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Kentik vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor comparison

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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
13th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th)
SolarWinds Network Device M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
39th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.6%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.8%
Other97.6%
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.
SG
IT Infrastructure Senior Network Technician at Autoliv
Offers some features but needs better customization and analysis tools
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for improvement. The features are not as customizable as we would prefer, but they are workable. If configured properly, you can perform a drill-down analysis. However, I have not used this feature much for our infrastructure on the network side.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We're also using Kentik to ingest metrics. It's a useful feature, and its response time, whenever we're pulling back the data, is higher than our on-prem solution."
"I can say that I am so happy with this platform because it is very useful for us."
"We haven't seen anything else that comes even close to Kentik's real-time visibility across our network infrastructure, and we've demo'ed everything under the sun."
"I really love the Data Explorer. I use it all the time to go in and craft exactly what I need to see. I'm able to then take that story and explain it to the executives. I've done that a couple of times and it is helpful."
"The drill-down into detailed views of network activity helps to quickly pinpoint locations and causes. All the information is there."
"We're pretty happy with the API functionality. It's web, and it's very simple to set up queries. It has served us well and you don't need to be an expert on the API or the product to set these things up."
"Kentik has had a positive impact on my organization in terms of our network visibility because we leave our dashboard on a display screen, where the entire engineering team can see it."
"In terms of overall vendor partnership, I'd give Kentik a nine out of 10; they're right up there as one of my best partners to work with, amongst all the contracts that I own, and they're very customer-centric, always available, with nothing too small or too big that I can't ask them to help with, and they seem to be willing and able to jump in no matter what."
"SolarWinds is flexible and works with multiple vendor devices."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it can alert you when a device is not working."
"There are vital features of auto-plugin core ports"
"In real-time, we know when there's an issue on our network and it helps us to be proactive to solve the situation."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is a straightforward product with valuable functionality."
"Overall, I rate SolarWinds Network Device Monitor ten out of ten."
"The solution and its interface are elaborate and fully integrate all monitored items for easy analysis and troubleshooting."
 

Cons

"Perhaps a better explanation would be to see how tagging is captured and a method of comparing my tagged interfaces on Kentik’s side."
"Version 4 of the platform is good and going in the right direction."
"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."
"In recent months, I've noticed that while the industry is trending towards AI, Kentik has room for improvement in this area."
"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."
"They're moving more in a direction where they are saying, "Hey, here's information that you may be interested in or may a need," before the question has to explicitly be asked. Continuing to move in that direction would be a good thing."
"Kentik can be improved by enhancing the alerting system, especially the way templates work and the hierarchy of these alerts."
"The only downside to Kentik, something that I don't like, is that it's great that it shows you where these anomalies lie, but it's not actionable. Kentik is valuable, don't get me wrong, but if it had an actionable piece to it..."
"Integration with different tools, such as ServiceNow and Excel, can be improved."
"If everything were in the package so that everything was ready to go out of the box, that would be ideal."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve the features. We don't have the complete model for the database, and the monitoring for the database is up and down. We expect that we could monitor the blocking items on the database but we don't have that feature."
"There were certain aspects that weren't supported exactly. I was just able to monitor some basic things."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor lacks the granularity of other monitoring tools like LiveNX."
"There is no mobile version of this product, and our team should be able to access it using a mobile device."
"SolarWinds pricing is on the higher side, and in India, every customer is cautious about commercial aspects."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it. It is not simple to customize."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cheaply priced."
"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."
"I rate the product's price as three to three and a half or on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means high price."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"The product is expensive."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Media Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

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?
Kentik can be improved by enhancing the alerting system, especially the way templates work and the hierarchy of these alerts.
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
My main use case for Kentik is as a network monitoring system and flow analysis tool. A specific example of how I use Kentik for network monitoring is monitoring devices or services that go down an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I am not a positive person regarding SolarWinds Network Device Monitor.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for impro...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I have experience regarding the AD part, but my focus for the last 15 years has been oriented to the network side. My experience with identity tools comes more from a network perspective. We used N...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Network Device Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Air Rarotonga
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.