Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

Cisco and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Cisco is ranked #40 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #54. Cisco holds a 0.9% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

Read 24 Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance reviews

5,193 Views
2,545 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

3,341 Views
2,071 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Cisco Provider Connectivity...

SolarWinds AppOptics

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

Accedian Skylight and SolarWinds AppOptics are both powerful tools in network and application performance monitoring. SolarWinds AppOptics has the upper hand due to its feature-rich offerings and comprehensive monitoring capabilities.

Features: Accedian Skylight provides rich analytics, detailed insights, and a straightforward deployment process. SolarWinds AppOptics offers extensive integrations, comprehensive monitoring capabilities, and substantial customer support.

Room for Improvement: Accedian Skylight needs improvements in reporting, visualization, and alerting capabilities. SolarWinds AppOptics should enhance alerting, anomaly detection, and dashboard customization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Accedian Skylight is noted for a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. SolarWinds AppOptics is user-friendly but stands out with extensive documentation and support.

Pricing and ROI: Accedian Skylight is seen as cost-effective with high ROI. SolarWinds AppOptics is more expensive but justifies its price with robust features and significant ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds AppOptics Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

June 2026

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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 Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

40th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (47th)

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

54th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (62nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (42nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.8%, 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	0.9%
SolarWinds AppOptics	0.8%
Other	98.3%

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

John Yuko

Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd

Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions

I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

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

"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."

"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."

"Capturing traffic [is very interesting]. Currently, with our configuration, we don't capture the payload of the packets, just the header. But when we want the body, the payload of the packets, we can do a PCAP, and then analyze it within Wireshark."

"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."

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

"The pricing of Accedian Skylight is really good; the sensors are low cost, their licensing model lets clients start small and grow as they need without being forced into expensive appliances or subscription models, and that is one of the things that we really like about offering it to our clients because they are not left out getting the right sort of information straightaway."

"The feature I used to like the most was its ability to decode layer seven protocols, although this is becoming less useful now that encryption is so widespread."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pros

"The product has a great dashboard."

"With minimal effort on our part, TraceView provides extraordinary visibility into the requests that flow through our SOA applications."

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."

"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

"SolarWinds AppOptics does far more than what an individual may realize; it is not just a SIEM tool."

"It's a solid application."

More SolarWinds AppOptics pros

Cons

"The licensing of the virtual pollers is problematic because they are attached to the physical ESX on which they are installed."

"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."

"Embed a warning system to a mailbox when it exceeds the threshold for use of bandwidth over a given period of time."

"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."

"Pricing is a little bit expensive."

"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."

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance cons

"I'd like to see the ability to use other internal instrumented applications as filters in the overview/aggregation screen."

"Does not perform traditional SNMP/CLI/NetFlow/WMI etc monitoring."

"The support is not too bad, but also not very good—it's quite standard."

"We had a stability issue with a portion of the installation (Sequencer) when it was first introduced and have chosen not to install that specific function."

"Because of its inability to monitor mobile solutions, I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."

"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."

More SolarWinds AppOptics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

More Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance pricing and cost advice

"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."

"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

13%

Construction Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

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	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

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.

See all answers

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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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance

June 2026

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance report

Download Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

June 2026

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Also Known As

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

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

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

SolarWinds AppOptics offers powerful network performance monitoring and application insights, aiding enterprises in optimizing operations.

SolarWinds AppOptics provides comprehensive tools for network and application performance management. This platform enhances real-time monitoring capabilities, offering topology discovery and hop-by-hop performance analysis. With a focus on minimal configuration, users gain extraordinary visibility into service-oriented architecture applications and are equipped to identify performance issues efficiently. The dashboard's integration capabilities streamline application performance data, empowering organizations with robust reporting features. The deployment is popularly on-premises, yet improvements are desired in pricing strategy and integrations with existing tools.

What are the important features of SolarWinds AppOptics?

Topology Discovery: Facilitates understanding of network structure and connections.
Real-Time Monitoring: Delivers current data to monitor system performance live.
Heat Maps: Provides visual insights into network traffic patterns and performance metrics.
Pathview Monitoring: Enables tracking and evaluation of network performance per segment.
Integration Capabilities: Supports metrics integration for comprehensive system monitoring.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Efficiency in Issue Resolution: Swift identification of network bottlenecks and performance issues.
Enhanced Reporting: In-depth reports facilitating data-driven decisions.
Increased Visibility: Comprehensive insights into application and network activities.
Minimal Configuration: Quick setup enabling immediate utility and productivity.

SolarWinds AppOptics is widely used in network operations within enterprises, also extending to server and application monitoring. Deployed to track servers and network devices, it aids in analyzation of logs and data across environments, and is essential for service management. Specific industries benefit from detailed deployment inventory and management portfolios enabled by AppOptics.

SolarWinds

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

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

June 2026

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Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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