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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Viavi Observer Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
33rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Viavi Observer Platform
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
99th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 0.9%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Viavi Observer Platform is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics0.9%
Viavi Observer Platform0.3%
Other98.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Akash Das Barman - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Trainee at DataSpace Academy
Network analytics has reduced investigation time and provides deeper visibility into lateral movement
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look very attractive for audit and compliance teams at implementation time and can generate structured reports for visibility, risk posture, and traffic summaries. In practice, many teams do not rely on it heavily because SIEM tools or GRC platforms already handle reporting better. Built-in threat intelligence feeds represent another area where expectations do not always match usage. The platform includes threat intelligence-based detection and classifications. Initially, teams expect to depend on this heavily, but later SOC teams often prefer their own threat intelligence feeds or correlate intelligence inside SIEM instead. The built-in feeds are used but not as a primary detection source. Automated incident summaries and guided investigation views are designed to simplify triage by automatically grouping related activity into incidents. However, teams often move away from them due to various factors affecting adoption.
JeroenDubbelman - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Bitrate
The product is extremely valuable and provides a lot of functionalities and visibility to organizations
The score-based application performance ratings help the network team. Often, customers have a siloed environment for security, applications, and servers. The network team is always asked to do troubleshooting. Being able to know how well an application worked in the past and what's happening today is really helpful. If someone has a complaint and the network team says that the problem is not on their side, they must be able to demonstrate it accurately. The network team is often given the least budget and the least number of employees. So, they must be able to troubleshoot and pinpoint problems as fast as possible. If it’s a network issue, they must fix it. However, if it is a cloud problem, an ISP problem, or a problem within the server or application environment, they must be able to demonstrate it clearly. It is the real benefit they get from the solution. Some of our customers are financial institutions. They use the tool for traffic accounting, especially when they get charged by ISPs or carriers for the amount of traffic they are using. In South Africa, we have banks that pay the service providers to allow customers to use their banking apps for free. The bank pays for it, not the customers. So, they need to compare to ensure they are paying for what has been used. Viavi enables them to do that. It is pretty much the best there is in the world. There is nothing to beat it. The product is extremely valuable and provides a lot of functionalities. It's really impressive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From what I understand, you can encrypt and unencrypt traffic moving in transit. This is one of the features that we liked about it."
"The most valuable features are encrypted threat analysis and the ability to run jobs on entire flows."
"It does change the way we troubleshoot and it is relatively easy to use once you learn it. I would recommend it to someone considering it."
"Another notable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is its Layer 7 visibility, which allows us to monitor and analyze network communications at the application layer."
"Visibility. The ability to look East and West. To see what is passing through your circuits, where it is coming from, and how big it is."
"It has improved my organization's network visibility from zero because before we had installed this solution, we weren't doing anything to protect us from threats."
"The best feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is its reliability, which I find to be the one that gets used the most."
"Using this solution has helped us to detect and identify viruses or malicious activity in the network early on."
"The score-based application performance ratings help the network team."
 

Cons

"It would be better to let people know, up front, that is doesn't give you nice, clear information, as seen in the demos, without Cisco ISE installed."
"I would like to see interoperability with other Cisco products because we have ThousandEyes, Cisco Prime, and others. The interaction among these is important to us."
"Improvements are needed on the application layer for complete security analysis."
"Some of our customers find this solution to be a little bit tough because they don't understand how to configure and use it."
"The ability to be natively integrated into Port Aggregator would be beneficial because it would reduce just one more component that's needed in order to have that type of view."
"I would like to see better filters. You should be able to filter the data out to more rapidly find what you're looking for."
"The initial setup of this solution is complex."
"The usability of this solution needs to be improved."
"The product must start using a bit more machine learning and AI, especially for security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"There are additional licenses needed for the number of so-called network flows. It's hard to plan the number of flows you need in the network, this is a problem. The price of the Cisco Stealthwatch is relatively inexpensive"
"The yearly licensing cost is about $50,000."
"The tool is not cheaply priced."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"This is an expensive product. We have quit paying for support because we don't want to have to upgrade it and keep paying for it."
"The solution is expensive. It costs several hundred thousand dollars per year (depending on how many flows you are collecting)."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The tool is very pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?
My main use case for Cisco Secure Network Analytics has been network visibility and anomaly-based threat detection within the enterprise environment. In security operations and VAPT-related activit...
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Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
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