Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs Zabbix comparison

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 105 Zabbix reviews

17,122 Views
13,019 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Zabbix and Accedian Skylight are powerful monitoring solutions. Zabbix is favored for its pricing and support, while Accedian Skylight stands out for its advanced features.

Features: Zabbix offers customizable monitoring capabilities, extensive templates, and integrations. Accedian Skylight provides sophisticated performance analytics, detailed network insights, and advanced analytics capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix has a steep learning curve and complex initial setup configurations. Accedian Skylight could improve its integration with third-party tools and specific network diagnostic features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix is free and open-source but challenging to deploy and has slower customer service. Accedian Skylight offers smoother deployment and robust customer assistance, making it more user-friendly.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix's cost-effective model provides substantial functionality at a low price. Accedian Skylight, though pricier, offers high-quality features and a solid return on investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: March 2025).

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Zabbix

Download the complete report

Helped 845,406 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

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

43rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zabbix

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

8th

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 13.0%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

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

ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

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

"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..."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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 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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of virtual machines."

"The initial setup, while not simple, is easier than other products."

"Its overall flexibility is most valuable. When our customers have some custom applications that are not necessarily covered by the community or a standard monitoring tool, we use Zabbix to build our own modules with our own templates. This feature has been useful in using Zabbix for infrastructure and IT monitoring. It has also been useful for industrial equipment monitoring. Zabbix is very lightweight. It is efficient in terms of performance because it doesn't use a lot of resources."

"I like being able to use proxy servers for different locations. The agents are pretty cool. They're easy to roll out. The standard out-of-the-box templates are also pretty easy to use. The integration with other learning products is also good. I have, in the past, used Slack, but we've integrated it with Microsoft Teams. We also use it for SMS with a service called Redcoat. It is very flexible. It does what I need it to do, and my manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything. We are nearing 4,000 hosts inside Zabbix, and we've got another 6,000 access points to add to it. We've thrown everything at it, and it has managed to keep going. I am very impressed with the tool, and I'd shake their hand very hard if I got to say the compliments to the Zabbix team. They keep improving it and doing refreshes, which is one good thing about it. There is also online information as well as books that you can purchase if you're willing to read enough. There is a lot to pick up, but it is a pretty complete solution."

"We detect problems before the customer does and before it actually happens using the predictive functions in Zabbix."

"Zabbix is quite stable once it is set up. We haven't had any post-setup issues."

"It has an intuitive UI with beautiful graphs and customizable maps."

"The solution is stable."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"The UI interface of Accedian Skylight could improve."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"This solution is expensive compared to some others."

"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

"I would like to better be able to monitor Oracle processes."

"As far as improvements, sometimes I get a bit frustrated when I move from a previous version to a new one because some configuration has changed—I need to investigate the documentation to deal with some configuration. But it doesn't take much time, so it's okay."

"Outside of the normal standard monitoring, I would like to extend patching, importing patching, and supporting patching for Windows Servers."

"I would like to remotely connect to the computer, and Zabbix doesn't have this capability."

"When it comes to troubleshooting or technical support, there is usually some time lag."

"Implementing Zabbix is difficult. I've deployed many solutions over the years, and Zabbix is the hardest to implement. You have to do some development to get it to work with IBM, Micro Focus, or HP products."

"The solution needs to add remote features."

"The main problem with Zabbix is that you have to spend time writing templates for all of the products that you have."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"There is no license but we need to pay for support."

"Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed."

"This solution is open-source and free to use."

"The product is an open source and free solution."

"We were searching for an open source solution and Zabbix fit the bill because it is free and open source under the GPL license."

"If you have 20,000 hosts, the support costs around €95,000 for a year."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"There are no licenses."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

40%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

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.

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 advice do you have for others considering Accedian Skylight?

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

The cost is minimal. It is literally free.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the...

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Comparisons

Compared 45% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 16% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 10% of the time

Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Competitors

LibreNMS vs Zabbix

Compared 10% of the time

Checkmk vs Zabbix

Compared 10% of the time

Icinga vs Zabbix

Compared 8% of the time

NetXMS vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Centreon vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

More Zabbix Competitors

Product Reports

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Zabbix product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

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

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Zabbix