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Kentik vs NIKSUN NetVCR comparison

Kentik and NIKSUN are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Kentik is ranked #33 with an average rating of 9.0, while NIKSUN is ranked #98. Kentik holds a 0.8% mindshare in NMS, compared to NIKSUN’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Kentik users are willing to recommend the solution.
Kentik
Read 16 Kentik reviews
  • 1,158 Views
  • 546 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
NIKSUN NetVCR
Read 2 NIKSUN NetVCR reviews
  • 244 Views
  • 94 Comparison Views
0% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Kentik and NIKSUN NetVCR compete in network monitoring and analytics. Kentik has the advantage in pricing and customer support, while NIKSUN NetVCR has an edge with its comprehensive feature set.

Features: Kentik provides real-time traffic analysis, alerting capabilities, and integration with third-party applications. NIKSUN NetVCR includes advanced forensic analysis, deep packet inspection, and detailed network investigations.

Room for Improvement: Kentik could improve its deep packet inspection capabilities, expand its forensic analysis features, and enhance detailed security analysis. NIKSUN NetVCR might focus on simplifying its deployment process, improving integration with third-party applications, and enhancing user-friendly features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kentik is known for easy deployment and proactive customer service, adaptable to various network environments. NIKSUN NetVCR requires more complex deployment with a significant configuration but is supported by knowledgeable service teams.

Pricing and ROI: Kentik offers a scalable pricing model with rapid ROI due to cost-effective deployment. NIKSUN NetVCR, despite higher initial costs, provides value through detailed analytics, promising a high ROI for security-centric deployments.

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To learn more, read our detailed Kentik vs. NIKSUN NetVCR Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Kentik vs. NIKSUN NetVCR
June 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

Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
33rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (17th)
NIKSUN NetVCR
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
98th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NIKSUN NetVCR is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON - PeerSpot reviewer
Client experience and cybersecurity have improved with an easy setup
The solution is valuable for client experience, especially in the financial sector. The most important feature is cybersecurity. The pricing is good, but the functionality is the most important aspect for clients. The solution is easy to deploy and requires only one person to set up, making it easy and quick. Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.
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Himanshu Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
High performance, quick packet monitoring, and helpful support
The solution could improve by having automatic mitigation. For example, as soon as a problem occurs the solution alarms and mitigates the situation immediately. In a feature release of the solution they should add features related to automation and remediation. Automation would help increase level of security the solution provides.
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

"Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives."
"We're also using Kentik to ingest metrics. It's a useful feature, and its response time, whenever we're pulling back the data, is higher than our on-prem solution."
"It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics."
"I am able to do a lot of work on the visualization end to create different visualizations and different ways to get information out of it."
"The most valuable features have been anything around traffic engineering: being able to determine the source or destination of a surge of traffic, whether it's DDoS-related, or a customer just happened to have a sudden uptick in traffic. Being able to tell where that's coming from or where it's going to enables us to do things based on that."
"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."
"Having the API access allows us to do a great deal of automation around a lot of our reporting and management tools."
"I really love the Data Explorer. I use it all the time to go in and craft exactly what I need to see. I'm able to then take that story and explain it to the executives. I've done that a couple of times and it is helpful."
More Kentik pros
"The unique selling point of NIKSUN is its ability to scale and its reporting capabilities. NIKSUN captures the packets at a very high speed, from one GB to 160 Gbps also. It offers report granularity in nanoseconds."
"The most valuable features of NIKSUN NetVCR are its performance and forensic capabilities. Additionally, the information that the solution provides is highly detailed and useful. When dealing with network traffic packets can be sent at a high speed causing some security issues, but this solution is able to rapidly monitor the packets providing security."
 

Cons

"We asked for a way, regarding the potential networks that exist, to hook Kentik up with external tools like peering DBs to correlate things together and see what we can do... This is all in the [next] beta now."
"I believe they're already working on this, but I would love for them to create better integrations from network flow data to application performance — tracing — so that we could overlay that data more readily. With more companies going hybrid, flow logs and flow data, whether it be VPC or on-prem, matched with application performance and trace data, is pretty important."
"The product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect."
"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."
"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..."
"I've checked out the V4 version of the interface and it's still a little bit clunky for me to use. I still go back to the old interface. That's definitely one that they still need to work on. It doesn't seem like everything that you get in the V3, the older interface, is there. For instance, I was trying to add a user or do the administrative tasks in V4, and I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to do that."
"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."
"I consider the pricing model as an area for improvement."
More Kentik cons
"NIKSUN is a passive solution. It provides you with you data, alerts, reports and the root cause of issues. However, it requires a person to make use of this functionality. If an event is happening and nobody attends to it, the effects of the event could be severe."
"The solution could improve by having automatic mitigation. For example, as soon as a problem occurs the solution alarms and mitigates the situation immediately."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of the solution is high. There is an annual license costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
I would say Kentik's pricing is not cheap. From my perspective as part of the technical team, I would not categorize it as expensive, but I know it is not cheap.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Kentik?
There's always room for improvements and better relations when using any kind of product. We faced some issues with Kentik UI and alerting, which we asked them to fix, and they succeeded. They have...
See all answers
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
We are using Kentik mostly for synthetic tests, and from one last year, network monitoring as well. We are using it for inter DC BGP tests and server monitoring as well.
See all answers
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Kentik
June 2025
Kentik reportDownload Kentik product report
Buyer's Guide
Network Monitoring Software
May 2025
NIKSUN NetVCR reportDownload NIKSUN NetVCR product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
NetVCR
 

Overview

Kentik's AIOps Network Traffic Intelligence platform unifies network operations, performance, security, and business intelligence. 

With a purpose-built big data engine delivered as public or private SaaS, Kentik captures a high-resolution view of actual network traffic data and enriches it with critical application and business data, so every network event or analysis can be tied to revenue & costs, customer & user experience, performance & risk.

Kentik

Powered by groundbreaking technologies, NIKSUN NetVCR redefines the way we monitor networks. It provides seamless service and application performance analytics for the right visibility into your traditional, virtual or hybrid environments. The NetVCR suite gives you unmatched insight while still dramatically reducing power consumption by 60% and requiring 80% less rack space.

NIKSUN
 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Visa, FedEx, CitiGroup, IDC
Buyer's Guide
Kentik vs. NIKSUN NetVCR
June 2025
Free Report: Kentik vs. NIKSUN NetVCR
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