We compared Nagios Core and PRTG Network Monitor across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Nagios Core is an adaptable solution praised for its integration, customizability, and ability to effectively monitor server availability and network connectivity. PRTG Network Monitor customers like its user-centric approach, straightforward reporting, and customizability.
Room for Improvement: Nagios Core users have requested better documentation, improved scalability, and a more user-friendly configuration process. PRTG Network Monitor could improve its performance and resource efficiency. Other pain points include usability and cross-platform compatibility.
Service and Support: Nagios Core lacks direct customer service, but users can generally find help from a supportive open-source community and large knowledge base. PRTG Network Monitor received mixed reviews for its customer service. Some users commended the support team’s prompt service, while others reported slow response times and noted the lack of remote session support.
Ease of Deployment: Nagios Core's setup is generally seen as well-documented and straightforward. PRTG Network Monitor’s setup isn’t considered to be overly complex. Deployment times may vary depending on the environment's complexity and device count.
Pricing: Nagios Core is free, but users may incur costs for installation and configuration. PRTG Network Monitor is deemed reasonably priced and cheaper than its competitors.
ROI: Nagios Core users say they have saved money by replacing paid monitoring tools with this open-source solution. Users said that PRTG Network Monitor has proven to save time and money through automation and proactive support.
Comparison Results: Nagios Core is a flexible open-source solution that is highly customizable and offers robust functionality commonly found in paid enterprise solutions. However, some users have said that Nagios Core becomes unwieldy when used at a large scale and that the documentation could be more thorough. PRTG Network Monitor is regarded as a simple, user-friendly, and cost-effective solution, but users would like to see improvements in performance, documentation, integration, and technical support.
"The single dashboard is a valuable feature."
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
"The notifications are definitely one of the most valuable features of Nagios Core. We know what to look for and what to expect when things are down."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."
"Provides timely notifications."
"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"It is easy when it comes to dependencies of devices, so if your router goes down, the three or four switches behind it will automatically be paused so that you don't get multiple alerts."
"The real-time monitoring feature in PRTG is invaluable to me"
"PRTG Network Monitor is a very stable product."
"One of its valuable features is the fact that it handles multiple operating systems... And I like the fact that it tells me when things are about to fall over, which means I can preempt it and not have to wake up at three in the morning to fix it."
"Stable and scalable network monitoring tool. Installation is simple and straightforward."
"It is pretty simple to use, which is always a good thing. It's been very reliable in updating us if any issues crop up."
"I can create my own program sensor. This means I can add extra monitoring capabilities into the already fundamentally strong foundation."
"The solution provides us response times to issues."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The technical support needs improvement."
"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."
"It would be nice if the company offered a sales or contract manager that was dedicated to our company so that we would have some sort of link to Nagios, and if we had issues or questions, we'd be able to contact them directly."
"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."
"The UI is a little outdated and graphics could be displayed in a better way."
"PRTG would be improved if it required less memory to run."
"Once you start going above 5000 sensors, things do start to get a bit shaky. There are some best practice out there that you will need to adopt and be aware of."
"PRTG Network Monitor is okay to use, but you'll need some time to analyze the data. If it can automatically locate or identify the problem area, it would be more helpful to users."
"I know we're going to move to Docker applications and I understand that PRTG does some monitoring regarding this. I do not know if it is complete. If it's not yet complete, it's something they should consider improving."
"There's always room for improvement. The high availability feature is good, but it's an area that PRTG could marginally improve. For example, in PRTG, both servers have a different IP, but it would make things a lot easier if they were bound by a single IP."
"I would like the ability to monitor Cisco IRS devices."
"The remote probes seem to be a little bit buggy at times. They just stop working or they say they can't communicate. What we tend to do to is install the remote app onto the servers that we use. That seems to clear it up."
"The scalability of this solution could improve as well as the automated provisioning of the infrastructure."
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Nagios Core is ranked 7th in Network Monitoring Software with 46 reviews while PRTG Network Monitor is ranked 5th in Network Monitoring Software with 96 reviews. Nagios Core is rated 8.0, while PRTG Network Monitor is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Nagios Core writes "An Open Source Fully Featured Data Centre Monitoring Tool". On the other hand, the top reviewer of PRTG Network Monitor writes "It's an all-in-one solution, and net flow is included in the licensing ". Nagios Core is most compared with Zabbix, Nagios XI, Icinga, Centreon and Meraki Dashboard, whereas PRTG Network Monitor is most compared with Zabbix, Centreon, Nagios XI, SolarWinds NPM and ManageEngine OpManager. See our Nagios Core vs. PRTG Network Monitor report.
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