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Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs Elastic Observability comparison

Cisco and Elastic are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Cisco is ranked #43 with an average rating of 8.0, while Elastic is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.5. Cisco holds a 0.5% mindshare in APM, compared to Elastic’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Elastic users who would recommend it.
Cisco Provider Connectivity...
Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews
  • 2,293 Views
  • 894 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
Elastic Observability
Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews
  • 8,986 Views
  • 7,728 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Accedian Skylight and Elastic Observability are both powerful network performance monitoring solutions. Accedian Skylight holds an upper hand with superior support and pricing, while Elastic Observability stands out with advanced features.

Features:Accedian Skylight offers real-time monitoring, high-resolution data collection, and comprehensive analytics. Elastic Observability provides integration capabilities, flexibility, and advanced search functions. Elastic Observability's flexibility and integrations give it an edge.

Room for Improvement:Accedian Skylight users suggest improvements in reporting features, more intuitive setup processes, and better documentation. Elastic Observability users desire better documentation, enhanced customer support, and more intuitive user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Accedian Skylight offers straightforward deployment and high marks for customer support. Elastic Observability has a more complex deployment process and varied customer service experiences.

Pricing and ROI:Accedian Skylight is praised for competitive pricing and satisfactory ROI. Elastic Observability, priced higher, offers significant ROI due to advanced capabilities.

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To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Elastic Observability Report (Updated: September 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Elastic Observability
September 2025
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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Provider Connectivity...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
43rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (42nd)
Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th), Log Management (14th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Observability is 3.9%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Observability3.9%
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance0.5%
Other95.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin - PeerSpot reviewer
Addresses connectivity issues with real-time monitoring while offering good local support
I had prepared for COC and the client. I work as a vendor for a client using Flow Mount for network performance monitoring. I focus on resolving client-side issues related to Packy Performance and quality use. This involves addressing network device issues, specifically Cisco network devices One…
Read full review
Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I think the analytics features are okay. My customer also likes the interface, the GUI, because it's easy to operate."
"One valuable feature we have is real-time monitoring for connection issues."
"Capturing traffic [is very interesting]. Currently, with our configuration, we don't capture the payload of the packets, just the header. But when we want the body, the payload of the packets, we can do a PCAP, and then analyze it within Wireshark."
"The ability to measure performance end-to-end across the cloud data center allows us to take corrective action to keep our channels online."
"The performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."
"If [the problem] is something related to HTTP or VoIP, then I can have a quick look into the protocols, a process which gives me some good ideas..."
"The feature I used to like the most was its ability to decode layer seven protocols, although this is becoming less useful now that encryption is so widespread."
"For us, the most valuable feature is something called TWAMP that allows for real-time traffic in a way that is 10 times lighter than things like SolarWinds. It's in the sub-milliseconds of accuracy, and you can divide tasks so that you can literally see things like the tagging for Quality of Service. That had been incorrect with the carrier, but there was no way on this planet you'd be able to tell a carrier that they're wrong. I have dozens of scenarios where we found "No, that's not right," and got it resolved instantly."
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros
"The Elastic User Interface framework lets us do custom development when needed. You need to have some Javascript knowledge. We need that knowledge to develop new custom tests."
"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."
"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."
"For full stack observability, Elastic is the best tool compared with any other tool ."
"The customizable dashboards in Elastic Observability allow us to group relevant data to specific aspects of our solution, giving us around 20 interlinked dashboards which provide an overview, and if one aspect shows weird behavior, we can focus on that specific aspect of our software with a dedicated dashboard."
"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."
"I found Elk to be excellent for log analytics, security analytics, application code-level analytics, collaboration with DevOps teams, CI/CD, microservices, and Kubernetes, specifically cloud-native or cloud-specific tasks."
"Good design and easy to use once implemented."
More Elastic Observability pros
 

Cons

"Some of the Skylight applications are a little newer, and they're still moving through initial revs. There are certain bugs, but nothing is insurmountable... It will just take a little bit of time for their user interface to get a little bit better."
"I would like to see some improvements in parts of their synthetic transactions, which includes all the latency, jitter, and throughput. I would like to see some Layer 7 analytics in there. I want to be able to do a DNS request, HTTP GET request, or even SIP call point-to-point or via registration."
"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."
"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."
"If you want a new version, you go to the website. The hardest part is finding the link, where is that .bin file? Sometimes it's pretty hidden in a document... it's hidden in the release notes or in another file somewhere. And it's usually not on the first page either."
"The Accedian Skylight user interface still has room for improvement."
"Because of the policies in Vietnam, we cannot connect the system to the Accedian cloud. It would be good if Accedian could provide a local cloud. In the next release, I would like them to focus on improving and adding more reporting features. This will help the operations teams."
"For the PVX, they are in the process of getting the results to export to cloud and SaaS for analytics. They told me that this will happen later this year. Right now, for the most part, I create that data myself."
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons
"Elastic Observability is reactive rather than proactive. It should act as an ITSM tool and be able to create tickets and alerts on Jira."
"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."
"I would have preferred built-in tools to manage the indexes on deployment for better visual representation, as the initial feedback regarding system performance and data storage was fairly primitive and lacking."
"The interface could be improved."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."
"The tool's scalability involves a more complex implementation process. It requires careful calculations to determine the number of nodes needed, the specifications of each node, and the configuration of hot, warm, and cold zones for data storage. Additionally, managing log retention policies adds further complexity. The solution's pricing also needs to be cheaper."
"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."
More Elastic Observability cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution was previously well-regarded, but after being acquired by Accedian, the prices have significantly increased. This has made it challenging to sell the product due to its high cost. It is an expensive solution."
"It provides value and the cost is not huge."
"Pricing is a little bit expensive."
"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."
"The pricing of Accedian Skylight is really good. The sensors are low cost. Their model to analytics for sensors is by license, endpoint, or session. With the probes for their analytics, if they get deployed virtually, they are free. The licensing is only based on flows. So, you can effectively deploy probes everywhere in your network. Then, if you want to look at a specific type of traffic, you can enter into it with a very low cost license. You can just use things like spam ports, mirrors, TAPs, and aggregators to optimize what sort of traffic you send to these analysis tools. Then, if you want to start looking at more, you can up your licensed as you go. You are not getting forced into expensive appliances or subscription models."
"If you look into Riverbed, it's a licensing nightmare. You need to pay for every type of analysis... If you don't look into licensing, Riverbed and SolarWinds are pretty comparable. But if you look into licensing it would not be smart to go for either of them. On the pure, bare-metal basis, it's the same. But when you get the bare metal and a few basic licenses, then you need all those other licenses just to be sure that there's no issue... One of the great things about Skylight is you have them all, and you actually need them all."
"It's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."
"The price is competitive overall, depending on the type of customer."
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice
"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."
"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"The product is not that cheap."
More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
35%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Accedian Skylight?
Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues. I require more tools to file and resolve these issues efficiently.
See all answers
What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?
I had prepared for COC and the client. I work as a vendor for a client using Flow Mount for network performance monitoring. I focus on resolving client-side issues related to Packy Performance and ...
See all answers
What advice do you have for others considering Accedian Skylight?
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
See all answers
What do you like most about Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Out-of-the-box use cases have room for improvement in Elastic Observability. They don't invest a lot in building out-of-the-box observable use cases, and they are more focusing on giving a very fle...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 31% of the time
Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 13% of the time
Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 9% of the time
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 9% of the time
SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 7% of the time
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Competitors
Sentry vs Elastic Observability Logo
Sentry vs Elastic Observability
Compared 12% of the time
New Relic vs Elastic Observability Logo
New Relic vs Elastic Observability
Compared 11% of the time
Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability Logo
Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability
Compared 10% of the time
Grafana vs Elastic Observability Logo
Grafana vs Elastic Observability
Compared 8% of the time
Zabbix vs Elastic Observability Logo
Zabbix vs Elastic Observability
Compared 7% of the time
More Elastic Observability Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
October 2025
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reportDownload Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report
Buyer's Guide
Elastic Observability
October 2025
Elastic Observability reportDownload Elastic Observability product report
 

Also Known As

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision
No data available
 

Overview

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is known for its user-friendly approach to network analysis and performance monitoring. It excels in real-time diagnostics, helping organizations quickly resolve network issues and optimize performance effortlessly.

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance focuses on comprehensive network troubleshooting and performance monitoring, assisting in identifying bottlenecks and analyzing applications. Real-time data collection and evaluation ensure IT infrastructure efficiency. With active monitoring of latency, jitter, and throughput, users maintain smooth operations across multiple sites and applications. While highly effective, improvements in data handling, protocol support, and dashboard aesthetics are suggested to enhance user experience.

What are the key features of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance?
  • Flow Matrices: Advanced analysis of network paths and traffic distribution.
  • SQL and DNS Analysis: In-depth insights into database and domain queries for troubleshooting.
  • Bandwidth Assessment: Evaluation of network capacity and utilization for performance optimization.
  • Real-time TWAMP Monitoring: Tracks network performance using Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol.
  • Application Performance Modules: Monitors the performance of various applications and services.
  • Customizable Dashboards: Personalized views for tracking critical network metrics and trends.
  • PCAP Capturing: Detailed packet analysis using tools like Wireshark for deeper insights.
What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?
  • Ease of Use: Intuitive design allowing users to swiftly diagnose network issues.
  • Comprehensive Monitoring: Enhanced visibility of network activity for better control.
  • Performance Efficiency: Optimization of throughput, reducing downtimes and improving service delivery.
  • Cost-Effectiveness: Balances features and functionality with competitive pricing for better ROI.

In industries such as telecommunications and finance, where network reliability is crucial, Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers critical network performance insights. It supports high-demand environments by providing data-driven decisions, ensuring infrastructures handle increased loads efficiently.

Cisco

Elastic Observability offers a comprehensive suite for log analytics, application performance monitoring, and machine learning. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Teams and Slack, enhancing data visualization and scalability for real-time insights.

Elastic Observability is designed to support production environments with features like logging, data collection, and infrastructure tracking. Centralized logging and powerful search functionalities make incident response and performance tracking efficient. Elastic APM and Kibana facilitate detailed data visualization, promoting rapid troubleshooting and effective system performance analysis. Integrated services and extensive connectivity options enhance its role in business and technical decision-making by providing actionable data insights.

What are the most important features of Elastic Observability?
  • Centralized Logging: Streamlines the collection, analysis, and storage of log data.
  • Powerful Search: Provides robust search capabilities for quick access to relevant information.
  • Scalability: Supports growing data needs across diverse environments.
  • Real-time Telemetry: Ensures up-to-date insights and monitoring.
  • Platform Integration: Seamlessly connects with services like Teams and Slack.
  • Data Visualization: Enhances visibility with Elastic APM and Kibana.
What benefits and ROI should users explore in reviews?
  • Cost-effectiveness: Offers significant savings through efficient data management.
  • Rapid Incident Response: Minimizes downtime with quick troubleshooting tools.
  • Comprehensive Insights: Supports better business decisions with detailed data analysis.
  • Performance Tracking: Enables assessment of system effectiveness and improvements.

Elastic Observability is employed across industries for critical operations, such as in finance for transaction monitoring, in healthcare for secure data management, and in technology for optimizing application performance. Its data-driven approach aids efficient event tracing, supporting diverse industry requirements.

Elastic
 

Sample Customers

T-Systems, Thomson Reuters, Bordeaux Metropole, CGI, Citadelle Regional Hospital Center, Lorraine Institute of Oncology, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Groupe BPCE, Group S, Splitpoint, Horus-Net, Audatex, Indexis, Province de Liège, EASI, Spie Batignolles, Faymonville
PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Elastic Observability
September 2025
Free Report: Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Elastic Observability
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We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.