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Kentik vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager 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

Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
22nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
SolarWinds Network Automati...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
92nd
Average Rating
5.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.8%
SolarWinds Network Automation Manager0.4%
Other97.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Manager at IFX NEtworks
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.
Giulio Valeri - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS SRL
Threat detection failures, poor technical support, and expensive
We use the solution to manage all of our customer's systems. We monitor and decide if everything is okay and if not, we do changes when needed. For example, if there is a need to change the antivirus software we can automate the process and install the new one. There are scripts within the software…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"One of the valuable features is the intuitive nature of building out reports, and then triggering actions based on specific metrics from those reports. It has a really good UI and the ability to surface data through the reporting functions is pretty good. That's helped a lot in the security space."
"Kentik is worth the money to have as a tool."
"The biggest thing Kentik has given us is the amount of visibility we have into our own network now and knowing what's going on at a given time."
"Monitoring operational efficiency is easy."
"The most important feature is cybersecurity."
"It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics."
"The most valuable feature is being able to pull traffic patterns; to and from destinations. We're able to understand where our traffic is going, our top talkers from an AS set, as well as where our traffic's coming from."
"The solution offers so many great resources, it makes them a powerhouse in the market."
"The installation is easy."
"We are satisfied with the stability of the solution."
 

Cons

"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..."
"Version 4 of the platform is good and going in the right direction."
"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."
"Perhaps a better explanation would be to see how tagging is captured and a method of comparing my tagged interfaces on Kentik’s side."
"I consider the pricing model as an area for improvement."
"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."
"In recent months, I've noticed that while the industry is trending towards AI, Kentik has room for improvement in this area."
"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 price could be a bit lower."
"We did not like SolarWinds because it was not able to communicate between UPSA and our accounting system. They should have better integration."
"We now use ConnectWise because while using SolarWinds we were attacked by ransomware. The solution did not protect us."
 

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 SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is fair. However, it is more expensive than ConnectWise."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
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.
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...
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.
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Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds NAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Maalem Financing Company, School City of Hammond
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.