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Kentik vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor 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
34th
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 Device M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.6%
Kentik0.9%
Other98.5%
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.
Vijay Samant - PeerSpot reviewer
Monitor network utilization and manage bandwidth efficiently with live monitoring and reliable fault management capabilities
I use SolarWinds Network Device Monitor for monitoring network utilization, bandwidth utilization, uptime, and downtime. It also assists in incident management SolarWinds Network Device Monitor provides live monitoring capabilities, which are very useful. Its fault management capabilities are…

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 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."
"Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives."
"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."
"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."
"The most important feature is cybersecurity."
"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."
"Kentik excels in telemetry within data centers and works well in multi-vendor environments."
"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."
"The alerts we are getting when we start losing connection access have been helpful."
"The alerting functionality in SolarWinds Network Device Monitor helps us stay informed during off-hours by sending alerts if our main links or devices are impacted, allowing us to quickly address any issues."
"The solution and its interface are elaborate and fully integrate all monitored items for easy analysis and troubleshooting."
"Since our devices are spread out across the world, we can see the status of these devices without having to send someone physically to a remote location, which saves money."
"I rate the product's initial setup process a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a difficult phase and ten is an easy process."
"The deployment process is quick."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor are the reports. We are configuring the reports, and the first reports are only about the devices. We are configuring the thresholds in order to monitor all the devices."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it can alert you when a device is not working."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 consider the pricing model as an area for improvement."
"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."
"There is room for improvement around the usability of the API. It's a hugely complex task to call it and you need a lot of backing to be able to do it. I should say, as someone who's not in networking, maybe it's easier for people who are in networking, but for me that one part is not very user-friendly."
"Sometimes, the tool has complications, so we must deal with the additional support from the tool's end."
"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."
"It would be beneficial if SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could provide a feature to monitor CRC errors specifically on individual interfaces rather than the entire device. This would help in detecting intermittent issues and packet drops on main links more accurately, especially when there are CRC errors. It's important for us to be aware of these issues to avoid any voice quality problems or interruptions on our MTS links."
"The solution lacks in performance monitoring."
"If everything were in the package so that everything was ready to go out of the box, that would be ideal."
"The solution lacks in performance monitoring."
"Integration with different tools, such as ServiceNow and Excel, can be improved."
"It should provide user-friendly page"
"The initial setup of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could be easier. It took us approximately one month to complete the implementation."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it. It is not simple to customize."
 

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."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"The product is expensive."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

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.
What do you like most about SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I rate the product's initial setup process a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a difficult phase and ten is an easy process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I am not a positive person regarding SolarWinds Network Device Monitor.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for impro...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Network Device Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Air Rarotonga
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
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