No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Kentik vs Riverbed NPM+ 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

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)
Riverbed NPM+
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
45th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 1.7%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Riverbed NPM+ is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.7%
Riverbed NPM+0.5%
Other97.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
SK
Senior Technical Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Provides deep packet visibility for tracing failed transactions and helps improve enterprise-level monitoring
Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution. Additionally, within Riverbed Portal, there is an Application Map module that could be improved. It can show the application's architecture and connectivity to the network. The applications map feature needs enhancements for better customization since currently, it is quite limited. The enhancements I recommend are not for the entire Riverbed product suite, but specifically for the application map feature within the Portal of Riverbed NPM+. This Portal is one of the dashboard modules and while there is potential for improvement, it must be enhanced significantly to provide better functionality. Currently, you cannot trace by transaction number alone; knowing the source and destination IP is necessary. For instance, if I transfer money and a transaction fails, tracing that transaction ID is not captured in AppResponse. I have raised this concern, and if this feature is implemented, it would greatly benefit banking customers, especially because it is not available with their competitors either.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The drill-down into detailed views of network activity helps to quickly pinpoint locations and causes. All the information is there."
"Honestly, it is one of those products that I would suggest to almost any network operator."
"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."
"Kentik has positively impacted my organization significantly, as it serves as our main monitoring system."
"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."
"Good NetFlow visualization and analysis tools are valuable to anybody who needs to understand the traffic that flows in and out the network."
"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."
"Kentik has positively impacted the organization by providing greater control over certain subjects and enabling monitoring of current traffic."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Alluvio Network Performance Management is good for troubleshooting."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would like to see more granular user and security rights."
"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'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 consider the pricing model as an area for improvement."
"Version 4 of the platform is good and going in the right direction."
"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."
"Currently, the way I'm configuring it uses reactive alerts, which means alerts are triggered when an issue occurs. I would prefer more proactive alerts in the future."
"Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution."
"Currently, you cannot trace by transaction number alone; knowing the source and destination IP is necessary."
 

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 tool's pricing is high and I would rate it one out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
910,005 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Media Company
9%
Healthcare Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alluvio Network Performance Management?
The pricing of Riverbed NPM+ is indeed high, particularly as I work with enterprises in the banking sector primarily in India and the Middle East, and I have also interacted with clients in Europe....
What needs improvement with Alluvio Network Performance Management?
Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution. Additionally, within Riverbed Portal, there is an Ap...
What is your primary use case for Alluvio Network Performance Management?
Riverbed NPM+ has many primary use cases, making this NPM solution totally different from other tools like SolarWinds. They have a solution called AppResponse, which is not an agent-based solution ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Alluvio Network Performance Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. Riverbed NPM+ and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,005 professionals have used our research since 2012.