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Kentik vs NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE 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

Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th)
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
62nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 1.7%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.7%
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE0.5%
Other97.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Gcecilio - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
Traffic insights have reduced transit costs and support secure, direct connections with providers
The best features that Kentik offers are the ability to identify traffic end-to-end and to know which transit is used, if it goes through any other transit, to see the entire flow, from the subscriber to the content provider and vice versa, from the content provider to the subscriber.I can also determine whether it is symmetric or asymmetric traffic, and if it goes through any provider that has some kind of bottleneck. That is very important. Regarding the security part, which is also possible to handle through Kentik, you can configure it in a way that makes the network more secure and reduces the amount of dirty traffic or attacks received. Kentik has had a high positive impact on my organization. Besides the cost reduction, it has been possible to perform troubleshooting more effectively, and also regarding DDoS-related attacks. In addition to cost reduction, we had a more reliable connection. Since the moment we identified that it was possible to have a direct connection with content providers like CDN77, Cloudflare, and Akamai, we established a direct connection there through a PNI with these content providers, making the network less dependent on an IP transit provider.
Ian Munoz - PeerSpot reviewer
Ingeniero en Telecomunicaciones at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has improved traffic visibility and simplified dashboard use, but could benefit from better integration with other tools
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE works very well in our case. We have not experienced any troubles with traffic analysis SolarWinds has a dashboard that is older and not as user-friendly. NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE has an easier dashboard to manipulate compared to SolarWinds. NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Kentik is worth the money to have as a tool."
"The biggest thing Kentik has given us is the amount of visibility we have into our own network now and knowing what's going on at a given time."
"We have been extremely happy with the features; they were exactly what we were after."
"It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics."
"One of the valuable features is the intuitive nature of building out reports, and then triggering actions based on specific metrics from those reports. It has a really good UI and the ability to surface data through the reporting functions is pretty good. That's helped a lot in the security space."
"Overall, I would give Kentik nine out of ten stars."
"Kentik has positively impacted the organization by providing greater control over certain subjects and enabling monitoring of current traffic."
"Honestly, it is one of those products that I would suggest to almost any network operator."
"nGenius provides us with increased visibility during IT deployments."
"I like the single pane of glass view because it presents everything in one window, obviously. You can see it all. With a quick glance, you get a pretty good snapshot of what's going on in a particular situation."
"The solution's technical support team consists of good engineers and technicians."
"I like the single pane of glass view. I like being able to go to one place instead of having to hunt around for everything."
"We have seen a measurable decrease in mean time to know and mean time to repair, and because the tool allows us to get to things a lot quicker and see things a lot quicker, we have actually reduced those times and it has definitely helped with our network uptime, with an improvement in uptime of at least 50 percent."
"NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE has an easier dashboard to manipulate compared to SolarWinds."
"The most valuable features of this solution are monitoring and maintaining traffic queuing, as well as seeing who is using the bandwidth."
 

Cons

"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."
"Perhaps a better explanation would be to see how tagging is captured and a method of comparing my tagged interfaces on Kentik’s side."
"The product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect."
"It also detects anomalies proactively, but the same is not so true when it comes to real network problems, since they tend to just happen."
"Kentik can be improved in terms of languages, and visually it could be improved a bit more as well."
"Sometimes, the tool has complications, so we must deal with the additional support from the tool's end."
"My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing shows that the prices are quite high."
"Version 4 of the platform is good and going in the right direction."
"They require a lot of manual effort as traffic flows, networks, and formal times change."
"NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not integrated with SolarWinds. They work in different ways."
"Usability is the area with the biggest room for improvement. We've found that with NETSCOUT, while it's a fantastic product, the usability is a major factor because there are just way too many clicks. It's obvious, from our experience, that the people who are developing the product aren't using it."
"Before an attack starts, seeing the traffic behavior and activities would be great. The tool should also share alerts since it is an area where the product has certain shortcomings."
"In terms of additional features, I would like to see better event notification. Right now, we put in an email address to receive an alert and it receives every event and every alert that comes out. We need something a little more granular."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Media Company
9%
Government
14%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been limited because I was not responsible for that in my company, but I have spoken with my boss, and he reported that the licensing mode...
What needs improvement with Kentik?
I do not currently use Kentik's anomaly detection. I had communication with Kentik's technical support through a WhatsApp group. When I faced any issues or there were problems with my Kentik collec...
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
I'm using Kentik for my own internal use. My primary use case is to monitor our equipment and to get a more detailed view of where our inbound and outbound traffic is going.
What needs improvement with NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not integrated with SolarWinds. They work in different ways.
What advice do you have for others considering NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
On a scale of 1-10, I would rate NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE a 7.5 out of 10.
 

Also Known As

No data available
nGeniusPULSE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Banco Votorantim
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.