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Kentik pros and cons

Vendor: Kentik
4.6 out of 5
669 followers
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Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Kentik offers exceptional real-time visibility across network infrastructure, providing insights unmatched by other tools.
API access in Kentik facilitates extensive automation in reporting and management tasks.
Kentik enables deep dives into network data with ease, eliminating the need for multiple tools.
The drill-down feature effectively identifies network activity details, helping to pinpoint issues rapidly.
Kentik excels in telemetry within data centers and functions efficiently in multi-vendor environments.

CONS

There is room for improvement around the usability of the API, described as complex and not user-friendly, especially for non-networking professionals.
Kentik's current state is not actionable, despite being valuable for showing anomalies, users desire actionable insights.
The pricing model is an area for improvement.
There are complexities within the tool that require additional support from Kentik's end.
In the context of the industry's trend towards AI, Kentik has room for improvement in this area.
 

Kentik Pros review quotes

reviewer1202292 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 6, 2019
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.
reviewer1194984 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 25, 2019
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.
PL
Dec 12, 2019
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.
Learn what your peers think about Kentik. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
AD
Dec 12, 2019
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.
reviewer1250580 - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 15, 2019
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.
reviewer1195920 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 26, 2019
Having the API access allows us to do a great deal of automation around a lot of our reporting and management tools.
JN
Nov 26, 2019
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.
reviewer2695314 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 24, 2025
Kentik excels in telemetry within data centers and works well in multi-vendor environments.
Ahmad Mohd Fahmin - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 12, 2024
Monitoring operational efficiency is easy.
SM
May 17, 2023
It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics.
 

Kentik Cons review quotes

reviewer1202292 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 6, 2019
I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis.
reviewer1194984 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 25, 2019
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.
PL
Dec 12, 2019
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.
Learn what your peers think about Kentik. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
AD
Dec 12, 2019
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.
reviewer1250580 - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 15, 2019
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.
reviewer1195920 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 26, 2019
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.
JN
Nov 26, 2019
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...
reviewer2695314 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 24, 2025
In recent months, I've noticed that while the industry is trending towards AI, Kentik has room for improvement in this area.
Ahmad Mohd Fahmin - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 12, 2024
Sometimes, the tool has complications, so we must deal with the additional support from the tool's end.
SM
May 17, 2023
I consider the pricing model as an area for improvement.