Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs Dynatrace comparison

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 352 Dynatrace reviews

24,085 Views
16,860 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Dynatrace and Accedian Skylight compete in the application performance management category. Dynatrace has the upper hand due to its advanced AI capabilities.

What features are offered by Dynatrace in comparison to Accedian Skylight?

Dynatrace offers AI-driven performance monitoring, detailed analytics, and automated root cause analysis. Accedian Skylight offers network performance insights, visibility into network health, and real-time monitoring.

What areas of improvement can be found in Dynatrace in comparison to Accedian Skylight?

Dynatrace could improve its integration options, customization capabilities, and user interface complexity. Accedian Skylight needs better documentation, an enhanced user experience, and more comprehensive reporting features.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of Dynatrace in comparison to Accedian Skylight?

Dynatrace’s deployment is swift and straightforward, with solid customer support, though users sometimes find it complex. Accedian Skylight has smooth deployment but receives mixed feedback on support quality.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with Dynatrace in comparison to Accedian Skylight?

Dynatrace users acknowledge higher setup costs but feel that the advanced features justify the expense through substantial ROI. Accedian Skylight users find its cost-effective pricing model appealing, but ROI feedback suggests varied experiences.

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

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Dynatrace

Download the complete report

Helped 873,585 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

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

43rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (40th)

Dynatrace

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

352

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (11th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dynatrace is 8.1%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dynatrace	8.1%
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance	0.6%
Other	91.3%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

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

Manish Indupuri

senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

AI-driven insights have reduced downtime and improved cross-team collaboration

We encountered some challenges while using Dynatrace. Although the initial setup was smooth, fine-tuning alert thresholds and custom metrics took some time. Another challenge was that Dynatrace charges based on host units, so we had to carefully plan our agent deployments. The licensing model is expensive. Additionally, the complexity of setup is an issue. While OneAgent and auto-discover services are powerful, the setup is more complex compared to other tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. These integrations are simple and basic, but Dynatrace setup requires more complexity based on the environment. For new users wanting to use Dynatrace, it is difficult. However, the AI-related solutions and metrics took us to the next level for identifying and fixing things. Dynatrace requires an agent for operation. OneAgent is powerful, but it is also resource-heavy. On lightweight nodes or older systems, the agent can slightly impact performance. If Dynatrace could implement a lightweight agent behavior, we could make things faster. Additionally, if Dynatrace could add a long-term retention policy so that we could store more data and find fine-grained details, that would help us. While Dynatrace managed edition supports on-premises deployment, the SaaS version depends on cloud connectivity. For highly regulated or air-gapped environments, setup and updates can be challenging. Although the initial setup is smooth, if someone wants to fine-tune it and fully understand the tool end-to-end, it could be tricky.

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."

"The response times, with the performance, are really interesting too, where you can see the packet loss."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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."

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"I'm also involved on the practical side, putting in all the automation, that automation platform. To have a tool like Dynatrace, where I don't have to work out for hours how to configure and set up alerts and monitoring - especially in a solution that is not completed yet - it's not only a major time-saver, but I know going forward that it will be able to learn how the system operates. Day one, we're getting all of that stuff for free, out-of-the-box."

"The dashboard gives us something to show managers and our business where the problems are. That's really been eye-opening for them. They can see, yes, this tool has been a good investment. They can see where the problems are and how we can take advantage of it for making those necessary corrections."

"In terms of explaining to a customer how their data works, it has been a great tool. Instead of trying to draw it out, then hoping that is exactly where the data goes."

"I think one of the most valuable features is the Dynatrace API, for both metrics and configuration."

"The most useful features are cloud monitoring, application monitoring, and alert notifications."

"The most valuable feature is the beautiful UI."

"You can do deep dive analysis and find root cause quickly."

"Daily metrics which us analyze the page composition and the corresponding performance metrics so we can quickly and easily determine when something has changed, to aid in root cause analysis."

More Dynatrace pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"There should be an option to update and upgrade the solution to the new version without having to re-buy it. I have clients switching to other solutions. The old solution is great, but if you change your license to a new one, you have to almost re-buy it completely."

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"For an easy view of global and entity-specific configurations, a separate tile or pane aggregating these configurations should be implemented."

"I would like to know if classes and methods selected in "Method Sensor Rules" were changed in the applications, and not depend on the developers to warn us."

"We are happy with the server monitoring, but we feel like the application monitoring should be improved."

"If the user interface were made more intuitive then it would really benefit the product."

"We have a couple of one page apps that it has a problem with because it doesn't call to the server all the time. I believe part of that is taken care of in the next version."

"The analytics feature provides us some information, but is limited for now. We want to see how we can consume the data further down and have analytics guys look at the datacenter information."

"Richer, deeper partner channel: It needs to expand and deepen the business use cases, where their solutions can help."

"End-to-end monitoring could use more default dashboards."

More Dynatrace cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"It's not for free, clearly. But on the other hand, it offers very interesting functionality. We pay around €100,000."

"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."

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

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

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

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace is excellent."

"The product is really fast to implement and gives customers instant value. This is important, because it reduces costs on the implementation."

"Dynatrace is bit costly and not easily affordable."

"The cost is somewhat high."

"The limitations I see are more to do - and maybe it's because of the nature of the job I have - but they have to do with pricing. It's a little bit pricey. It's a very good tool. It's worth the price, to a certain degree. But it's hard to justify when it's that costly."

"There is time savings. People's times have been cut in half using this solution because we were previously doing a lot of that manual work. Now, it's a lot more automated, and the data is just there."

"Dynatrace's pricing for their consumption units is rather arcane compared to some of the other tools, thus making forward-looking calculations based on capacity planning quite hard."

"The licensing model is confusing in solutioning clients for the number of hosts needed to deploy."

More Dynatrace pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

873,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

31%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	77
Midsize Enterprise	50
Large Enterprise	290

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.

What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?

What advice do you have for others considering Accedian Skylight?

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Any advice about APM solutions?

The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not f...

What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?

While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything els...

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Comparisons

Compared 21% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 7% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 6% of the time

LiveAction LiveNX vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 5% of the time

Grafana vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Competitors

Datadog vs Dynatrace

Compared 10% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Dynatrace

Compared 5% of the time

New Relic vs Dynatrace

Compared 5% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Dynatrace

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Dynatrace

Compared 4% of the time

More Dynatrace Competitors

Product Reports

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Dynatrace product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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

Dynatrace is an AI-powered software intelligence monitoring platform that accelerates digital transformation and simplifies cloud complexities. Dynatrace is an entirely automated full-stack solution that provides data and answers about the performance of your applications and deep insight into every transaction throughout every application, including the end-user experience. By modernizing and automating enterprise cloud operations, users can deliver an optimal digital experience with higher quality software to customers faster.

Dynatrace offers an all-in-one automated artificial intelligence solution that brings together application performance, cloud and infrastructure, and digital experience monitoring. Dynatrace accelerates performance-driven results through operations, development, and business teams with a shared metrics platform. In addition, users are provided a full-stack monitoring experience with three patented technologies:

Smartscape - visualization mechanism that maps the totality of everything working in your environment and detects any casual dependencies between your applications, processes, websites, services, hosts, cloud infrastructure, and networks.
OneAgent - a technology that analyzes, gathers ,and unifies all business performance metrics throughout every layer of your technology stack.
PurePath Technology - code-level context and timings are captured from the mainframe to the cloud for all end-to-end transactions.

What does Dynatrace offer?

Dynatrace redefines how organizations monitor their digital ecosystems. The solution offers:

Cloud Automation: With AI engine Davis®, users can see the exact reason for problems and facilitate quick auto-remediation and intelligent cloud orchestration.
Application Security: With automated application vulnerability management, users can deliver applications faster and more securely.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Convenient broad visibility across your environments is provided with streamlined, automated infrastructure monitoring.
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM): Optimize your applications, provide better support, and improve user experience with a combination of Real User Monitoring (RUM), Session Replay, and synthetic monitoring throughout your environment.
Applications and Microservices: For complex cloud environments, Dynatrace can automatically provide visibility and root-cause answers. It can also monitor microservices.
Digital Business Analytics: Get AI-powered, real-time answers to analytical business queries with KPIs and metrics that are already flowing through applications.

Reviews from Real Users

Dynatrace is the only solution that provides answers to organizations based on deep insight into each user, transaction, and organization's environment.

Barry P., a managing performance engineer at Medica Health Plans, writes, "With Dynatrace, we have synthetic checks and real-user monitoring of all of our websites, places where members and providers can interact with us over the web. We monitor the response times of those with Dynatrace, and it's all integrated into one place."

A consultant at a tech service company notes, "A feature that's one of the highlights of Dynatrace is the AI. The second most valuable feature is OneAgent. Between infrastructures, applications, operating systems, you can deploy with just a single agent and can practically install and forget about it."

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

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. Dynatrace