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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Kentik comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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 Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
39th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kentik is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Rainier S. - PeerSpot reviewer
You are able to drill down into a center's utilization, then create reports based on it
In the last year or two, we have been working with our Cisco NAS engineers to improve our security posturing. It is more our being proactive rather than reactive. While Stealthwatch and Lancope have this ability to look inside and give you visibility (a great feature), follow-up is the rule. We would like filters that you can put into place to tap onto certain types of behaviors, alerts out, and/or hopefully a block. This is sort of what we are looking for. I might be speaking too early, because we are not down this path yet. We know the feature set is there, we just do not know yet how to achieve it. That is proactive rather than more reactive. For Lancope Stealthwatch, we would like to see it more on the ASA Firewall platform. While this might already be available, this is more a failing of Cisco to inform us if it is there. For example: * Are we on the right or wrong version of the code? * What does the code look like? * Are we are really looking at firewalls? Or is it more about the foundation and route switches that we are seeing? It is about visibility.
Ahmad Mohd Fahmin - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes monitoring of operational efficiency an easy process
If there is any integration, it will apply back to the source of information that was creating the delay, for example, a legacy system or because the network's configuration is not correct. My company has not yet used any AI features of the product, but we do plan to use it in the future. I recommend the tool to others. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides good visibility to the customers. People are still evaluating it, but it provides visibility and helps them to take action to remediate and mitigate the issues that are highlighted on the dashboard. It has good integration with the Cisco switching platform."
"It works efficiently for encrypted traffic analysis."
"I believe this solution has reduced our incident response time."
"It has improved our internal knowledge of what's going on with the network, and that's helpful."
"The solution's analytics and thrust detection capabilities are good. We're still adjusting it. It's a little hypersensitive, but it is working right now."
"The most valuable feature is having visibility into the data segments throughout our network."
"Being able to identify specific date closed across the network is invaluable."
"The most valuable feature about this solution is that it gives me insight of my network."
"The most valuable feature is being able to pull traffic patterns; to and from destinations. We're able to understand where our traffic is going, our top talkers from an AS set, as well as where our traffic's coming from."
"I really love the Data Explorer. I use it all the time to go in and craft exactly what I need to see. I'm able to then take that story and explain it to the executives. I've done that a couple of times and it is helpful."
"We're pretty happy with the API functionality. It's web, and it's very simple to set up queries. It has served us well and you don't need to be an expert on the API or the product to set these things up."
"In terms of the solution’s real-time visibility across our network infrastructure, I have not been able to find any other monitoring or netflow visualization tool that gives me the kind of information I get from Kentik. If I need to take a deep-dive into something that I see, it's really easy for me to do that. Whereas with most other things, I have to use five or six other tools to get that kind of data, with Kentik, I have it all in one place."
"The drill-down into detailed views of network activity helps to quickly pinpoint locations and causes. All the information is there."
"I am able to do a lot of work on the visualization end to create different visualizations and different ways to get information out of it."
"Having the API access allows us to do a great deal of automation around a lot of our reporting and management tools."
"The most valuable features have been anything around traffic engineering: being able to determine the source or destination of a surge of traffic, whether it's DDoS-related, or a customer just happened to have a sudden uptick in traffic. Being able to tell where that's coming from or where it's going to enables us to do things based on that."
 

Cons

"Many of these tools require extensive on-premises hardware to run."
"The version with the Dell server had iDRAC problems. Often, it reported iDRAC failure."
"They should include Citrix VDIs in the next release."
"I would like Cisco to make it easier for the administrators to use it."
"One update that I would like to see is an agent-based client. Currently, Stealthwatch is network-based. A local agent could help manage endpoints."
"It's too complicated to install, when starting out."
"We would like the solution to make more advances in the way that Extreme Networks has been doing."
"I think the interface is a little lacking. The interface seems like it just needs to be modernized. It's been the same interface now, ever since I've seen it probably four years ago."
"I believe they're already working on this, but I would love for them to create better integrations from network flow data to application performance — tracing — so that we could overlay that data more readily. With more companies going hybrid, flow logs and flow data, whether it be VPC or on-prem, matched with application performance and trace data, is pretty important."
"They're moving more in a direction where they are saying, "Hey, here's information that you may be interested in or may a need," before the question has to explicitly be asked. Continuing to move in that direction would be a good thing."
"I've checked out the V4 version of the interface and it's still a little bit clunky for me to use. I still go back to the old interface. That's definitely one that they still need to work on. It doesn't seem like everything that you get in the V3, the older interface, is there. For instance, I was trying to add a user or do the administrative tasks in V4, and I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to do that."
"We asked for a way, regarding the potential networks that exist, to hook Kentik up with external tools like peering DBs to correlate things together and see what we can do... This is all in the [next] beta now."
"Sometimes, the tool has complications, so we must deal with the additional support from the tool's end."
"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."
"There is room for improvement around the usability of the API. It's a hugely complex task to call it and you need a lot of backing to be able to do it. I should say, as someone who's not in networking, maybe it's easier for people who are in networking, but for me that one part is not very user-friendly."
"The only downside to Kentik, something that I don't like, is that it's great that it shows you where these anomalies lie, but it's not actionable. Kentik is valuable, don't get me wrong, but if it had an actionable piece to it..."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is worth the cost."
"The solution is expensive. It costs several hundred thousand dollars per year (depending on how many flows you are collecting)."
"​Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside (in traffic)."
"Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside>in traffic."
"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"NetFlow is very expensive."
"We have an annual contract with Kentik that we renew each year for a set number of licenses. We also have some burstable licenses which we can spin up and spin down, and those are paid as they are used."
"The tool is cheaply priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Stealthwatch?
The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is the Threat Intelligence integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
The tool is not cheaply priced. In cybersecurity, you want an extra layer of security in your organization. Some sectors want NDR solutions, so you cannot deploy such tools everywhere, as they are ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
The expensive nature of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required.
What do you like most about Kentik?
It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics.
What needs improvement with Kentik?
Sometimes, the tool has complications, so we must deal with the additional support from the tool's end. We have the L3 and L4 support, but we have to get expertise in a different time zone, which i...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
No data available
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Kentik and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.