and SSH rather than a single vendor's API. **Configuration-change support varies by platform.** Discovery is free, so the quickest check is to start free in the cloud and point a gateway at the gear. Detail: https://witinaai.com/ai/vendors.md ## Can I self-host it? **Yes, for one network of up to 10 devices.** The self-hosted edition is free and runs on your own hardware as a single container. The managed cloud is the full product: it adds change management, MSP mode, single sign-on and push notifications, plus multi-site scale, redundancy and hands-off operation. Detail: https://witinaai.com/ai/deployment.md ## How does the gateway reach the cloud? The gateway makes an **outbound** connection to the platform. You do not open any inbound ports or expose your network. It needs to reach the devices you want managed, and the internet. Detail: https://witinaai.com/ai/architecture.md ## Can my technicians get onto a customer's network? **Yes.** The Witina VPN app puts a technician's computer on a site's network over WireGuard, through the gateway already there, with no port to forward. Policies decide who connects where and for how long, and every connection is kept as a flow record. Apps for Windows and Linux; macOS is coming soon. Detail: https://witinaai.com/ai/capabilities.md ## What does it cost? You pay per monitored device, and **discovery is free**. Paid plans start at $59/month for 30 devices; the free tier on the managed cloud covers up to 10, and the self-hosted edition is free. Gateways do not count as devices. Every plan and rate is published: https://witinaai.com/ai/pricing.md ## What happens to my network if I leave? Your gateways and your data are yours. There is no software agent installed into your device configuration and no vendor lock-in — hand a network to an MSP, or take it back, on your own terms. ## Can I connect my own AI assistant? **Yes.** Witina runs an MCP server at `https://app.witinaai.com/mcp`. Claude, ChatGPT or an agent you wrote connects over OAuth 2.1 — the client registers itself, and you approve it in the browser, choosing which context it may see and whether it may only read and plan or also execute. The agent reads real collected state (running config, interfaces, VLANs, MAC tables, routes, spanning tree, LLDP neighbours, wireless, incidents) and can draft a change management. It **cannot execute** unless explicitly granted that separate permission, and its permissions are capped to those of the person who authorized it, recomputed on every request. Full detail and complete tool schemas: https://witinaai.com/ai/mcp.md ## Does Witina use AI to diagnose my network? **Not generatively, by design.** Witina's own alerting is a deterministic expert system: named rules that identify a specific fault — an unexpected spanning-tree root, a duplex mismatch, a guard violation — and name the fix. You can read the rules and reason about them. Witina deliberately does not have an LLM guessing at diagnoses in that path. The AI story is the other direction: *your* assistant connects to Witina and reads the facts. See https://witinaai.com/ai/mcp.md ## Will discovery set off our IDS? Discovery starts **passive** — listening to DHCP, LLDP/CDP and mDNS rather than scanning. Active probing and auto-connect are opt-in decisions you make per network. ## Are you SOC 2 certified? **No.** There is no SOC 2 report or other third-party security certification yet. Device credentials are stored encrypted on a gateway in the customer's own network, never in Witina's cloud. Detail: https://witinaai.com/ai/security.md ## Can it handle overlapping IP ranges across sites or customers? Yes — overlapping IP spaces are supported, which matters for MSPs and for organizations where several sites use the same RFC1918 ranges. ## Can an MSP use one console for many clients? Yes. That is a first-class mode with a portfolio dashboard ordered worst-client-first, per-customer lifecycle, tiers, runbooks and one-form onboarding — with each client's credentials on a gateway in their own network. Detail: https://witinaai.com/ai/msp.md ## How does Witina compare with Auvik, PRTG or Domotz? Each comparison is sourced from the competitor's own documentation, with the rows where the competitor leads shown as well: - **Auvik** stores device credentials in its cloud, can't automatically restore a config, and quotes prices on annual contracts. https://witinaai.com/ai/compare-auvik.md - **PRTG Hosted Monitor** keeps credentials in PRTG's configuration on Paessler's AWS instance, draws maps by hand, and doesn't manage device configuration. https://witinaai.com/ai/compare-prtg.md - **Domotz** stores device credentials in its cloud and documents no approvals or collector failover; it's cheaper for a single site with a lot of gear. https://witinaai.com/ai/compare-domotz.md ## How do I get started? Start free in the cloud, with no credit card. The free plan covers up to 10 devices: https://app.witinaai.com/account/signup To have an engineer walk through it on your gear first, book a demo: https://witinaai.com/contact/ A free self-hosted edition, for one network of up to 10 devices, is at https://witinaai.com/trial/