CA App Synthetic Monitor vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance comparison

Broadcom and Cisco are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Broadcom is ranked #68, while Cisco is ranked #45 with an average rating of 8.0. Broadcom holds a 0.5% mindshare in APM, compared to Cisco’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

CA App Synthetic Monitor

Read 3 CA App Synthetic Monitor reviews

778 Views
762 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

2,900 Views
1,305 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

CA App Synthetic Monitor

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

CA App Synthetic Monitor and Accedian Skylight are two competitive products in the network performance monitoring space. Accedian Skylight has the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set and superior user ratings.

Features: CA App Synthetic Monitor offers simplicity with uptime and performance metrics, ease of deployment, and cost-effective monitoring. Accedian Skylight provides advanced analytics, deeper network performance insights, and a comprehensive feature set, valued for its detailed data and in-depth analysis capabilities.

Room for Improvement: CA App Synthetic Monitor needs more advanced features and better integration. Users of Accedian Skylight report its complexity can be overwhelming and there's a learning curve. CA App Synthetic Monitor could benefit from expanded capabilities, and Skylight needs to address user experience issues to simplify its comprehensive tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CA App Synthetic Monitor offers quick deployment with a user-friendly setup and responsive customer service. Accedian Skylight requires a more thorough understanding for deployment, with highly rated customer service but a need for more support due to system complexity.

Pricing and ROI: CA App Synthetic Monitor is cost-effective with substantial ROI for small to medium enterprises focused on essential monitoring. Accedian Skylight, though more expensive, delivers high ROI through extensive and detailed performance analysis for larger enterprises needing in-depth insights. Users find Skylight's higher costs justified by the comprehensive data it provides, appealing to businesses needing simpler solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed CA App Synthetic Monitor vs. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

CA App Synthetic Monitor vs. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

March 2026

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Helped 885,376 peers since 2012

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

CA App Synthetic Monitor

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

68th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

45th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (45th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of CA App Synthetic Monitor is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance	0.7%
CA App Synthetic Monitor	0.5%
Other	98.8%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

reviewer2286675

System Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

A reliable solution for SSL offloading and to encrypt outside traffic

If you are responsible for monitoring the logs in F5, it isn't very easy. The format is complicated compared to different vendors. For example, Fortinet and Cisco have feasible formats for sending and fetching logs. Suppose I'm monitoring the logs and everything, and when I am retrieving logs from F5, I want to know whether it is regular traffic or any abnormality is happening. The logs itself is not user-friendly. It may not give you a clear way of what's happening. You have to go through different websites and work on it. You have to waste so much time on it.

Read full review

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…

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

"Each had strengths in one area or another, but CA covered the majority of our needs end-to-end."

"From our experience, it really helps managers in measuring application SLAs and viewing historical performance data."

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

"It has clearly saved us money."

"When a remote contact complains about a slow application, we can immediately pinpoint the cause of concern."

"Network control when experiencing problems indicating "the network is slow"."

"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."

"Performance Vision saves time diagnosing performance problems and anticipates where investment is needed by pointing to the infrastructure limitations."

"Skylight is not used on a daily basis, but when it's used it usually helps to fix a problem pretty fast."

"We heavily use the "network analysis" section to dissect and analyze flows."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

Cons

"The RBMS component is limited as you can only record using Internet Explorer."

"Pricing makes little sense. We had examples where it would be cheaper to have two basic accounts than one intermediate."

"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."

"This solution is expensive compared to some others."

"We have encountered problems with the license that is connected to the hypervisor on which the virtual appliance is deployed."

"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."

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

"A lower price and more flexible versions will help the product."

"Increase the drive’s capacity to store more data, and maybe switch to a database system similar to 3Big-Data."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

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

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

"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 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."

"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."

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	9

Questions from the Community

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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.

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What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?

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What advice do you have for others considering Accedian Skylight?

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

March 2026

Download CA App Synthetic Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

March 2026

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Also Known As

CA ASM

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

Overview

IT organizations require full visibility into business-critical applications regardless of where they're hosted in order to maintain service levels and proactively deal with issues before the end-user is impacted. CA App Synthetic Monitor uses synthetic transactions to provide performance insight for these applications no matter where they're hosted: outside the firewall, in the cloud or delivered via a managed service provider (MSP). Delivered as software as a service, CA App Synthetic Monitor provides end-to-end transaction response time visibility into cloud, mobile and traditional web applications using synthetic transactions delivered by a network of 95 monitoring stations across six continents, 48 countries, 93 cities and 15 time zones.

Broadcom

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

Sample Customers

Lexmark

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

CA App Synthetic Monitor vs. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

March 2026

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