

SCOM and Kentik are both prominent in the IT infrastructure monitoring category. SCOM appears to have the upper hand in large Microsoft environments due to its seamless integration and enterprise-level features, while Kentik is favored for its real-time network visibility and traffic analysis capabilities.
Features: SCOM is strong in monitoring Microsoft products especially Windows Server OS and Hyper-V. It allows custom monitoring solutions to be created using Visual Studio and PowerShell. It provides a seamless integration with Windows, enabling robust out-of-the-box experience. Kentik is recognized for its network visibility and traffic analysis, featuring DDoS alarm and flow analysis. It offers real-time insight into network infrastructure, which optimizes network performance.
Room for Improvement: SCOM could improve by reducing its high licensing fees and simplifying setup. It generates many excess alerts, requiring significant tuning. It needs enhanced monitoring for non-Windows environments and better dashboard customization. Kentik's pricing is considered expensive and could provide more actionable insights from detected anomalies. Its interface should be more intuitive.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SCOM supports primarily on-premise and hybrid cloud environments with a complex setup that demands experienced IT staff. Microsoft's customer service quality varies with support contracts, with premier support being rated highly. Kentik supports on-premises and private cloud deployments with a straightforward setup for network monitoring tasks. Its support teams are responsive and effective.
Pricing and ROI: SCOM's pricing is often part of Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, offering savings when bundled with other products. While generally reasonable, additional management packs could increase costs. Kentik's pricing depends on the number of devices and flow data, potentially high for large deployments. However, its ability to enhance network monitoring provides cost savings, particularly in traffic management and DDoS protection.
If we had, for example, a contracted capacity from Vivo of 50 GB and we were using 40, with Kentik we reduced this usage from 40 to 20.
In production environments, especially for service providers on IP networks and data centers, Kentik helps in reducing the time to identify and resolve issues.
I believe the return on investment has been mainly time savings in performing troubleshooting.
I have mostly used forums for any support needed because the setup is straightforward and the documentation is quite good.
They have monthly calls and discuss the product roadmap with us to determine what is needed.
They often treat issues in isolation, not considering how one problem might relate to another.
When I was working directly with Microsoft at TCS, my first company, the support experience was quite smooth, and we received solutions promptly.
Kentik's integration with Kubernetes makes scaling easier.
Kentik's scalability is effective; the platform can handle these large volumes.
Kentik's scalability depends on how it is contracted.
The scalability of SCOM, meaning its ability to adapt to our needs, is excellent because we are working with SQL systems and multiple servers.
In production, however, dimensioning of the underlying platforms is something to be mindful of.
Based on stability, I would give Kentik a nine.
I can say it is so great for us because if we configure it with Flowspec, the orchestration that we use, which is Kentik, makes the decision and automatically forwards the traffic to another position that we have in our network, or outgoing that we use.
I have not seen many errors or frequent data loss because once we have installed the agent on the system and have the details, not much manual intervention is required.
SCOM is a bit unstable lately, primarily due to a lack of resources.
More work is required to integrate AI for troubleshooting, simplifying root cause analysis, and providing suggested solutions for network issues.
It needed to be a bit easier for new users and have slightly more customized reports.
Currently, the way I'm configuring it uses reactive alerts, which means alerts are triggered when an issue occurs. I would prefer more proactive alerts in the future.
I would like to see a software-as-a-service version in Azure to eliminate the need for on-premise infrastructure.
SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure.
It would be beneficial to have a summary on one single dashboard, as there are many more possibilities available.
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
Kentik’s pricing is competitive in the marketplace.
Later, the prices are very high to maintain all the functionality blocks.
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.
This allows for better understanding of whether there is a critical ongoing case related to incoming traffic, such as a DDoS event, which is crucial for a service provider dealing with numerous customers.
Kentik has positively impacted our organization because when something happens, we use Kentik to analyze the problem and it brings us a faster solution to the problem, and the troubleshooting is clearer.
It assists me in detecting server downtime and delivers basic performance monitoring right out of the box.
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool.
SCOM integrates several systems and offers correlation features, like setting up everything around Active Directory or DNS.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Kentik | 1.7% |
| SCOM | 1.4% |
| Other | 96.9% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 7 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 4 |
| Large Enterprise | 10 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 16 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 22 |
| Large Enterprise | 54 |
Kentik provides real-time visibility into network infrastructure, focusing on monitoring, data visualization, and flow analysis to manage traffic patterns efficiently.
With robust analytics capabilities, Kentik offers insights into BGP peering status, aids in DDoS detection, and allows for detailed telemetry through its intuitive interface. The platform's SaaS nature simplifies operations by eliminating server maintenance concerns. Multi-vendor support and synthetic testing enhance network security and performance by simulating customer scenarios, while its API offers automation for querying and reporting tasks.
What are the key features of Kentik?Industries implement Kentik for network monitoring, traffic management, and flow data analysis across both on-prem and cloud setups. It proves valuable for detecting DDoS events, managing peering relationships, and optimizing costs, besides managing CDN configurations and performing synthetic tests in diverse environments.
SCOM monitors Microsoft environments with a focus on Windows servers and applications such as SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint. It offers integration with Active Directory and Azure, along with customizable dashboards, management packs, and robust alert mechanisms, aiding efficient management and control.
SCOM provides a comprehensive monitoring solution for Microsoft technologies, helping organizations track performance and availability of applications, services, and infrastructure. It integrates with Active Directory and Azure, offering capabilities for monitoring Windows and Linux environments. Extensive management packs, customizable dashboards, and automated alerts offer a refined monitoring experience. Users benefit from detailed performance data, network monitoring, and auto-discovery features, enhancing operational insights and server management efficiency.
What are key features of SCOM?In technology sectors, SCOM is widely implemented for its ability to monitor server applications and infrastructure components. Healthcare and finance utilize its monitoring and alert systems for compliance and uptime. Enterprises integrate SCOM for managing complex systems like Exchange, SharePoint, and Active Directory, enabling comprehensive analytics and reporting.
We monitor all Network Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.