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FortiMonitor vs Kentik 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

FortiMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
37th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (17th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (11th)
Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of FortiMonitor is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kentik is 1.7%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.7%
FortiMonitor0.7%
Other97.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2677554 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer III at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Managing diverse networks with detailed alerts enhances device oversight
FortiManager is very helpful in managing our networks. We use it to manage 20 farms and various networks with hundreds of devices. The version we are using provides more detail than the older dashboard. We appreciate the alerting capabilities, which are integrated with SolarWinds to notify our team via SMS.
Gcecilio - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
Traffic insights have reduced transit costs and support secure, direct connections with providers
The best features that Kentik offers are the ability to identify traffic end-to-end and to know which transit is used, if it goes through any other transit, to see the entire flow, from the subscriber to the content provider and vice versa, from the content provider to the subscriber.I can also determine whether it is symmetric or asymmetric traffic, and if it goes through any provider that has some kind of bottleneck. That is very important. Regarding the security part, which is also possible to handle through Kentik, you can configure it in a way that makes the network more secure and reduces the amount of dirty traffic or attacks received. Kentik has had a high positive impact on my organization. Besides the cost reduction, it has been possible to perform troubleshooting more effectively, and also regarding DDoS-related attacks. In addition to cost reduction, we had a more reliable connection. Since the moment we identified that it was possible to have a direct connection with content providers like CDN77, Cloudflare, and Akamai, we established a direct connection there through a PNI with these content providers, making the network less dependent on an IP transit provider.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic, blocked sites, and the health of our hardware. That last part, about knowing if something's going to fail soon, is super important. It gives us time to sort things out before any big problems happen. As a system engineer, I need to keep tabs on everything – temperature, monitoring systems, and network operations. This data is really handy because it helps me ensure our site runs smoothly, whether it's turning systems on or off. Just last night, there was a system failure, but thanks to real-time monitoring, I quickly identified the problem and got the necessary replacement parts."
"FortiMonitor has a very intuitive dashboard, which makes it particularly helpful for analyzing traffic, alerts, and other information."
"With FortiMonitor, you can get all the logs of the traffic information of the destination or the source."
"Fortinet's customer support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is what the devices are used for. We have big backups for our Cradlepoint solutions, but FortiMonitor is a great routing device and we love working with them."
"FortiMonitor offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities, allowing me to track network traffic in and out effectively."
"FortiMonitor is 100% stable."
"The most valuable feature of FortiMonitor is the overall ability to monitor the health of the environment."
"Kentik excels in telemetry within data centers and works well in multi-vendor environments."
"Kentik is worth the money to have as a tool."
"Technical support is second to none."
"Honestly, it is one of those products that I would suggest to almost any network operator."
"We haven't seen anything else that comes even close to Kentik's real-time visibility across our network infrastructure, and we've demo'ed everything under the sun."
"In terms of the solution’s real-time visibility across our network infrastructure, I have not been able to find any other monitoring or netflow visualization tool that gives me the kind of information I get from Kentik. If I need to take a deep-dive into something that I see, it's really easy for me to do that. Whereas with most other things, I have to use five or six other tools to get that kind of data, with Kentik, I have it all in one place."
"Good NetFlow visualization and analysis tools are valuable to anybody who needs to understand the traffic that flows in and out the network."
"We're pretty happy with the API functionality. It's web, and it's very simple to set up queries. It has served us well and you don't need to be an expert on the API or the product to set these things up."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, during high CPU usage, we cannot access FortiMonitor and must refresh it."
"There are areas for improvement that FortiManager is addressing."
"Sometimes, we get corruption when upgrading from firmware to the new generation, causing a lot of issues."
"There is room for improvement in the FortiMonitor report. It is not ideal for showcasing to tech customers or managers, especially when trying to display high CPU usage from logins within a specific range of months or the most recent month."
"FortiMonitor could improve by having compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux."
"I think the current features are really good for me, nothing else comes to mind right now. Maybe some small improvements could be made in the customization and configuration part of the UI to make it easier or more intuitive. Customizable UI options, like we saw in the demo, could be helpful for everyone. But in our operational environment, having clear health status and system details is crucial for us system engineers. One feature I'd really like to see is a credential management system. It would help us keep track of who's logged in and how many times, which is important due to user restrictions. Sometimes, we need to manage logins more efficiently, like logging off other users to free up credentials. So having a feature like that would be really helpful."
". Enhancements in the dashboard, such as clearer alerting, maintenance window management, software version tracking, and better visualization, would be beneficial."
"Additionally, there are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."
"We had faced some issues during an outage and were not able to get the desired results from Kentik tools. It took time to resolve these issues, which is why I give them eight points."
"I would like to see more granular user and security rights."
"The only downside to Kentik, something that I don't like, is that it's great that it shows you where these anomalies lie, but it's not actionable. Kentik is valuable, don't get me wrong, but if it had an actionable piece to it..."
"Sometimes it's difficult to order the dimensions correctly when trying to make Sankey flow diagrams."
"Version 4 of the platform is good and going in the right direction."
"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."
"They're moving more in a direction where they are saying, "Hey, here's information that you may be interested in or may a need," before the question has to explicitly be asked. Continuing to move in that direction would be a good thing."
"There is a large difference between BGP and normal nodes. I don't think this plays out to the best for the customer or Kentik."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FortiMonitor's price is very high."
"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."
"Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution."
"The tool's pricing model in Vietnam is a bit high. I rate the product price as an eight out of ten."
"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."
"In terms of licensing, while it may not be the most expensive option on the market, it's relatively cost-effective. You can obtain licenses at a lower cost, with the calculation being straightforward. For example, if you onboard around 5,000 devices, you'll need approximately 5,000 licenses, as each device typically counts as one license."
"On a scale from one to ten, I rate the pricing a nine since it is a good solution that is available at a cheap price."
"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."
"The tool is cheaply priced."
"We have an annual contract with Kentik that we renew each year for a set number of licenses. We also have some burstable licenses which we can spin up and spin down, and those are paid as they are used."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Media Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have a clear bias because I work for Panopta. We aren't a fit for everyone, but I can confirm that Panopta is a lot less work to stand up and maintain. It's also a lot easier to use and onboard n...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiMonitor?
FortiMonitor does save time but not significantly on costs, as there are still expenses related to procurement, installation, and licensing.
What needs improvement with FortiMonitor?
There are areas for improvement that FortiManager is addressing. We have not yet upgraded to the latest software versions, being a full revision behind, but we plan to update soon since the current...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been limited because I was not responsible for that in my company, but I have spoken with my boss, and he reported that the licensing mode...
What needs improvement with Kentik?
I do not currently use Kentik's anomaly detection. I had communication with Kentik's technical support through a WhatsApp group. When I faced any issues or there were problems with my Kentik collec...
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
I'm using Kentik for my own internal use. My primary use case is to monitor our equipment and to get a more detailed view of where our inbound and outbound traffic is going.
 

Also Known As

Panopta
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard
Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiMonitor vs. Kentik and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,005 professionals have used our research since 2012.