Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs OmniPeek comparison

Cisco and BlueCat are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Cisco is ranked #45 with an average rating of 8.0, while BlueCat is ranked #66. Cisco holds a 0.3% mindshare in APM, compared to BlueCat’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of BlueCat users who would recommend it.

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

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100% willing to recommend

OmniPeek

Read 6 OmniPeek reviews

464 Views
174 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

OmniPeek

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

OmniPeek and Accedian Skylight are network performance monitoring tools. Users report that OmniPeek has better general performance, while Accedian Skylight offers more specific advanced features.

Features: OmniPeek offers packet capture, real-time network analysis, and data visualization. Accedian Skylight provides deep network visibility, efficient troubleshooting, and scalability. Users find Accedian Skylight's advanced analytical features and higher-level capabilities superior to OmniPeek's standard tools.

Room for Improvement: OmniPeek could improve scaling for larger networks and integrate third-party tools better. Accedian Skylight could simplify initial setup and reduce resource consumption. Accedian Skylight's complexity is noted more critically compared to OmniPeek's scaling issues.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OmniPeek has a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Accedian Skylight offers powerful deployment models but requires significant initial configuration effort. Customer service is generally well-regarded for both products, but OmniPeek's easier and more consistent deployment process is noted positively.

Pricing and ROI: OmniPeek is more cost-effective with an immediate ROI through its straightforward pricing model. Accedian Skylight is priced higher but is justified by its comprehensive feature set and long-term benefits. OmniPeek offers a quicker ROI, while Accedian Skylight provides a potentially more valuable investment over time due to advanced functionalities.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. OmniPeek Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. OmniPeek

April 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

45th

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

43rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

OmniPeek

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

66th

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

73rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OmniPeek is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Sylvain Germe

Application and Network Performance Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Highly scalable, responsive support, but lacking new features

This solution is geared towards on-premise setups, and would not be useful if the company plans to move to the cloud within the next two years, such as Google Cloud for example. If the goal is to monitor bandwidth at remote sites and identify performance issues because the network is under the control, this solution is useful. However, if a company primarily uses cloud-based servers and does not manage the internet connection of its remote sites, the solution becomes less useful. I rate Accedian Skylight a seven out of ten. I have a positive opinion of the tool, but it can be challenging to set up. It is also limited in its applicability to certain use cases. I am familiar with the engineers behind the solution and have a good impression of them. However, I am not pleased with the fact that the company removed many features and raised prices after it was acquired by Accedian.

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Kunwar Preet Singh Sodhi

Test lead at Wipro Limited

User-friendly, stable, and scalable

The solution's automation has room for improvement. I have observed that Wireshark is much more commonly used for automation than OmniPeek. This is because when scripts are involved, Wireshark provides a great deal of flexibility for automating the process of packet sniffing. In the case of OmniPeek, its capabilities are limited, which restricts its automation potential. However, it is already user-friendly and compatible with Microsoft, so if it were to become comparable to Wireshark, it could potentially dominate the market. I have seen many new versions of OmniPeek, but I have never seen an automation version. The price of OmniPeek can be improved. Many customers have chosen the solution due to its user-friendly nature, but the cost often prevents them from making a purchase. This means that they may opt for an open-source tool instead. We should look into making the pricing more competitive and consider offering customization options to increase its utility in automation. This could be a game-changer.

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

"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."

"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 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."

"One valuable feature we have is real-time monitoring for connection issues."

"This solution has helped to improve the interaction between our network, datacenter, and application teams. I have used other tools, but this tool can pinpoint the root cause of my application or network issue in the majority of the cases. So, it helps different divisions or groups in the IT department to troubleshoot together and get an issue resolved. This tool helps a lot in our day-to-day networking application and IT operations."

"It is about finding operational problems. When sites go down, we try to determine who is at fault. While there is not much finger-pointing, the solution is just trying to analyse when there is an outage and where do we start looking to fix it. The very nature of why organization chooses to use the solution is to accelerate the meantime to resolution and find where problems lie to get them rectified as quickly as possible."

"The response times, with the performance, are really interesting too, where you can see the packet loss."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"The most valuable feature is OmniPeek is user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek is the ability to assign custom color codes to the different packets easily."

"It's a solid piece of software. It's stable."

"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek was the ability it gave us to see the connection procedure."

"The most valuable features are the voice bot, which checks the quality of service for voice, and the expert view that gives me insight on what and where to troubleshoot."

"I believe the most crucial feature of OmniPeek search is the ability to sniff packets based on channel switching."

Cons

"There should be an option to update and upgrade the solution to the new version without having to re-buy it. I have clients switching to other solutions. The old solution is great, but if you change your license to a new one, you have to almost re-buy it completely."

"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."

"The Accedian Skylight user interface still has room for improvement."

"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."

"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."

"It needs the possibility to export data because it is not easy to see larger data sets, e.g., for one month. It would be interesting to export data into a PDF or dashboard to keep a history of the situation."

"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"I am not using OmniPeek for automation, we only do manual testing. Automation testing is tedious to do. The automation should be more user-friendly. I have exposed some APIs but the usage is not user-friendly."

"Making it more clear on how to configure the filters, or really automating them, would be an improvement."

"I don't see a clear roadmap in the future for improving this software."

"I would like to see the tool work in an open environment the same as how it does in a closed environment."

"I would like to see the saving feature improved. We have had issues if you do not save your progress then you have to start from the beginning."

"The solution's automation has room for improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."

"It provides value and the cost is not huge."

"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."

"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."

"The price is competitive overall, depending on the type of customer."

"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."

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"The pricing for this solution could be improved, as it is a very expensive product."

"There are different types of licenses available."

"We have only purchased the add-on once and have not paid for any subsequent versions as it was too costly for us."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

40%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

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Comparisons

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Compared 44% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 11% of the time

Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 24% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs OmniPeek

Compared 21% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs OmniPeek

Compared 20% of the time

ThousandEyes vs OmniPeek

Compared 20% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs OmniPeek

Compared 15% of the time

More OmniPeek Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

April 2025

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

April 2025

Download OmniPeek product report

Also Known As

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision

Savvius OmniPeek

Overview

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers real-time application and network performance monitoring, VPN management, and network diagnostics across multiple sites.

Organizations use Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance for active and passive monitoring, stress testing, and troubleshooting performance issues. Deployed both on-premise and in the cloud, it supports IT infrastructure, security, and analytics with end-to-end performance measurement across cloud data centers. The modern, intuitive interface features TWAMP for real-time traffic accuracy and standardized reports, along with insightful dashboards for circuit performance, latency, jitter, and throughput monitoring.

What are the most important features?

TWAMP: Provides real-time traffic accuracy and standardized reporting.
Insightful Dashboards: Monitor circuit performance, latency, jitter, and throughput.
Security Integration: Compatible with tools like Splunk for enhanced security.
Application Support: Facilitates comprehensive network performance analysis.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Quick Corrective Actions: Immediate response capabilities for performance issues.
Easy Navigation: User-friendly layouts simplify monitoring and troubleshooting.
Comprehensive Analytics: Advanced tools for in-depth network performance insights.
Cloud and On-Premise Options: Flexible deployment to meet different needs.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance ensures robust performance monitoring and quick diagnostics for VPNs and internet lines. It aids in maintaining the integrity and security of data transference, facilitating active and passive monitoring, stress testing, and performance troubleshooting across geographically dispersed locations, ensuring seamless operation and compliance with industry standards.

Cisco

Omnipeek is a top-rated suite of network analytics software that offers full transparency and trusted forensics for immediate resolution of application and network performance anomalies and security issues. Omnipeek is part of the LiveAction family of quality trusted products. They specialize in packet intelligence with adaptable workflows and complete visibility throughout numerous network segments to facilitate a better understanding of network performance and dependability concerns in real time.

Omnipeek combines intuitive geolocation, usability, security, and performance to deliver a robust user experience that facilitates immediate discovery and problem-solving of wireless and wired networks.

Omnipeek is user friendly and offers many different intuitive dashboards, display options, graphs, peer maps, and packets. There are several different capture options, such as TCP dump, multiple adapters, local captures, and Capture Assistant. Omnipeek integrates well with Snort and Suricata intrusion and detection prevention solutions, allowing users to import events easily. The comprehensive analysis tools, such as Expert Flow Analysis, Web Traffic Analysis, Multi-Segment Analysis, and Local File Analysis combine to make Omnipeek a solid, complete solution.

Omnipeek is effective for small offices to large enterprise data centers.

Omnipeek Benefits

Omnipeek delivers unmatched transparency into applications, networks, and classification of layer 7 workflows.
Intuitive GUI presents a clear, intuitive view of packet-based analytics by conversation pairs.
Ability to capture and dissect 802.11n and 802.11ac wireless traffic from currently deployed points from third-party vendors such as Aruba, Cisco, and others.
Investigate traffic from all remote network segments, such as voice and video over IP, 802.11,1/10/40/100 Gigabit, Ethernet using the LiveCapture features and appliances.
Audit voice and video over IP traffic in real time using call back play, thorough signaling and media analyses, and high-level multi-media summary statistics.
Improve the average time to resolve failure with super fast intuition and interconnection with packet data, metadata, flows, and files.

Omnipeek Features

WiFi monitoring: Using Omnipeek LiveCapture 1100, users are able to thoroughly monitor wired packet traffic and gather wireless traffic from WLAN controllers. Users can easily monitor, dissect, log, and diagnose multi-Gigabit speed 802.11ac traffic.
Improved LiveAction appliance support: LiveAction update appliances and software uses the innovative Del architectures and Intel capabilities to improve network packet capture-to-disk to 20Gbps in a 2RU system, with up to 128 TB of storage.
Improved VOIP processes: Now offering updates to performance and in synthesizing DTMF audio tones, Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), and Asserted Identity (caller ID), makes Omnipeek a very robust, complete solution.
Improved financial transaction support: The solution provides updated support for ISO8583 protocol necessary for financial and banking organizations. Users have the ability to dissect critical data more thoroughly than with previous iterations.
Expert improvements: Users have access to several more Expert events, enhanced latency calculations, and many other improvements to the Expert views in Omnipeek.
3rd party authentication improvements: Efficient workflow for 3rd party authentication results in enhanced performance for Access Control Lists (ACL).

BlueCat

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

Apcon, Aruba Networks, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Ekahau, Gigamon Systems, HP, IBM, IXIA, Meru Networks, Napatech, NextComputing, Procera Networks, Qualcomm Atheros, Ralink Technology Corporation, Telchemy

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. OmniPeek

April 2025

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