Apica vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance comparison

Apica and Cisco are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Apica is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.7, while Cisco is ranked #49 with an average rating of 8.0. Apica holds a 0.3% mindshare in APM, compared to Cisco’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Apica users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Apica

Read 11 Apica reviews

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257 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

740 Views
355 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Apica

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Apica and Accedian Skylight are two notable products in the monitoring and performance optimization sector. Based on the comparisons, Apica generally has the upper hand due to its user-friendly deployment and reliable customer support, while Accedian Skylight excels in providing more advanced analytical features.

Features:Apica users value its extensive monitoring capabilities, broad integration options, and proactive customer support. Accedian Skylight is praised for its precise data analytics, real-time monitoring, and advanced performance insights.

Room for Improvement:Apica users suggest enhancing its reporting functionalities, offering more flexible customization options, and simplifying complex features. Accedian Skylight users indicate a need for simpler configuration processes, improved documentation, and user-friendly interface updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Apica is recognized for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Accedian Skylight’s deployment is noted to be complex, with mixed feedback on support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI:Apica’s pricing is seen as moderate, with users noting satisfactory ROI. Accedian Skylight is perceived as pricier, but users find the investment justified by its powerful features.

To learn more, read our detailed Apica vs. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Apica vs. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

June 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

Apica

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

17th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (17th), IT Operations Analytics (5th), Observability Pipeline Software (2nd)

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

49th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (40th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Apica is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Punith H K

Senior Systems Engineer at Infosys

Enables users to create scripts easily and provides excellent real-time monitoring features

It is easy to create scripts. We don't have to write any script. Ready-made options are available. We can select, drag, and drop the options, and the script is ready. The solution’s real-time monitoring features have had a huge impact on our service delivery. If we have an application and the script for it, we keep monitoring it. When the script goes red, it indicates that something is not working. So, we check and analyze the applications. We keep track of applications and monitor whether they are live or not. The tool is also useful for monitoring cloud services.

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Pifu Lin

Senior System Engineer at DYNASAFE TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD.

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like the most is that Apica can simulate different browsers and different versions of desktop or mobile browsers."

"With the ZebraTester, the ability to have and store dynamic variables, when setting up the monitors, means you can extract that value and use it in a subsequent service call. This is something that has made our lives easier... This is one of the features that I like the most because it helps us in configuring these services, in a certain flow, without the need to re-record the whole thing."

"Our application SREs do script checks in such a way that closely mimic our customers' actions using the platform. Because there are so many different ways and options to be able to configure checks to closely mirror your applications' capabilities, it provides a lot of optionality for teams to create the right type of check that can notify when there are any issues. At the end of the day, we want our monitoring tools to be able to catch any outage before our customers do. This is where Apica Synthetic does a great job."

"The solution’s real-time monitoring features have had a huge impact on our service delivery."

"It is easy to set up and configure."

"The solution captures all our requests and responses."

"APICa allows me to record APIs easily and enhances scripts through options like auto-correlation, enabling me to access dynamic fields."

"The GUI is powerful and doesn't require scripting or regular expressions. It has a vast finder for correlation, which is easier than other tools like JMeter and LoadRunner. It's also easy to integrate with other tools with a separate execution environment. The tool is also easy to use."

More Apica pros

"I think the analytics features are okay. My customer also likes the interface, the GUI, because it's easy to operate."

"If [the problem] is something related to HTTP or VoIP, then I can have a quick look into the protocols, a process which gives me some good ideas..."

"The feature I used to like the most was its ability to decode layer seven protocols, although this is becoming less useful now that encryption is so widespread."

"The performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."

"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."

"What I like most about Accedian Skylight is that it's a UI application, so using it is easy. I also like that the support for Accedian Skylight is helpful."

"The ability to measure performance end-to-end across the cloud data center allows us to take corrective action to keep our channels online."

"One valuable feature we have is real-time monitoring for connection issues."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

Cons

"The initial screen on their dashboard could have a bit more data, but this is a small thing. It could have more data, so we do not need to drill down to a screen behind that initial information. I would like them to get a little better on the user interfaces that we need to go into."

"There are some components of the user interface that are not up to date. Just to give you an idea, today we have web applications that are called single-page applications that are much faster than the old style of web application. If we can move faster into the flow of the graphic user interface, and in a more effective way, it will save us a lot of time."

"We could use more detailed information in the request and response sections."

"The customer service and support were a little slow to respond. The browser sometimes checks alerts on unknown issues like latency from Apica's side."

"If you are adding any input file, the tool fails to capture the path."

"Alerting needs improvement. It's a little noisy. It needs some better options. Currently, they have an issue, when you set up a synthetic monitor, you can set up where it's monitoring from, a data center that Apica owns."

"The having to install an application on your desktop to utilize something like ZebraTester is a little cumbersome. It would be nice to see that become a web-based application. Having the documentation a little more accessible, and easier to digest by people who are just learning how to use the framework, especially when it comes to more complex or more edge-based cases would be really helpful to have."

"Apica should add more features and integrations with different tools and certain ticketing systems, like ServiceNow."

More Apica cons

"Human resource costs can be high when dealing with connection issues."

"For the PVX, they are in the process of getting the results to export to cloud and SaaS for analytics. They told me that this will happen later this year. Right now, for the most part, I create that data myself."

"The UI interface of Accedian Skylight could improve."

"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."

"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."

"The Accedian Skylight user interface still has room for improvement."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is not cheap, but it is in the midrange."

"The tool is completely free and open source. I've been using it for about two and a half years and installed it on both my personal and client machines without needing a license. All features are available for use without any hidden fees."

"The pricing is fair. It is neither too cheap nor too expensive."

"License management is another area that Apica could do better. We have already had these conversations with our account teams. This is something that they are looking at largely improving in upcoming releases. I believe that this is already on their roadmap."

"I am sure that Apica's price will be lower than LoadRunner."

"The pricing is very reasonable, but it is not cheap."

"The product is less expensive compared to LoadRunner."

"Another main difference between Apica and the other products was the cost. We really thought that the balance in Apica between the features and costs was the best among all the products on which we did a PoC."

More Apica pricing and cost advice

"It provides value and the cost is not huge."

"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."

"The pricing of Accedian Skylight is really good. The sensors are low cost. Their model to analytics for sensors is by license, endpoint, or session. With the probes for their analytics, if they get deployed virtually, they are free. The licensing is only based on flows. So, you can effectively deploy probes everywhere in your network. Then, if you want to look at a specific type of traffic, you can enter into it with a very low cost license. You can just use things like spam ports, mirrors, TAPs, and aggregators to optimize what sort of traffic you send to these analysis tools. Then, if you want to start looking at more, you can up your licensed as you go. You are not getting forced into expensive appliances or subscription models."

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

"We understand there's a significant cost difference, but have yet to investigate fully."

"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."

"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."

"The price is competitive overall, depending on the type of customer."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

31%

Computer Software Company

10%

Media Company

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

38%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apica Synthetic?

The GUI is powerful and doesn't require scripting or regular expressions. It has a vast finder for correlation, which is easier than other tools like JMeter and LoadRunner. It's also easy to integr...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apica Synthetic?

I know Apica is an expensive solution, but it is worth the money for the service it provides.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apica Synthetic?

Apica cannot perform endurance or scale-up tests independently. It requires other tools like ALM. When editing scripts, only one can be accessed at a time, risking changes affecting other folders. ...

See all answers

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?

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

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 45% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apica

June 2025

Download Apica product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

June 2025

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Also Known As

Apica LoadTest, Apica Synthetic

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision

Overview

Apica offers a unified platform to remove complexity and cost associated with data management. You collect, control, store, and observe your data and can quickly identify and resolve performance issues before they impact the end-user. Apica Ascent swiftly analyzes telemetry data in real-time, enabling prompt issue resolution, while automated root cause analysis, powered by machine learning, streamlines troubleshooting in complex distributed systems. The platform simplifies data collection by automating and managing agents through the platform’s Fleet product. Its Flow product simplifies and optimizes pipeline control with AI and ML to help you easily understand complex workflows. Its Store component allows you to never run out of storage space while you index and store machine data centrally on one platform and reduce costs, and remediate faster. Observe offers modern observability data management, helping you with MELT data, effortless dashboarding, and seamless integration of synthetic and real data.

Experience the Apica Ascent Platform

Apica

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers real-time application and network performance monitoring, VPN management, and network diagnostics across multiple sites.

Organizations use Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance for active and passive monitoring, stress testing, and troubleshooting performance issues. Deployed both on-premise and in the cloud, it supports IT infrastructure, security, and analytics with end-to-end performance measurement across cloud data centers. The modern, intuitive interface features TWAMP for real-time traffic accuracy and standardized reports, along with insightful dashboards for circuit performance, latency, jitter, and throughput monitoring.

What are the most important features?

TWAMP: Provides real-time traffic accuracy and standardized reporting.
Insightful Dashboards: Monitor circuit performance, latency, jitter, and throughput.
Security Integration: Compatible with tools like Splunk for enhanced security.
Application Support: Facilitates comprehensive network performance analysis.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Quick Corrective Actions: Immediate response capabilities for performance issues.
Easy Navigation: User-friendly layouts simplify monitoring and troubleshooting.
Comprehensive Analytics: Advanced tools for in-depth network performance insights.
Cloud and On-Premise Options: Flexible deployment to meet different needs.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance ensures robust performance monitoring and quick diagnostics for VPNs and internet lines. It aids in maintaining the integrity and security of data transference, facilitating active and passive monitoring, stress testing, and performance troubleshooting across geographically dispersed locations, ensuring seamless operation and compliance with industry standards.

Cisco

Sample Customers

HBO, JPMC, Morgan Stanley, Xander, EA Sports, Volvo

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

Buyer's Guide

Apica vs. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

June 2025

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