Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE comparison

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

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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 Network Monitoring Software

42nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (46th)

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

31st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin

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…

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Ruslan Melnyk

Business Unit Manager at BAKOTECH

Useful for network performance monitoring

My manager can explain the use cases attached to the product. I am a unit leader in my company, and I don't sell the product directly to our partners or customers. In my company, I manage certain processes and a team while building, developing, and providing them with a direction for the market. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is a good solution for network performance monitoring since it is not cloud-based. My company sells NETSCOUT nGeniusONE in eight to ten countries. I think the solution is not good for capacity planning, but it is better to help find problems in applications because not every infrastructure is good at managing working applications. I think it is a solution meant for applications. The tool is useful for solving problems attached to applications. The tool's real-time network monitoring capability was used when the product was more reactive. In our company, if we use real-time monitoring, then we need to deal with raw traffic. In our company, if we don't see any problem in the real-time systems, we have the possibility to rely on the tool since it acts like a time machine for us, which can allow us to get back to the areas of problem and solve them. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. For many users, it can be a good monitoring system that can be scaled up in the future. I think it is a good product to start with when working systems in an environment. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is another tool used to manage raw traffic, and I find it to integrate well into our customers' network. I am not using it actively on the system. I use the tool for network packet brokers. I rate the tool a ten 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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"It's a consolidated, single tool that talks to multiple platforms. It's not vendor-proprietary; it's independent. It provides interoperability with different products, whether they are routing products, switching products, wireless, wired, load balancing, or proxy. It works with anything you can name."

"The ability of the dashboards is useful for discover, mapping and understanding of application behaviour."

"The most valuable feature is visibility."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is being able to drill down into any kind of troubles that are reported to us, by use of identifiers."

"The biggest benefit is the ability to do low-level packet inspection. When I say packet inspection, I don't mean looking at payload, but just looking at your communication handshakes and the like. It reduces troubleshooting time because you can get a much better view into the communications path between servers, database servers, web servers, and understand what's going on."

"The most valuable feature of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is it helps customer to understand what risks are in their network. For example, if a customer has some wrong configurations. It could cost them some critical services to slow down."

"The valuable features include packet analysis, packet capture, and [that] it's easy to use."

"It catches bigger issues on a weekly basis. That's how often we find something big enough that the only reason we know about it is because of the nGeniusONE. The bigger issues are mostly security-type issues: Odd traffic leaving our network or coming into it, that has found its way past a firewall."

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE 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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"The feature I am looking for is the Arbor technology, especially to run in parallel with our firewall... It's getting there."

"A lot of tools highlight what's going on but they don't actually pinpoint the user experience. It would be good if there were a small message or something highlighting what the user experience is like and any degradation that's actually occurring."

"The price is really high, making it difficult for many financial companies to purchase immediately; it will take time for them to afford any budget for the purchase."

"Some of the filters could be easier to see and to set up. That's the only thing that I've ever had any trouble with."

"We would like more encryption of customer data, because we have a very security conscious company. We have a lot of regulation coming in which requires us to make customer data private."

"The technical support could improve a bit with quicker responses for early on questions. What I think are simple questions are taking a long time to get answers to."

"I would like more in-depth convergence between all the applications, especially when I look for information through a data mine."

"On a network the size of ours, the loading times seem a little extensive, 20 or 30 seconds to load up some graphs."

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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 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."

"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."

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

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"It can be expensive, but if you have a good configuration, based on what you are looking for, it's okay, it's manageable."

"This solution has saved us more than $50,000 a month and freed up 30 percent of our bandwidth."

"The scalability becomes very expensive quickly."

"The price is only for acquisition; it's not a licence."

"The biggest problem we have with this product is the expense."

"It is very expensive, but it's well worth the money."

"We have a premium customized contract for the solution."

"Like any company, we always want better pricing. The pricing is okay, but it's not a cheap solution. When you want to deploy it across an enterprise as large as ours, you go into seven figures. It's not a cheap solution to get out there."

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

37%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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.

What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?

What advice do you have for others considering Accedian Skylight?

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.

What do you like most about NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?

The pricing is a bit high yet not overly expensive. The cost depends on the size of the customer, as sizing controls the pricing.

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Comparisons

Compared 45% of the time

Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 14% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 12% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 8% of the time

Catchpoint vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Competitors

Dynatrace vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 11% of the time

Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 10% of the time

ThousandEyes vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 8% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 3% of the time

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Competitors

Product Reports

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Download NETSCOUT nGeniusONE product report

Also Known As

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

NETSCOUT nGenius, nGeniusONE

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

The nGenius Real-Time Monitor software provides you with tools to monitor and display information about your network both historically and in real time. The nGenius Real-Time Monitor software allows you to understand your current network usage and to plan for future needs. It also allows you to proactively troubleshoot problem areas in your network.

NETSCOUT

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

Cerner Corporation

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE