Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

The compared Cisco and SolarWinds solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #46 in APM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 0.3% mindshare in the category. SolarWinds is ranked #5 in NTA , with an average rating of 7.8, and holds a 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

808 Views
521 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Read 40 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews

1,144 Views
656 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Report (Updated: September 2020).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

September 2020

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Helped 842,672 peers since 2012

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...

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (46th), Network Monitoring Software (44th)

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is designed for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability and holds a mindshare of 0.3%, down 0.3% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 5.8% mindshare, down 7.1% since last year.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

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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DeepakVyas

Global-Manager Network & communications at Secure Meters Limited

Utilization alerts enhance monitoring with good alerts

The tool itself is very complicated, so training is required to handle it effectively. Configuration and the streamlining process are very complex. In my view, it is a good product if properly configured and streamlined according to your IT infrastructure. For enterprise-level organizations, SolarWinds is more appropriate than for small and medium enterprises. I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"I think the analytics features are okay. My customer also likes the interface, the GUI, because it's easy to operate."

"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."

"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."

"The performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."

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

"The ability to measure performance end-to-end across the cloud data center allows us to take corrective action to keep our channels online."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"The most valuable features are the bandwidth analyzer, the monitoring, the network analyzer, it has overall good performance, and an easy deployment."

"It doesn't cost too much."

"So far, it is a very stable product."

"For managing the traffic, it provides you a response about whether the traffic is down, up, or heavy, which is a very powerful feature. It has a good response time. We have been using this solution for many years, and we don't have any problem with this solution."

"The software management tools are very useful for our customers."

"What my organization likes best about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its easy deployment. It's also well-integrated in terms of monitoring because my organization also uses a SolarWinds solution for monitoring. You can connect SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer directly to that monitoring tool to get information. My organization also finds the default graphs that appear before the configuration in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer very useful."

"The most helpful feature of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is bandwidth analysis, which lets you see who's hogging your network."

"SolarWinds has improved our organization because whenever a device is down, we get an alert."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros

Cons

"It's a bit slow. When I execute a query, something general with a short timeframe that covers one month, for instance, and I do not specify the IP source or IP destination, it can take ages because it has to query the whole database."

"This solution is expensive compared to some others."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"It is a scalable solution, but it is costly to scale. Therefore, I would rate scalability at eight out of ten."

"Currently, it shows only the top ten applications or ports in use, while the remaining data appears as 'remaining traffic,' causing confusion."

"SolarWinds' technical support is ok, but it could be faster and more knowledgeable."

"There is room for improvement when it comes to the traffic generated by the analyzer and the analysis of that traffic."

"I would like to see more artificial intelligence capabilities."

"The licensing should be more realistic so that we can adjust the number of nodes according to my needs, rather than in fixed increments."

"As people always complain about the pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, it's an area for improvement in the solution. People find it expensive. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is support, as it could be better."

"I would like to see more training videos and additional material for learning how to use this solution."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

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

"We understand there's a significant cost difference, but have yet to investigate fully."

"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."

"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 provides value and the cost is not huge."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"While the pricing is fair, it could be better."

"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."

"I don't have information on the licensing cost for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because it's bundled with another SolarWinds solution. My organization has seven different models and pays for the license yearly. My organization also had to deploy additional pollers, but the cost wasn't very expensive, though I can't give the exact numbers."

"The price of this solution is exceptional."

"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."

"The pricing is really good."

"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."

"Licensing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is paid yearly, and there are no additional costs that you need to pay apart from the standard licensing fees because you don't need to purchase another solution to make SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer work. Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is more expensive than other solutions."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

41%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

71%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

Prices care comparable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

The plotting of the device on the map is not appropriate. It should be like a Meraki cloud, where if you are familiar with Meraki devices, you can locate any device directly on the world map.

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

March 2025

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

March 2025

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report

Download SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report

Also Known As

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

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

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

SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer enables you to capture data from continuous streams of network traffic and convert those raw numbers into easy-to-interpret charts and tables that quantify exactly how the corporate network is being used, by whom, and for what purpose.

SolarWinds

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

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

September 2020

Free Report: Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: September 2020.

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