Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE comparison

Cisco and NETSCOUT are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Cisco is ranked #43 with an average rating of 8.0, while NETSCOUT is ranked #29 with an average rating of 8.5. Cisco holds a 0.8% mindshare in NMS, compared to NETSCOUT’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of NETSCOUT users who would recommend it.

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

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1,525 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Read 50 NETSCOUT nGeniusONE reviews

3,346 Views
2,309 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE and Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance are enterprise-level network management solutions. While nGeniusONE is noted for superior data visualization, Cisco leads with comprehensive features, better pricing, and user support, which can justify its investment.

Features: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE offers robust reporting, traffic analysis, and dependency mapping. It provides extensive packet inspection and NetFlow traffic analysis, monitoring real-time communication effectively. Features cover voice traffic analysis, latency detection, and insightful dashboards. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance delivers effective network management but lacks the depth of packet capture and analysis found in nGeniusONE.

Room for Improvement: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE's complex interface and high cost receive criticism. Enhanced GUI could improve user experience and reduce dependence on specialized staff. Modular pricing is suggested to avoid payment for unused features. Cisco could enhance intuitive configurations and workflow integrations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE, deployed on-premises with hybrid options, is known for responsive tech support but requires dedicated staff, affecting ease of deployment. Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance offers on-premises and cloud compatibility with less complex setups and accessible support, earning higher user satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: NETSCOUT nGeniusONE's pricing is premium, with reliability and capabilities that offset costs, but not all users make full use of its features. Licensing rigidity can lead to accumulating costs, though ROI is achieved through decreased troubleshooting time. Cisco's competitive pricing offers ROI through quick resolutions and improved customer satisfaction, reinforcing its value proposition.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

September 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

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

43rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (46th)

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

29th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE	1.5%
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance	0.8%
Other	97.7%

Network Monitoring Software

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…

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Ruslan Melnyk

Business Unit Manager at BAKOTECH

Useful for network performance monitoring

My manager can explain the use cases attached to the product. I am a unit leader in my company, and I don't sell the product directly to our partners or customers. In my company, I manage certain processes and a team while building, developing, and providing them with a direction for the market. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is a good solution for network performance monitoring since it is not cloud-based. My company sells NETSCOUT nGeniusONE in eight to ten countries. I think the solution is not good for capacity planning, but it is better to help find problems in applications because not every infrastructure is good at managing working applications. I think it is a solution meant for applications. The tool is useful for solving problems attached to applications. The tool's real-time network monitoring capability was used when the product was more reactive. In our company, if we use real-time monitoring, then we need to deal with raw traffic. In our company, if we don't see any problem in the real-time systems, we have the possibility to rely on the tool since it acts like a time machine for us, which can allow us to get back to the areas of problem and solve them. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. For many users, it can be a good monitoring system that can be scaled up in the future. I think it is a good product to start with when working systems in an environment. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is another tool used to manage raw traffic, and I find it to integrate well into our customers' network. I am not using it actively on the system. I use the tool for network packet brokers. I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

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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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"Among the valuable features, if it's TAP'ed well, are the density of the data that you can get and the relatively high veracity or accuracy rate that we see from it."

"Deep packet inspection is a very useful tool as it works in real time and uses serial packet-level analysis."

"Aside from having the logs that are just on the firewall, we're able to get the traffic as it's going in between, throughout our network. It isolates end sources that are having issues, where we don't have any other tools that would be able to go down to an end-user's computer to find out what's going on."

"The quick drill-down views are similar to Wireshark views. Those are quite nice, with the views on how you interpret some of the data. The granularity of how far you can drill down into milliseconds or microseconds is a very nice feature. It actually stores quite a lot of data in its database."

"It has versatility to correlate different traffic types and performance management statistics."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable feature is visibility."

"The solution transforms packet wire data into real-time data that is actionable. It helps us with faster detection of issues and allows us to create alerts."

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It needs the possibility to export data because it is not easy to see larger data sets, e.g., for one month. It would be interesting to export data into a PDF or dashboard to keep a history of the situation."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"One of the products we use is SolarWinds, and it provides a very cool mapping of an agent from end-to-end. If NETSCOUT could somehow implement that into their design... make it quicker and easier to get those net paths, it would be huge."

"I would recommend enhancing the APM capabilities."

"This is a typical thing, but every time they do a major code upgrade, we get hit with some nasty bugs. Some of them literally stop the whole platform from collecting traffic data. They should really do more Q&A on the software stability before release."

"Trying to set up dashboards is hard to figure out at times, if you don't do it every day. It's not really intuitive to set them all up... If there were a wizard to take us through, step-by-step, creating dashboards and the like, that would be really helpful."

"I would like to see improvement in the user experience. It's hard to manage it. We need a dedicated, highly-qualified person, compared to similar tools. Obviously, it's in a higher bracket, salary-wise. That's something the NETSCOUT team needs to focus on. It's a completely niche-skill technology, where we need to have the skills to manage, maintain, and deploy it."

"It's not intuitive, it's not simple to use. It is probably the only monitoring tool, out of all the ones that I have, that I really need an expert on, an expert from nGenius, a contractor that I have to pay, to manage the tool. And that's because it's simply not easy to use. Netscout needs to focus on making it easier to use."

"Some of the filters could be easier to see and to set up. That's the only thing that I've ever had any trouble with."

"There is currently less visibility or GUI to analyse the packet for troubleshooting purposes."

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

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

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

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

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

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"We have a premium customized contract for the solution."

"Make sure you get the low down on your licensing and understand the licensing requirements before making a purchase, especially when it comes to an upgrade. Make sure that it suits your needs before you commit to it. For example, we purchased ATA at version 6.2.1. At that time, the licensing covered everything we need. NETSCOUT comes out with 6.2.2, stating that in order to upgrade, you had to purchase CyberStream licensing. Now that requires some additional funding from both a capital investment and a maintenance cost. That's something that should have been said, "Well, if you want these additional features, you will need to purchase these CyberStreams." Otherwise, we should be allowed to continue on the basic operations as it is now through the newer releases without being stuck."

"It is a little overall pricey and expensive, but you get what you pay for."

"The product is too expensive compared to other products."

"Cost is probably the biggest drawback. Compared to some of the newer vendors that have popped up in the space, it's definitely more on the expensive side... [But] it's been able to keep its value, even in the face of the cheaper competition."

"I rate the price of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE a four out of five."

"Like any company, we always want better pricing. The pricing is okay, but it's not a cheap solution. When you want to deploy it across an enterprise as large as ours, you go into seven figures. It's not a cheap solution to get out there."

"Their pricing is very competitive with other solutions... But what I like about NETSCOUT's licensing is that it's shared across all their platforms. They don't create a new licensing scheme for every one of their products. So for nGeniusONE, you buy a certain license level, and it works on all of their products."

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

36%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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	14
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	37

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.

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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.

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Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.

See all answers

What do you like most about NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?

The pricing is a bit high yet not overly expensive. The cost depends on the size of the customer, as sizing controls the pricing.

See all answers

Comparisons

ThousandEyes vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 39% of the time

Dynatrace vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 15% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 11% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 9% of the time

AWS X-Ray vs Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Competitors

Dynatrace vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 10% of the time

Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 10% of the time

ThousandEyes vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 9% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 8% of the time

LiveAction LiveNX vs NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Compared 3% of the time

More NETSCOUT nGeniusONE Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

September 2025

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Buyer's Guide

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

August 2025

Download NETSCOUT nGeniusONE product report

Also Known As

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

NETSCOUT nGenius, nGeniusONE

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

The nGenius Real-Time Monitor software provides you with tools to monitor and display information about your network both historically and in real time. The nGenius Real-Time Monitor software allows you to understand your current network usage and to plan for future needs. It also allows you to proactively troubleshoot problem areas in your network.

NETSCOUT

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

Cerner Corporation

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

September 2025

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