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Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs ThousandEyes comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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 Network Monitoring Software
45th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (41st)
ThousandEyes
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThousandEyes is 1.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ThousandEyes1.6%
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance0.8%
Other97.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at DYNASAFE TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD.
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…
Siddumanisria Mindi - PeerSpot reviewer
Network engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Monitoring has transformed internet visibility and speeds up resolving external service issues
ThousandEyes needs to specify unit consumption forecasting or scaling testing and deeper app analytics. It needs deeper out-of-the-box Layer 7 code or database-level insights. Additionally, it should unify the GUI with broader Cisco platforms and flatten the learning curve, adding better correlation with local laptop system metrics such as endpoint depth, CPU, RAM, or processes. ThousandEyes isn't designed to be a full-blown SNMP monitoring tool for on-premises infrastructure. While it tracks network paths effectively, it doesn't provide deep local device telemetry such as switch port buffer utilization, fan status, or power supply health. For full internal device monitoring, you'll still need to pair it with traditional tools such as SolarWinds or Cisco Catalyst Center.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Skylight is not used on a daily basis, but when it's used it usually helps to fix a problem pretty fast."
"I think the analytics features are okay. My customer also likes the interface, the GUI, because it's easy to operate."
"The response times, with the performance, are really interesting too, where you can see the packet loss."
"I like this product because it is easy to use and it allows us to have a realistic vision of what is going on at the heart of our network."
"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."
"We have found this to be a very valuable toolset, and has paid for itself several times over."
"The performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."
"For me, all the features are great and make ThousandEyes stand out among other observability products."
"Another best part is that it gives us where the loss is coming from."
"The most valuable features of ThousandEyes are the full monitoring capabilities and the ability to identify the exact location of problems in the path between the application and the end-user."
"I think the analysis service that Cisco provides is extremely valuable."
"One feature I liked is end-user monitoring."
"The solution's initial setup process was straightforward...In terms of ROI, the solution is worth the money."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the path analyzer, which identifies the node causing the errors."
"ThousandEyes gives companies better visibility, showing effective notes on the network layer and the application's performance for anyone inside or outside the data center, while providing deep visibility on the network, legal support, and user requests."
 

Cons

"Combination with Avaya switches pose some problems."
"Pricing is a little bit expensive."
"Embed a warning system to a mailbox when it exceeds the threshold for use of bandwidth over a given period of time."
"This solution is expensive compared to some others."
"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."
"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."
"Increase the drive’s capacity to store more data, and maybe switch to a database system similar to 3Big-Data."
"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."
"Once I fully use the tool 100%, I'm sure I would have something to critique, however, for now, I'm happy with it."
"It might be practical to extend monitoring capabilities to include network devices"
"It would be nice if the solution covered other areas like server monitoring."
"Cisco is the standard for anyone wanting something good, the problem with it is the cost and that means that it's not accessible to many smaller companies."
"ThousandEyes definitely has differentiators versus the peers in the space, as there are other tools that are a bit more user-friendly to configure, especially around enterprise agents; for example, when upgrades are required, it sometimes needs a complete de-installation and re-installation of a newer version, which leads to a bit of administrative overhead from time to time, but overall, it has been an excellent product."
"More detailed documentation explaining the metrics and the testing mechanisms would be helpful."
"I would like the product to offer more agility."
"The guest portal is hard to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price is competitive overall, depending on the type of customer."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is a quite expensive solution."
"The solution is cheap."
"In our company, we incur a yearly expense in our company for the licensing part. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten since it is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is cheap; I rate it a five out of ten."
"The solution costs several thousand dollars per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise25
 

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.
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 ...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better from a cloud monitoring or APM monitoring perspective. You can check...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
I think ThousandEyes can be improved, specifically the licensing model. It's too complex, too expensive, and it takes a lot of time to manage the licensing model. My experience with pricing, setup ...
What is your primary use case for ThousandEyes?
My main use case for ThousandEyes is path monitoring. I use ThousandEyes for path monitoring to see how my traffic is flowing in my network, what the hops are in between, and then see at what hop e...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

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
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. ThousandEyes and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
916,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.