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AppNeta by Broadcom vs Observer GigaStor 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

AppNeta by Broadcom
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
63rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (44th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (17th), DX NetOps (3rd)
Observer GigaStor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
84th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (13th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of AppNeta by Broadcom is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Observer GigaStor is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AppNeta by Broadcom0.8%
Observer GigaStor0.5%
Other98.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Cliff Chapman - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at Linkstatus Ltd
Excellent support, easy configuration, and a reliable tool to know what the problem is and where the problem is
They should try and make diagnostics run a bit quicker. When the problem occurs on a network, AppNeta runs automatic diagnostics on the end-to-end path. The path it was testing only to the destination, it now runs the same test to all of the devices and all the intermediate devices. Depending on the number of intermediate devices, it can take several minutes to run. If we're trying to find or diagnose a problem that only lasts two or three minutes, it may be that the diagnostics is still running by the time the problem is cleared. The only thing, which I have also mentioned to AppNeta in the past, is that there should be much faster and much more lightweight diagnostics, which can be completed within 30 seconds or one minute, rather than in 5 to 10 minutes. Currently, when we have short-duration problems, we use a different tool, but we only use that different tool for short-duration problems. With AppNeta, as long as the problem exists for more than a few minutes, such as within 10 to 15 minutes, we can normally tell where the problem is. However, most of the problems that we deal with are intermittent. They're very rarely a permanent condition that needs to be addressed. That makes it more difficult to troubleshoot. We would look to see at least two or three events and hope they show the same results to raise our confidence that we've actually found the problem, rather than just a problem.
Jeroen-Dubbelman - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Bitrate
Aids significantly in the threat-hunting process and provides a score-based evaluation of user experience
There are many valuable features, but understanding end-user response times stands out. It provides a score-based evaluation of user experience, helping customers quickly pinpoint whether issues originate from the network, server, client, or application. Additionally, it facilitates in-depth analysis of application dependencies. The retrospective network analysis capability of Observer GigaStor has been beneficial. It's a pivotal feature for network performance solutions. However, I prefer to consider the entire solution suite - GigaStor, along with GigaFlow and Apex - for comprehensive network visibility and monitoring. So, I prefer to integrate all three solutions to provide the best visibility. They complement each other well, with Apex aggregating and correlating data from both GigaStor and GigaFlow to enhance environmental understanding and troubleshooting efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With one of our federal customers, we deployed these throughout their network and found multiple cases of misconfigured routers and NICs, which allowed the customer to move to a VOIP solution."
"No other company has been able to match AppNeta's capability at the same price point."
"Technical support is exceptional. They are very available, willing to work with our technicians and engineers and very open to providing training to understand their product more thoroughly."
"From a technical perspective, PathView provides an effective, reliable indicator of network availability across our widely distributed physical locations."
"The product helps us understand networks and user experience. It helps us to understand the issues."
"The solution's technical support is very good."
"The tool allows us to ensure the capacity, bandwidth, and packet loss of our VPN-based WAN within our thresholds end-to-end, and it is different from SNMP/NetFlow-based monitoring, which we also make use of."
"Since we implemented it, we've seen multiple performance improvements, which in turn results in increases in revenue and efficiency."
"The ability to capture packets. It is not only for monitoring. That is very important for a company that wants to keep an eye on the packets, the transactions, the flows..."
"It can help to write your rules, organize firewalls, your block, and also your protocols and IP address to come in or out of your network."
"I have no regrets using this product, I am very satisfied for what I paid for it and for the things I am able to do with the product."
"If you have the opportunity, I would strongly encourage you to get it, because it makes the IT experience easier and more flexible, by providing the ability to see things in your networks like the directory packet label."
"Go take a look at it. It's a great product and has great capabilities."
"This solution allows us to see exactly what is going on in the network and we can very quickly solve issues with users."
"I also have the ability to see an application's performance, to see what's going on, why a network is slow, why this program for this user is experiencing a delay or some network issue"
"It's able to capture packets and, after a long time, you can come and use that information; to check, to analyze - everything you would want to do. So it's very good and helpful if you want to protect your data. It is stored in a certain place where you can access it every time you want to analyze it."
 

Cons

"As you really start to grow your deployments, it does become quite expensive."
"Billing does not have a user friendly format that allows you to break down the billing of sub-companies and be able to see them with what has been spun up, what subscriptions are currently in use, what has been added new that month and to pull that in an easy to read and easy to import format."
"The initial setup is complex."
"Alerting. We have so many paths in our environment that it is strictly a reactive tool, not proactive."
"Instead of integrating with other people, they should expand their interior capabilities."
"I would like to see some advanced dashboard features. It could also be integrated with third-party tools. For example, an integration with a reporting solution would be helpful. Out-of-the-box, there are few dashboards or reports. What it does have is useful, but there should be additional dashboards."
"Because of the nature of how AppNeta works in terms of using bursts to depict how a network path performs, it is hard to correlate 24 hour performance 100% accurately."
"Cloud monitoring could be better. That's one of the biggest pain points for me. I have shared this feedback with them multiple times, but they're limited to some extent. That's one area where I've seen a problem."
"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."
"Graphics need improvement. Because a lot of the information there you have to input first in some case to have full potential. It could be more automated."
"The interface is pretty complex, so for the average user, it takes a while to get up to speed with it. I would like it to be more user-friendly."
"Maybe the graphical user interface could be simplified to allow people to use it more easily. It's already good, but they can work more on it to make it even easier."
"GigaStor feeds into Apex. So, the area where there could be improvement would be in artificial intelligence. For example, the incorporation of more advanced machine learning or AI capabilities could enhance its functionality."
"The Observer Console UI is consistent and stable, but could use some updating to be more modern."
"I would like to have more than 4TB of storage available in the portable version of this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find the solution's price to be fairly good."
"It's worth the money."
"The small probe is probably around $3,000 and the very large probe that they make for massive data centers might be $50,000 or $60,000. It's a subscription model, so the payment is per year."
"I inherited this from a different version, and I haven't yet gone through a renewal because we had purchased three years upfront. So, to me, that still remains to be seen. Once it comes up for renewal, we'll see what happens. Especially because now it is Broadcom, it is going to change anyway."
"Broadcom software is always a little expensive because they provide quality."
"AppNeta by Broadcom is not expensive."
"We typically don't get involved in the commercial side, but the list price is probably something like $3,000 for a small probe. However, that gives all of the features that the probe can do, whether or not you use them. In the old days, up until two or three years ago, each of the separate features was a separately licensable module so that you could add things that you wanted, and you didn't have to add things that you didn't want. They've changed all that now, and everything the probe can do is a part of the base license."
"It's quite expensive."
"It depends on the requirements you have. There are three types of license. There's the updates license, the work group license, and the workstation license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Insurance Company
6%
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What open source tool can one use to measure bandwidth from one's upstream service provider?
One I am looking closely at is AppNeta. They have an appliance that can digest the flow and do a better job than Netflow. The other one we are using is ExtraHop. This has both a Datacenter Hig...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ebay, Citrix, National Instruments, Marriott, AT&T, Bon-Ton, McDonald's, Netflix, PayPal, Uber, QAD
Cisco Systems, Hawaiian Telecom, Renown Health, State of Nevada, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Allstate Insurance, Jack Henry & Associates, United States Airforce, US Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Chicago Board Options Exchange
Find out what your peers are saying about AppNeta by Broadcom vs. Observer GigaStor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.