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Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE comparison

Cisco and NETSCOUT are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Cisco is ranked #40 with an average rating of 8.0, while NETSCOUT is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.5. Cisco holds a 0.8% mindshare in NMS, compared to NETSCOUT’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of NETSCOUT users who would recommend it.
Cisco Provider Connectivity...
Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews
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  • 1,545 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Read 50 NETSCOUT nGeniusONE reviews
  • 3,378 Views
  • 2,398 Comparison Views
93% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE and Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance are enterprise-level network management solutions. While nGeniusONE is noted for superior data visualization, Cisco leads with comprehensive features, better pricing, and user support, which can justify its investment.

Features: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE offers robust reporting, traffic analysis, and dependency mapping. It provides extensive packet inspection and NetFlow traffic analysis, monitoring real-time communication effectively. Features cover voice traffic analysis, latency detection, and insightful dashboards. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance delivers effective network management but lacks the depth of packet capture and analysis found in nGeniusONE.

Room for Improvement: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE's complex interface and high cost receive criticism. Enhanced GUI could improve user experience and reduce dependence on specialized staff. Modular pricing is suggested to avoid payment for unused features. Cisco could enhance intuitive configurations and workflow integrations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE, deployed on-premises with hybrid options, is known for responsive tech support but requires dedicated staff, affecting ease of deployment. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers on-premises and cloud compatibility with less complex setups and accessible support, earning higher user satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE's pricing is premium, with reliability and capabilities that offset costs, but not all users make full use of its features. Licensing rigidity can lead to accumulating costs, though ROI is achieved through decreased troubleshooting time. Cisco's competitive pricing offers ROI through quick resolutions and improved customer satisfaction, reinforcing its value proposition.

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To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Report (Updated: November 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
November 2025
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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 Provider Connectivity...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
40th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (43rd)
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is 1.5%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE1.5%
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance0.8%
Other97.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin - PeerSpot reviewer
Addresses connectivity issues with real-time monitoring while offering good local support
I had prepared for COC and the client. I work as a vendor for a client using Flow Mount for network performance monitoring. I focus on resolving client-side issues related to Packy Performance and quality use. This involves addressing network device issues, specifically Cisco network devices One…
Read full review
Mohammed Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us by providing root cause analysis when it comes to latency and performance issues
I would recommend NETSCOUT nGeniusONE to others yet not for small SMBs due to the pricing. It is important to have the necessary NETSCOUT experience for smooth integration. The automated issue detection sometimes has a few false positives but is overall cost-effective for our customers. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One valuable feature we have is real-time monitoring for connection issues."
"For us, the most valuable feature is something called TWAMP that allows for real-time traffic in a way that is 10 times lighter than things like SolarWinds. It's in the sub-milliseconds of accuracy, and you can divide tasks so that you can literally see things like the tagging for Quality of Service. That had been incorrect with the carrier, but there was no way on this planet you'd be able to tell a carrier that they're wrong. I have dozens of scenarios where we found "No, that's not right," and got it resolved instantly."
"The solution’s UI and single pane of glass is good. The new dashboard is modern with its new design. The look of it is not pretty, but it is efficient, which is good. It is user-friendly; you can find what you need on the interface quickly."
"It is about finding operational problems. When sites go down, we try to determine who is at fault. While there is not much finger-pointing, the solution is just trying to analyse when there is an outage and where do we start looking to fix it. The very nature of why organization chooses to use the solution is to accelerate the meantime to resolution and find where problems lie to get them rectified as quickly as possible."
"This solution has helped to improve the interaction between our network, datacenter, and application teams. I have used other tools, but this tool can pinpoint the root cause of my application or network issue in the majority of the cases. So, it helps different divisions or groups in the IT department to troubleshoot together and get an issue resolved. This tool helps a lot in our day-to-day networking application and IT operations."
"Capturing traffic [is very interesting]. Currently, with our configuration, we don't capture the payload of the packets, just the header. But when we want the body, the payload of the packets, we can do a PCAP, and then analyze it within Wireshark."
"I always have the Skylight dashboard on one of my screens... Now you can create your own dashboard, specific to an application, specific to a server, or to something else."
"The performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros
"The fact that it's able to capture and store packets from the wires is very useful for troubleshooting with our vendors, when issues do come up. It's valuable that we have that overall data for them."
"The VoLTE model, call search and Media Monitor were essential when we launched VoLTE. We're relying heavily on them to troubleshoot our VoLTE calls."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is being able to drill down into any kind of troubles that are reported to us, by use of identifiers."
"It is a scalable product."
"The best feature is when we have it connected permanently via TAPs. That enables us to constantly collect data and then we can go back in time... To be able to rewind, back in time, and see the problem as it happened, is very helpful."
"Aside from having the logs that are just on the firewall, we're able to get the traffic as it's going in between, throughout our network. It isolates end sources that are having issues, where we don't have any other tools that would be able to go down to an end-user's computer to find out what's going on."
"It has versatility to correlate different traffic types and performance management statistics."
"It gives me the MOS, latency, and jitter."
More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE pros
 

Cons

"Some of the Skylight applications are a little newer, and they're still moving through initial revs. There are certain bugs, but nothing is insurmountable... It will just take a little bit of time for their user interface to get a little bit better."
"The UI interface of Accedian Skylight could improve."
"It's a bit slow. When I execute a query, something general with a short timeframe that covers one month, for instance, and I do not specify the IP source or IP destination, it can take ages because it has to query the whole database."
"Because of the policies in Vietnam, we cannot connect the system to the Accedian cloud. It would be good if Accedian could provide a local cloud. In the next release, I would like them to focus on improving and adding more reporting features. This will help the operations teams."
"If you want a new version, you go to the website. The hardest part is finding the link, where is that .bin file? Sometimes it's pretty hidden in a document... it's hidden in the release notes or in another file somewhere. And it's usually not on the first page either."
"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."
"I would like to see some improvements in parts of their synthetic transactions, which includes all the latency, jitter, and throughput. I would like to see some Layer 7 analytics in there. I want to be able to do a DNS request, HTTP GET request, or even SIP call point-to-point or via registration."
"The Accedian Skylight user interface still has room for improvement."
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons
"nGeniusONE could be improved by reducing the number of bare metal servers required to run it. Currently, you need a separate bare metal server for each of the following: Xfinity, ISNG, nGeniusONE, and CFS. It would be more cost-effective and less complex if all of these functionalities could be combined into a single bare metal server."
"The scalability needs some work. From a probe perspective, we are limited to a certain amount of throughput on the devices themselves. Without having actual hooks into the bare metal hardware for the solutions, it's a bit of a "thumb in the air" as to when we hit our capacity or when our high watermark is."
"One of the products we use is SolarWinds, and it provides a very cool mapping of an agent from end-to-end. If NETSCOUT could somehow implement that into their design... make it quicker and easier to get those net paths, it would be huge."
"A lot of tools highlight what's going on but they don't actually pinpoint the user experience. It would be good if there were a small message or something highlighting what the user experience is like and any degradation that's actually occurring."
"There was a point in GTP where we were creating services on nodes and after that we wanted to have services on APN. We can't have both... There are some limitations with these types of things. When we would like to use a feature, we have to remove another one."
"The price is really high, making it difficult for many financial companies to purchase immediately; it will take time for them to afford any budget for the purchase."
"Our biggest area of concern right now, supporting the applications, is that while NETSCOUT does a good job of monitoring the network and the applications, we need more visibility into system health and performance monitoring."
"NETSCOUT nGeniusONE can improve the detection of what area of the infrastructure could be having an issue, such as an application, server, or network. It needs to find evidence of a fault."
More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."
"It provides value and the cost is not huge."
"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."
"We understand there's a significant cost difference, but have yet to investigate fully."
"Pricing is a little bit expensive."
"The solution was previously well-regarded, but after being acquired by Accedian, the prices have significantly increased. This has made it challenging to sell the product due to its high cost. It is an expensive solution."
"The price is competitive overall, depending on the type of customer."
"If you look into Riverbed, it's a licensing nightmare. You need to pay for every type of analysis... If you don't look into licensing, Riverbed and SolarWinds are pretty comparable. But if you look into licensing it would not be smart to go for either of them. On the pure, bare-metal basis, it's the same. But when you get the bare metal and a few basic licenses, then you need all those other licenses just to be sure that there's no issue... One of the great things about Skylight is you have them all, and you actually need them all."
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice
"The biggest problem we have with this product is the expense."
"Their pricing is very competitive with other solutions... But what I like about NETSCOUT's licensing is that it's shared across all their platforms. They don't create a new licensing scheme for every one of their products. So for nGeniusONE, you buy a certain license level, and it works on all of their products."
"The license becomes cost prohibitive very quickly."
"It is a little overall pricey and expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The product may come across as a cheap tool for some, while it may seem costly for others."
"It can be expensive, but if you have a good configuration, based on what you are looking for, it's okay, it's manageable."
"Make sure you get the low down on your licensing and understand the licensing requirements before making a purchase, especially when it comes to an upgrade. Make sure that it suits your needs before you commit to it. For example, we purchased ATA at version 6.2.1. At that time, the licensing covered everything we need. NETSCOUT comes out with 6.2.2, stating that in order to upgrade, you had to purchase CyberStream licensing. Now that requires some additional funding from both a capital investment and a maintenance cost. That's something that should have been said, "Well, if you want these additional features, you will need to purchase these CyberStreams." Otherwise, we should be allowed to continue on the basic operations as it is now through the newer releases without being stuck."
"The platform is expensive."
More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
33%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise37
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Accedian Skylight?
Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues. I require more tools to file and resolve these issues efficiently.
See all answers
What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?
I had prepared for COC and the client. I work as a vendor for a client using Flow Mount for network performance monitoring. I focus on resolving client-side issues related to Packy Performance and ...
See all answers
What advice do you have for others considering Accedian Skylight?
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
See all answers
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.
See all answers
What do you like most about NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
The pricing is a bit high yet not overly expensive. The cost depends on the size of the customer, as sizing controls the pricing.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 25% of the time
Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 11% of the time
Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 8% of the time
SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 5% of the time
New Relic vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Logo
New Relic vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
Compared 5% of the time
More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Competitors
Dynatrace vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Logo
Dynatrace vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Compared 10% of the time
ThousandEyes vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Logo
ThousandEyes vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Compared 9% of the time
Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Logo
Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Compared 8% of the time
SolarWinds NPM vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Logo
SolarWinds NPM vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Compared 8% of the time
More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance
November 2025
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reportDownload Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report
Buyer's Guide
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
October 2025
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE reportDownload NETSCOUT nGeniusONE product report
 

Also Known As

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision
NETSCOUT nGenius, nGeniusONE
 

Overview

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is known for its user-friendly approach to network analysis and performance monitoring. It excels in real-time diagnostics, helping organizations quickly resolve network issues and optimize performance effortlessly.

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance focuses on comprehensive network troubleshooting and performance monitoring, assisting in identifying bottlenecks and analyzing applications. Real-time data collection and evaluation ensure IT infrastructure efficiency. With active monitoring of latency, jitter, and throughput, users maintain smooth operations across multiple sites and applications. While highly effective, improvements in data handling, protocol support, and dashboard aesthetics are suggested to enhance user experience.

What are the key features of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance?
  • Flow Matrices: Advanced analysis of network paths and traffic distribution.
  • SQL and DNS Analysis: In-depth insights into database and domain queries for troubleshooting.
  • Bandwidth Assessment: Evaluation of network capacity and utilization for performance optimization.
  • Real-time TWAMP Monitoring: Tracks network performance using Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol.
  • Application Performance Modules: Monitors the performance of various applications and services.
  • Customizable Dashboards: Personalized views for tracking critical network metrics and trends.
  • PCAP Capturing: Detailed packet analysis using tools like Wireshark for deeper insights.
What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?
  • Ease of Use: Intuitive design allowing users to swiftly diagnose network issues.
  • Comprehensive Monitoring: Enhanced visibility of network activity for better control.
  • Performance Efficiency: Optimization of throughput, reducing downtimes and improving service delivery.
  • Cost-Effectiveness: Balances features and functionality with competitive pricing for better ROI.

In industries such as telecommunications and finance, where network reliability is crucial, Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers critical network performance insights. It supports high-demand environments by providing data-driven decisions, ensuring infrastructures handle increased loads efficiently.

Cisco
The nGenius Real-Time Monitor software provides you with tools to monitor and display information about your network both historically and in real time. The nGenius Real-Time Monitor software allows you to understand your current network usage and to plan for future needs. It also allows you to proactively troubleshoot problem areas in your network.
NETSCOUT
 

Sample Customers

T-Systems, Thomson Reuters, Bordeaux Metropole, CGI, Citadelle Regional Hospital Center, Lorraine Institute of Oncology, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Groupe BPCE, Group S, Splitpoint, Horus-Net, Audatex, Indexis, Province de Liège, EASI, Spie Batignolles, Faymonville
Cerner Corporation
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
November 2025
Free Report: Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
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