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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs ITRS Geneos comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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 Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
37th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (4th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (9th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)
ITRS Geneos
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
68th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (33rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (45th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ITRS Geneos is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics1.0%
ITRS Geneos0.6%
Other98.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Harun-Owr-Roshid - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at BRIGHT-i SYSTEMS LIMITED
Have streamlined network visibility and troubleshooting while seeing benefits from AI integration
In terms of improvements for Cisco Secure Network Analytics, from the implementation point of view, now that AI is in use, some other features need to be upgraded considering AI solutions. Proper management of the database is also important; it should be centralized for easier data collection from a single database. When precise manual analysis is needed, it's sometimes difficult, so having a centralized database will allow network admins to find actual scenarios more effectively, especially since some information may not be visible on the GUI. Cisco should upgrade their hardware part to run the database, because sometimes it cannot handle the load while all features are running in the network. The database management should indeed be centralized because while AI runs behind the systems, central management is essential. For example, in a network with 100 Cisco switches, a few routers, firewalls, and access points, all data generated should be preserved in a central database. This approach simplifies management and analysis for troubleshooting, as GUI interfaces may not always provide visible information. Centralizing the database will allow for better understanding of which information is preserved for each specific device.
Durai CT - PeerSpot reviewer
Head FM Monitoring at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A stable, scalable, and flexible monitoring tool
Real-time data is one of the unique features that ITRS Geneos offers. For example, if there is an impact on a particular server and a particular application, I want to see what the impact is or what the CPU or hardware usage information is, as well as the service in the same application. I can see the real-time data and the impact by accessing ITRS Geneos and looking at the tree. I don't want a tool that tells me when something is broken. I want the tool to tell me when something is going to break. That is the difference between ITRS Geneos and other tools. I want proactive monitoring, not reactive. I don't need to be notified after the fact that something has broken. If something is broken, I get a notification by email, and some of my customers are going to call me. ITRS Geneos provides proactive monitoring. The great advantage of this tool is real-time monitoring. ITRS Geneos not only alerts us but also gives us a real-time view of the data. This is the tool's first great advantage. It is also lightweight and flexible and can adapt to monitor even low-latency systems, which is the tool's second advantage. Another great feature of this tool is its good presentation layer, which allows us to build custom dashboards to present to business stakeholders. This gives them a high-level status of what is being monitored. If we compare ITRS Geneos to other tools, we will find that each one specializes in a specific area, but the ITRS Geneos tool is more comprehensive. This is its great advantage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is integration."
"The most valuable feature about this solution is that it gives me insight of my network."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it helps you gain visibility for your application."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the way the net flow is being merged together in a single pane. That's been extremely useful for us, because can see what's going on with traffic in one single place."
"The search options on Cisco Stealthwatch are the most valuable. You can get very granular with it, down to the kilobits or the seconds if you want. The product supports any time frame that you need, so that is nice."
"The fact that it can identify down to an IP address of a system that is causing problems, or potentially causing problems, is very valuable."
"The solution allowed us to not only get gain insight but also start collaborating with other tools."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is data hoarding because it catches threats on a frequent basis that we had no idea of."
"The ability to build integrations to tools that are not monitored out of the box is the most valuable feature."
"The built-in plug-ins allow administrators to easily configure monitoring components for market data systems such as Thomson Reuters Enterprise Platform and SRLabs Wombat (formerly NYSE)."
"One of the most valuable features of ITRS Geneos is the active time feature that helps with the trading applications that I support."
"The Netprobe is so lightweight compared to the agents that most monitoring tools use. It's really superior to the competition. The agent that is used by almost every competitive tool takes a lot more system resources. It's slower and it requires a greater effort and more compromises in terms of security to install on the monitored servers. With Geneos, because it lives outside the code, it is far easier and far less taxing on the monitored systems."
"ITRS uses SNMP to communicate with our devices as well as SNMP net probes installed on our servers."
"One thing we're utilizing in Geneos is the Gateway-SQL. That's really helpful for us. Using Gateway-SQL, we are able to merge two different views into one. Suppose we have to check something in the log and that we have to check something in the database and do a comparison before publishing a result. We can achieve that using Gateway-SQL."
"The ability to completely tailor and customize what it's monitoring is one of its strongest points. A lot of other monitoring tools are good at certain things, but one of my colleagues described it as the “Swiss Army Knife” of monitoring tools. It can do anything you want."
"Geneos automatically sends email notifications when any batch job fails, the database is down or the website is down. It is automatically monitoring everything and reduces manual effort."
 

Cons

"The solution should have the ability to analyze security events not only at the network layer but also at the application and OS layers."
"The version with the Dell server had iDRAC problems. Often, it reported iDRAC failure."
"It is time-consuming to set it up and understand how the tool works."
"Reliance on Java. Get away from that."
"The GUI could use some improvement. Being able to find features more easily would be a great improvement if it was simplified."
"It would be better to let people know, up front, that is doesn't give you nice, clear information, as seen in the demos, without Cisco ISE installed."
"I would like the search page available with Cisco Stealthwatch to be more intuitive. The previous release was better than the current one for the UI."
"Its granularity for RBAC roles-based access control needs improvement."
"I would also like to see suggested guidelines to accomplish a monitoring task. The issue is that ITRS is so flexible that there is more than one way to complete a task, each with benefits and disadvantages."
"ITRS Geneos is not on the cloud at a time when everyone is moving to the cloud."
"ITRS have started to make some major changes that we haven't taken on board yet, in the creation of dashboards and more visibility of the metrics that we collect. At the moment, that's something that's lacking, but I know they have addressed it. Still, it’s not that easy to create stuff to help with visibility and dashboarding in Geneos."
"The main feature that needs work is the Dashboard designer."
"One area where there is room for improvement is the log file. I would like to be able to do a pre-run on the log files. When you are testing log files for regular expressions, it would be good to be able to do a quick check up front on that side of things before you release that into production."
"Mobile phone integration is probably not as rich as it could be."
"Their cloud monitoring solution needs to be improved. I have already given them the feedback that it's not capable of meeting the latest technology needs."
"For the last year or two, I've been asking the vendor about the mobile app. This is something that probably everyone asks when they see the tool and they see how powerful it is. If there is any mobile app for this or if there is any way this tool can be more easily accessible other than having a big client installed, it would be great. I know you can build dashboards, et cetera, but there is no quick and easy way. I should be able to download an app, log in, and see my status. That will put this product above everything else out there. I believe it's on their roadmap."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The yearly licensing cost is about $50,000."
"Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"NetFlow is very expensive."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"On a yearly basis, licensing is somewhere around $30,000."
"The product is priced quite high. There are pricing options for customers based on the size of the environment and plug-ins used by the monitoring system."
"Pricing is the touchy subject, even here. Upper management always wants us to find a cheaper solution. But we have so much integrated with ITRS... It's expensive, but it does its job very well. And you set it and go."
"Based on feedback from colleagues and friends working in the financial sector, Geneos is relatively costly. Many companies have been switching from Geneos to Dynatrace, Sysdig, or other monitoring tools in the past two years because of the price."
"Pricing and licensing is based on the requirements."
"The organization is not just purchasing a license for the product, but also managing services and professional services from ITRS. Another factor is if the implementation is going to be in production, non-production, or both."
"The pricing is fairly market-related. They have been very lenient because we have been working with them for so long. An example is that we're currently migrating some of our services to AWS, and they've given us a grace period for some of the things to help with the migration and not to grow additional costs while we are migrating, but it's still on par with the market."
"The pricing seems reasonable. We're happy enough with it."
"When I first came in, their pricing was very high. ITRS had a high expectation of what their price should be based on perceived value. I think they have been realizing, more recently, that there are other competitors, so their pricing is a lot better. Licensing for on-premise is okay, however I feel there is quite some work to be done for cloud and containers. We're still working with them to try and work out what that pricing should look like."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
70%
Computer Software Company
5%
Construction Company
3%
Outsourcing Company
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
In terms of improvements for Cisco Secure Network Analytics, from the implementation point of view, now that AI is in use, some other features need to be upgraded considering AI solutions. Proper m...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Our customers mainly use Cisco Secure Network Analytics to get whole network visibility and easy troubleshooting to find actual problems and also to mitigate loopholes or findings immediately to pr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ITRS Geneos?
The pricing is high. Licensing fees might be around 500$ per server monthly.
What needs improvement with ITRS Geneos?
ITRS Geneos is a legacy system. It predicts or provides proactive measures once an issue is resolved. It doesn't offer any predictive capabilities or root cause analysis. They throw a lot of data i...
What is your primary use case for ITRS Geneos?
ITRS offers multiple products, including upgrades for synthetic monitoring and a SaaS platform. Geneos is used for infrastructure monitoring, covering KPIs such as CPU, memory, processes, network l...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
Geneos
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
ITRS Geneos is used by over 170 financial institutions, including JPMorgan, HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Clients range from investment banks to exchanges and brokers.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. ITRS Geneos and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,176 professionals have used our research since 2012.