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Cisco Crosswork Network Insights vs Observer GigaStor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Crosswork Network Ins...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
35th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 (14th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Crosswork Network Insights is 0.2%. 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 (%)
Cisco Crosswork Network Insights0.2%
Observer GigaStor0.5%
Other99.3%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

James  Scot - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Specialist at FedEx
Automation has transformed endpoint deployment and streamlines multi-vendor network operations
The best features that Cisco Crosswork Network Insights offers include a single pane of glass, multi-vendor comparison, and the ability to reduce engineer workload. The single pane of glass and multi-vendor comparison features help my team day-to-day because with the single pane of glass, we are able to manage everything at a single place, hence saving a lot of time, and the administration becomes very easy. Additionally, there is real-time network monitoring and analytics, multi-vendor and multi-domain support, scalable AI-driven insights to make data-driven decisions easy, and a modular application ecosystem with open APIs. Cisco Crosswork Network Insights has empowered our team to deploy network devices at customer locations more efficiently than ever before, and it also delivers critical network telemetry, streamlining troubleshooting and reducing reliance on manual processes. Cisco Crosswork Network Insights has positively impacted my organization by enhancing automation for endpoint deployment, hence saving a lot of time, and network usage statistics delivery to the end user's environment has been quicker.
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

"The real-time analytics feature of Cisco is very good."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Insights has positively impacted my organization by reducing downtime when any problems are detected early before impacting users, allowing us to take action."
"The advanced visualization tools were really nicely done."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Insights has positively impacted us by securing our data, including customer data, and it secures our cybersecurity products while being excellent for security purposes."
"What I personally appreciate about Cisco Crosswork Network Insights are the monitoring and real-time features, which are quite helpful for us, as they provide us the previous logs and the current situation, specifically for troubleshooting issues and conducting RCAs."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Insights has been very fundamental and robust and helpful in my organization, empowering our team to deploy network devices at customer locations more efficiently than ever, and it also delivers critical network telemetry, streamlining troubleshooting and reducing reliance on manual processes."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Insights has impacted my organization positively as it has saved a lot of time, reduced management overhead, and simplified operations through a single pane of glass."
"The major benefits of using Cisco Crosswork Network Insights are that it is a better product to plan and deploy the network, as it is quite a comprehensive product that gives real-time visualization and lifecycle management, reduces the operating expenses eventually, decreases the deployment time, and definitely creates interest for the staff and boosts their productivity."
"This solution allows us to see exactly what is going on in the network and we can very quickly solve issues with users."
"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."
"Go take a look at it. It's a great product and has great capabilities."
"Enables us to go back in time to capture an issue and analyze it for a solution, and this after the fact analysis is key to overcoming the bump in the night issues."
"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."
"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."
"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..."
"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."
 

Cons

"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is somewhat high compared to other network products similar to Cisco."
"For monitoring capabilities of Cisco Crosswork Network Insights, the monitoring is for Cisco only, from my knowledge."
"There are aspects of Cisco Crosswork Network Insights that I feel need improvement, such as faster data processing, as it currently takes too much time."
"The reason I did not give a nine or ten for Cisco Crosswork Network Insights is integration and price, as that is what prevents me from giving the maximum points."
"There are a couple of things I would improve about Cisco Crosswork Network Insights, such as capital efficiency and better utilization of operating expenses, allowing for multi-vendor integration."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Insights is not an easy-to-use product and thus requires some training to ensure that it can be used to the best of its capabilities."
"Cisco Crosswork Network Insights can improve in its setup complexity, as it has a very complex setup that requires skilled network engineers for deployment and tuning."
"From my perspective, there is some room for improvement in the product, as you have to check your competitors, such as what Juniper is doing and what HP is offering, and those things have to come in to stay and survive in the market."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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
Construction Company
39%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Healthcare Company
7%
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Crosswork Network Insights?
The purchasing of Cisco Crosswork Network Insights is managed by generating the PR and then the procurement team takes care of the pricing and purchasing, which are directly from Cisco or another m...
What needs improvement with Cisco Crosswork Network Insights?
In future updates of Cisco Crosswork Network Insights, I would like to see more integrated AI with such tools.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Crosswork Network Insights?
Currently, our infrastructure has very limited use of Cisco Crosswork Network Insights, so we haven't explored much of those technologies, and I'm not getting anything to improve from that perspect...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Cisco Crosswork Network Insights vs. Observer GigaStor and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,005 professionals have used our research since 2012.