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Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance vs SolarWinds NPM vs ThousandEyes 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance is 0.7%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThousandEyes is 3.4%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.4%
ThousandEyes3.4%
Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance0.7%
Other91.5%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Tochukwu Uzomba - PeerSpot reviewer
Rich modular monitoring capabilities offer tailored monitoring needs with good support
SolarWinds NPM is used for monitoring different solutions like database, infrastructure, and network performance. Each of these requires separate solutions, and SolarWinds provides modular options for monitoring Based on my experiences, SolarWinds NPM can handle large network infrastructures…
Edmar Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities while identifying exact issue locations
When I first started using ThousandEyes, I found it challenging to extract useful information due to the numerous options available. I needed some training to effectively troubleshoot. More detailed documentation explaining the metrics and the testing mechanisms would be helpful. The information is there, but understanding exactly what ThousandEyes is testing to make its conclusions can be obscure.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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..."
"One valuable feature we have is real-time monitoring for connection issues."
"The solution’s UI and single pane of glass is good. The new dashboard is modern with its new design. The look of it is not pretty, but it is efficient, which is good. It is user-friendly; you can find what you need on the interface quickly."
"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."
"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."
"The performance of Accedian Skylight is better than other vendors."
"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."
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"This has helped us to monitor the availability of our routers, switches, servers, and virtual environments."
"It covers everything from end to end, from the standpoint of endpoint machines and the routers and switches. The switch port also comes there."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds NPM are network performance monitoring and the overall benefit for servers."
"The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."
"I like SolarWinds support because it's 24/7. You describe your issues, your situation and maybe two or three hours later you can discuss a solution with a technical engineer."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"The installation process is not hard at all."
"One feature I liked is end-user monitoring."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution was the ability to see how the connection quality is between the sites and get an alert if it was turning bad."
"The authentication overall - including to the VPN and LAN - is excellent."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its scalability. It is a good tool for network admins."
"Overall, I would rate ThousandEyes nine out of ten."
"From our perspective, ThousandEyes stands out as an invaluable tool because of its deep and extensive capabilities."
"ThousandEyes has positively impacted our organization by enabling us to know if a third-party hosted application isn't functioning properly, allowing us to determine what's actually going on and whether the issue lies on our side or with the application provider."
 

Cons

"This solution is expensive compared to some others."
"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."
"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."
"Because of the policies in Vietnam, we cannot connect the system to the Accedian cloud. It would be good if Accedian could provide a local cloud. In the next release, I would like them to focus on improving and adding more reporting features. This will help the operations teams."
"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."
"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."
"The Accedian Skylight user interface still has room for improvement."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"An area for improvement would be the use of modular licenses, which are not practical for big clients."
"They don't have a local support team."
"It would be beneficial if NPM offered support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), as currently, it does not support this and we are migrating our services there."
"I would like to have a Syslog server module for this product. That would make the solution better."
"The solution is considered expensive."
"The SolarWinds notification and alerting configuration could be simplified as it would be easier to find if it was within the NPM web application instead of in a separate client application."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"ThousandEyes should expand its application monitoring to monitor some communication applications."
"It might be practical to extend monitoring capabilities to include network devices"
"We can show the traffic path in some cases, but it's almost impossible to do so in cloud networks like CDN, Akamai, or Microsoft."
"The tool does not provide features for application-level monitoring."
"It would be nice if the solution covered other areas like server monitoring."
"More detailed documentation explaining the metrics and the testing mechanisms would be helpful."
"I feel it needs more holistic integration. It needs more improvement."
"Presently, it lacks the ability to integrate with other Cisco products."
 

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."
"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 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 price is competitive overall, depending on the type of customer."
"We understand there's a significant cost difference, but have yet to investigate fully."
"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."
"The pricing is cheaper than other competing products, which is better for our budgets."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"It is not an expensive product."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"It is a quite expensive solution."
"In our company, we incur a yearly expense in our company for the licensing part. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten since it is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is cheap; I rate it a five out of ten."
"The solution is cheap."
"The solution costs several thousand dollars per year."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
36%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
 

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 ...
What is your primary use case for Accedian Skylight?
I had prepared for COC and the client. I work as a vendor for a client using Flow Mount for network performance monit...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools ar...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalabil...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
ThousandEyes could improve by implementing a similar incident management system like BigPanda ( /products/bigpanda-re...
 

Also Known As

Accedian Skylight, Accedian SkyLIGHT PVX, SkyLIGHT PVX, SecurActive, Performance Vision
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: October 2025.
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