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Kentik vs SCOM 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
Kentik enhanced network efficiency, reduced costs, improved security, enabled better traffic management, and justified investment through perceived value.
Sentiment score
6.4
SCOM users experience varied ROI, with advantages in monitoring and management offset by potential licensing costs and latency issues.
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.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
In production environments, especially for service providers on IP networks and data centers, Kentik helps in reducing the time to identify and resolve issues.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
I believe the return on investment has been mainly time savings in performing troubleshooting.
Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Kentik's customer service is praised for being proactive, responsive, and knowledgeable, effectively handling unique issues with timely solutions.
Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft customer service is generally viewed positively, with efficient assistance and experienced staff, despite occasional consistency issues.
I have mostly used forums for any support needed because the setup is straightforward and the documentation is quite good.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
They have monthly calls and discuss the product roadmap with us to determine what is needed.
Network Engineer III at Fortanix
They often treat issues in isolation, not considering how one problem might relate to another.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
When I was working directly with Microsoft at TCS, my first company, the support experience was quite smooth, and we received solutions promptly.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Kentik is praised for scalability, handling vast data volumes across global centers, with user-friendly dashboards and seamless expansion.
Sentiment score
6.9
SCOM offers scalable management, efficient load balancing, and high availability but faces challenges with non-Microsoft integration and diverse device monitoring.
Kentik's integration with Kubernetes makes scaling easier.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Kentik's scalability is effective; the platform can handle these large volumes.
Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Kentik's scalability depends on how it is contracted.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
The scalability of SCOM, meaning its ability to adapt to our needs, is excellent because we are working with SQL systems and multiple servers.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Kentik is stable and reliable, with quick resolution of minor issues and minimal impact from maintenance or hardware failures.
Sentiment score
7.1
SCOM's stability has improved significantly, especially in newer versions like 2019, with proper configuration and resource allocation.
In production, however, dimensioning of the underlying platforms is something to be mindful of.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Based on stability, I would give Kentik a nine.
Network Engineer III at Fortanix
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.
Telecomm Analyst at a tech company with 11-50 employees
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.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
SCOM is a bit unstable lately, primarily due to a lack of resources.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
 

Room For Improvement

Kentik should enhance AI integration, usability, interface navigation, customization, and support for improved analysis and user experience.
SCOM needs better dashboards, lower licensing costs, easier integration, improved reporting, enhanced support, and efficient alert management.
More work is required to integrate AI for troubleshooting, simplifying root cause analysis, and providing suggested solutions for network issues.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
It needed to be a bit easier for new users and have slightly more customized reports.
Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
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.
Epicor Engineer at Sunway Group
I would like to see a software-as-a-service version in Azure to eliminate the need for on-premise infrastructure.
ICT System Administrator at College of Europe
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.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
It would be beneficial to have a summary on one single dashboard, as there are many more possibilities available.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
 

Setup Cost

Kentik pricing is competitive but high; volume discounts available; annual contracts; enterprises should budget significantly for full implementation.
SCOM pricing varies with agreements, often part of cost-effective Microsoft packages, though licensing can be complex initially.
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
Sales Manager at IFX NEtworks
Kentik’s pricing is competitive in the marketplace.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Later, the prices are very high to maintain all the functionality blocks.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Kentik offers real-time network insights, traffic analysis, and automation, enhancing performance and ease of use for monitoring and cost control.
SCOM efficiently monitors Microsoft environments with integration, customizable dashboards, real-time reporting, and automated alerts for proactive management.
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.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
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.
Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
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.
Telecomm Analyst at a tech company with 11-50 employees
It assists me in detecting server downtime and delivers basic performance monitoring right out of the box.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
SCOM integrates several systems and offers correlation features, like setting up everything around Active Directory or DNS.
ICT System Administrator at College of Europe
 

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)
SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
25th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (5th)
 

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 SCOM is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.7%
SCOM1.4%
Other96.9%
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.
AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Media Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
What is your primary use case for SCOM?
My usual use case for SCOM is as an administrator role where I create reports and provide system configuration for Linux and installation of the SCOM agent. I handle deploying and upgrading the age...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Dialog Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. SCOM and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.