Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

Cisco and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Cisco is ranked #45 with an average rating of 8.0, while Splunk is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.6. Cisco holds a 0.3% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

776 Views
495 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 50 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

1,960 Views
1,160 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Splunk Observability Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 6, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance compete in the observability and network management sector. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance might have an advantage in network analysis and performance evaluation based on its strong features in this area.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud provides fast log searching, custom dashboards, and comprehensive infrastructure visualization. Its real-time notifications and stable application performance monitoring are standout features. Meanwhile, Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance specializes in network analysis, flow monitoring, and bandwidth usage evaluation. It supports quick issue diagnosis and offers layer 7 analytics.

Room for Improvement: Splunk Observability Cloud could benefit from enhanced third-party integration, a simpler pricing model, and improved dashboard customization. Users have noted challenges with scalability and configuration. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance could improve by clarifying data retention, optimizing database queries, and offering better reporting features. Both products could address concerns about high pricing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk Observability Cloud offers deployment flexibility in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, though it may require internal expertise. Its customer service is generally responsive but can be inconsistent. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance supports on-premises and hybrid setups, with straightforward deployment. Its technical support is responsive and effective, benefiting from users' familiarity with the product.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Observability Cloud is seen as costly, with pricing based on data volume, potentially deterring buyers. However, it offers substantial ROI through operational efficiencies. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance provides competitive and flexible pricing models aligned with usage needs. Users report valuable ROI through productivity increases and enhanced resource monitoring.

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 848,253 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...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

45th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (43rd)

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th), Container Management (8th)

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 Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.0%, up from 0.5% 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.

Read full review

Lakshmi Padaga

Java Developer at U.S. Bank

Collaborates performance metrics with log data to pinpoint the exact cause of issues and offers error detection

Splunk APM is a robust tool with many capabilities. There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience. For Splunk APM, there could be simplified navigation, like streamlining the user interface to make navigation more intuitive for our users, especially those new to APM, which can enhance usability. We can provide more customization options for dashboards and visualizations to help users tailor the platform to their specific needs. There could be more integration capabilities with a wider range of third-party tools and platforms would also be beneficial. By focusing on these areas, Splunk APM can enhance its value proposition, improve user satisfaction, and better meet the evolving needs of organizations monitoring their application performance.

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

"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 solution’s UI and single pane of glass is good. The new dashboard is modern with its new design. The look of it is not pretty, but it is efficient, which is good. It is user-friendly; you can find what you need on the interface quickly."

"What I like most about Accedian Skylight is that it's a UI application, so using it is easy. I also like that the support for Accedian Skylight is helpful."

"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."

"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 always have the Skylight dashboard on one of my screens... Now you can create your own dashboard, specific to an application, specific to a server, or to something else."

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

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"I have primarily used it to go back into the past and understand why something happened. It provides enough information to do research and figure things out."

"Splunk has drawn our attention to how the network is running. If there are alarms on things that are not functioning, it gives us early warning on problems that could arise."

"It is a good tool. It allows you to set alerts for application and infrastructure monitoring, and it allows you to create dashboards."

"The feature I find most valuable, is the data integration."

"It has been beneficial for our IT infrastructure."

"The tool's stability is great."

"Splunk APM helps us to find errors immediately and resolve them."

"The data collection from our VMs, containers, databases, and backend components is valuable."

More Splunk Observability Cloud 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"They need more EDR functionalities."

"There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience."

"There is a lot of room for improvement with the automation."

"There are some predefined metrics.......we may want to create customized metrics."

"They can improve the flow system and the keyword language. It has predefined keywords, but they can be improved."

"In the next release, I would like to see more integration with other solutions."

"They do not have all the features that I expect right now."

"A wide variety of logging makes log onboarding difficult."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

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."

"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."

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

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

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

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."

"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."

"The solution's pricing is competitive. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten. The price of the solution could be cheaper."

"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."

"The product is a bit expensive considering the competition but the company may negotiate the price."

"The solution's pricing is costly."

"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."

"It is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

39%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Government

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 do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available. We sometimes encountered issues in setting up alerts. The custom detector could be m...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The main purpose of using Splunk APM is to optimize our application. We use Splunk APM primarily to understand how the application works, how it uses resources, and its response time in connection ...

See all answers

Comparisons

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 44% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Competitors

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 20% of the time

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud 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

Splunk Observability Cloud

March 2025

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

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

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring

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

Splunk Observability Cloud combines log search, data integration, and dashboards for seamless monitoring, enhancing infrastructure visibility and security. Its cloud integration and scalability support diverse environments, improving operational efficiency.

Splunk Observability Cloud offers comprehensive monitoring tools with user-friendly interfaces, enabling end-to-end infrastructure visibility. Its real-time alerting and predictive capabilities enhance security monitoring, while centralized dashboards provide cross-platform visibility. Users benefit from fast data integration and extensive insights into application performance. Despite its advantages, improvements could be made in integration with other tools, data reliability, scalability, and cost management. Users face challenges in configuration complexity and require better automation and endpoint protection features. Enhancing AI integration, alerts, and adaptation for high-throughput services could further improve usability.

What are the key features of Splunk Observability Cloud?

Log Search: Efficiently search and analyze log data for enhanced insights.
Data Integration: Fast integration across platforms for comprehensive visibility.
Custom Dashboards: Powerful and adaptable dashboards for real-time monitoring.
Cloud Integration: Seamless integration with cloud services for scalable solutions.
Application Performance Monitoring: Advanced tools for improving application performance.

What benefits and ROI should be expected?

Infrastructure Monitoring: Improved visibility and monitoring across infrastructure components.
Operational Efficiency: Enhancements in data analysis lead to efficient operations.
Business Resilience: Supports adaptability and swift responses to changing needs.
Security Management: Enhances threat identification and response through real-time alerts.
Compliance Support: Aids in meeting compliance and auditing requirements effectively.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for application performance monitoring and infrastructure metrics. Its ability to track incidents and analyze machine data benefits network infrastructure, while distributed tracing and log analysis aid in tackling security threats. Organizations often integrate it for compliance and auditing purposes, enhancing visibility into network traffic and optimizing performance.

Splunk

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

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

April 2025

Free Report: Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Splunk Observability Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Splunk Observability Cloud report.

See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

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.