Amazon CloudWatch vs Icinga comparison

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Amazon CloudWatch

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Icinga and Amazon CloudWatch are monitoring solutions competing in the IT infrastructure monitoring category. Based on data comparisons, Amazon CloudWatch has the upper hand in integration capabilities and advanced analytics, while Icinga is preferred for customizable monitoring options.

Features: Icinga offers adaptable monitoring with extensive plugin support, network monitoring flexibility, and a strong event handler for automated responses. Amazon CloudWatch integrates seamlessly with AWS services, provides robust analytics, and offers detailed metrics collection.

Room for Improvement: Icinga could enhance its user-friendly interface, simplify initial setup, and improve detailed performance analytics. Amazon CloudWatch could reduce its cost barrier, improve documentation clarity for non-AWS infrastructures, and expand its features beyond the AWS ecosystem.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon CloudWatch features a simplified deployment within AWS environments and extensive support documentation. Icinga requires a more involved setup process, but benefits from an active open-source community offering support and customization guidance.

Pricing and ROI: Icinga is cost-effective with no licensing fees, appealing for budget-conscious users. Amazon CloudWatch employs a pay-as-you-go model, offering comprehensive integration at potentially higher costs, providing significant ROI for AWS-centric operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon CloudWatch vs. Icinga Report (Updated: December 2024).

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Icinga

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Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (12th), Log Management (12th)

Icinga

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

16th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (17th), Server Monitoring (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 4.5%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Icinga is 6.6%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Rasanpreet Singh

Senior Consultant at Infosys

Reliable AWS monitoring and logging

The choice of logging solution should always be determined by the specific business requirements. It is crucial to align the logging strategy with what type of logs are needed and how they should be used. There are instances where we require custom solutions to retrieve logs, especially application logs that may not be easily accessible through CloudWatch or similar services. When we heavily rely on AWS native services, CloudWatch is indeed a robust choice. However, in certain scenarios, we might need integration capabilities with other tools, and if they can incorporate such features, it would enhance overall logging capabilities. I would rate it eight out of ten.

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Harrison Bulley

Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Net Consulting

A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification

I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you."

"The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit."

"What my company likes best about Amazon CloudWatch is that it's on AWS. My team also likes it for its log feature. As the solution is on AWS, it also has good pricing and resource availability, plus it's what clients choose. My company also chose AWS for Forge ECS, and at the time, there was a need for the log features provided by Amazon CloudWatch, so it's the solution my team went with."

"It's useful to analyze past data and compare it with recent activities."

"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap and easy-to-use solution."

"We can create events and alerts. We use the information to dive down into the infrastructure performance."

"Most of it's around optimizing utilization, their cloud utilization. They're making sure that they're getting the most out of their in-cloud environments and their instances. Making sure that there's no strange behavior in the environment."

"Scheduling is a valuable feature."

More Amazon CloudWatch pros

"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."

"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."

"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."

"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."

"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."

"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."

"We have found the solution to be stable."

"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."

More Icinga pros

Cons

"For monitoring applications or for APM, CloudWatch has some limitations. You cannot monitor application performance from CloudWatch, and you have to go for a third-party tool."

"Amazon CloudWatch's pricing needs improvement."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing, because they have a premium version, but it's not really a premium version. It's just an enhanced monitoring version, and it can be a bit expensive depending on your usage."

"I think something that can be improved are the alerts and alerting mechanism based on no rejects. We want to have it more flexible and that is one of the key things that is required."

"The technical support must be improved."

"This product lacks some features: real-time data stream monitoring, application performance monitoring, mobile app monitoring, and live dashboards. Its workflows also need improvement."

"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."

"Incorporating a straightforward method or a plug-and-play solution for integrating these databases with our systems, facilitating smooth data transfer, and enabling the creation of dashboards for monitoring and analysis would be beneficial."

More Amazon CloudWatch cons

"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."

"The user interface should be improved."

"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."

"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."

"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."

"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."

"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."

"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."

More Icinga cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."

"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."

"The price is okay for me."

"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."

"It’s an open-source solution."

"The tool is not expensive."

"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."

"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."

More Amazon CloudWatch pricing and cost advice

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

"The solution is free to use."

"It's an open-source solution."

"The solution is cheap."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon CloudWatch?

The monitoring features are valuable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?

In general, Amazon CloudWatch is cheaper compared to Dynatrace. However, there are potential costs to be mindful of, like running a log query that returns trillions of bytes of data.

What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?

CloudWatch itself is fine. That said, maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features.

What do you like most about Icinga?

The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?

It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...

What needs improvement with Icinga?

There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...

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Datadog vs Amazon CloudWatch

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Compared 44% of the time

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Compared 21% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

Centreon vs Icinga

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Amazon CloudWatch

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Download Icinga product report

Also Known As

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Icinga Cloud Monitoring

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Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Overview

Amazon CloudWatch is used for monitoring, tracking logs, and organizing metrics across AWS services. It detects anomalies, sets dynamic alarms, and automates actions to optimize cloud utilization, troubleshoot, and ensure service availability.

Organizations leverage Amazon CloudWatch for collecting and analyzing logs, triggering alerts, and profiling application performance. It's also employed for monitoring bandwidth, virtual machines, Lambda functions, and Kubernetes clusters. Valuable features include seamless integration with AWS, real-time data and alerts, detailed metrics, and a user-friendly interface. It provides robust monitoring capabilities for infrastructure and application performance, log aggregation, and analytics. Users appreciate its scalability, ease of setup, and affordability. Additional key aspects are the ability to create alarms, dashboards, and automated responses, along with detailed insights into system and application health. Room for improvement includes dashboards and UI enhancements for better visualization and customizability, log streaming speed, advanced machine learning and reporting capabilities, pricing, and integration with non-AWS services and databases. Users also seek more real-time monitoring and comprehensive application performance features, and simpler alerts and configuration processes.

What are the most important features?

Seamless integration with AWS: Ensures smooth operation with AWS services.
Real-time data and alerts: Provides immediate insights and notifications.
Detailed metrics: Offers in-depth data on infrastructure and application performance.
Scalability: Supports growing needs with ease.
Ease of setup: Quick and straightforward installation.
Affordability: Cost-effective monitoring solution.
Alarms and dashboards: Customizable alerts and visual insights.
Automated responses: Facilitates automatic actions based on set criteria.
System and application health insights: Delivers comprehensive health reports.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Optimized cloud utilization: Ensures efficient use of resources.
Improved troubleshooting: Identifies and resolves issues quickly.
Enhanced service availability: Keeps services running smoothly.
Effective log analysis: Provides valuable insights from collected logs.
Performance profiling: Assesses and optimizes application performance.
Scalable monitoring: Adapts to growing business needs.

Amazon CloudWatch is implemented across a range of industries, including technology, finance, healthcare, and retail. Technology firms use it to monitor application performance and traffic, while financial organizations leverage it for ensuring compliance and system reliability. Healthcare entities rely on it for maintaining service availability and monitoring data flow, and retail companies utilize it for tracking customer interactions and optimizing server usage.

Icinga monitors systems, network devices, infrastructure, and services, helping manage and analyze server resources. It automates ticket incidents and alerting, providing oversight of client Windows and Linux systems.

Icinga offers comprehensive monitoring of servers including CPU utilization and RAM space, facilitating automated incident management and alerting. Frequently deployed on-premises, this monitoring tool is key for managed services providers and organizations to oversee and ensure optimal performance of various environments, including applications like databases and web servers. It provides extensive features for creating custom plugins, stabilization, scalability, and high customization capabilities suitable for different infrastructure needs.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Event Handler: Facilitates automatic self-healing of systems.
Extensive Plugin Library: Offers a wide range of plugins for monitoring.
Ease of Use: Simplifies user experience with an intuitive interface and Icinga Director for easy configurations.
Open-Source Nature: Free to use, modify, and distribute.
Automation Capabilities: Integrates with APIs and Ansible Collections for automation.
Custom Plugins: Users can create and integrate their own plugins.
Stability and Scalability: Provides reliable performance across different scale infrastructures.

What are the benefits or ROI to look for when evaluating Icinga?

Critical Issue Highlighting: Effectively identifies and notifies about critical problems.
High Customization: Offers flexibility for diverse monitoring needs.
Automated Alerting: Reduces manual effort and improves response times.
Extensive Integration: Works seamlessly with other tools and platforms.

Icinga implementations span multiple industries, providing essential monitoring for IT infrastructure in healthcare, finance, and education. Managed services providers utilize Icinga to maintain and monitor client systems across various environments while ensuring optimal performance and compliance. It is highly valued in these sectors for its ability to customize monitoring, improving operational efficiency and reducing downtime.

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Icinga