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Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 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

Centreon
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
22nd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PRTG Network Monitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
5th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
8th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 2.7%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.0%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Caulson Chua - PeerSpot reviewer
With fewer staff resources, we can identify and address issues before the system goes down
Centreon's most valuable features are preventative maintenance and cost-efficiency. Everything is monitored, and we get a log before the system fails. We have an opportunity to fix the issue and avoid downtime. The dashboard is user-friendly, and the solution provides good reporting and visibility. The layout is straightforward. You can click on the drop-down list to select the server you want. The anomaly detection feature helped us reduce our average resolution time by 30 minutes to an hour.
Tochukwu Uzomba - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set
PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

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 the monitoring of servers and networks, because we have a lot of them and need to maintain control."
"The dashboards are valuable because they ease troubleshooting and viewing. It becomes easier to locate the source of a problem... The dashboards make it easier to communicate with our clients. They don't want to see the alert console, they want to see a beautiful dashboard representing their network and their business and to watch it in case something is wrong in their environment."
"Centreon helps me detect where the problem is quickly. When we resolve a problem quickly, this lowers our overall costs."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to build an abstraction of service visualization. You can add services to an entity called Business Activities and you can see the state of these activities."
"In addition, the flexibility, customizability, and analytics of Centreon's dashboards are all very good. The dashboards help us see the whole network map, and that is quite valuable for us. In addition, the dashboards have helped to improve our visibility and ability to proactively ensure the right data is available at the right time... The flexibility has given us the ability to add in our own monitoring metrics and that has been quite interesting and very useful for us."
"What we like about it is that, whereas with Nagios, by design, if you have five or six data centers, you have to open five or six web pages to see what's going on, In Centreon, this is all included in one page, a single site, one dashboard. You don't have to jump from one specific dashboard to the other."
"It is decentralized, which is better, because you can reduce the load from a single system. Also, you get a better view because it's more independent. Then, for the management, it's nice because they have one central system. With that, they can manage all the other systems, as well. This means they don't have to configure each system by system. They can configure it from one single interface."
"We are alerted on service impacts and not when something is down. We have saved a lot of time on non-business-hours intervention."
"The solution is very easy to use and the web provides information with ease."
"The bandwidth monitoring is a very attractive feature, it can tell you the bandwidth utilization while it is attempting to connect to the host for feedback."
"Technical support has been very helpful so far."
"The Slack integration is fantastic, and I've actually found it to be very useful recently."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the notifications. As long as you spend time and think about what and when you want to be notified, it's always accurate. It is always there. I find things out before my Internet provider."
"Ability to create a dashboard inside software monitoring."
"The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts."
 

Cons

"I would like them to improve their documentation. When I faced some issues, I was looking for more documentation on the Internet. There is official documentation on Centreon's website, which sometimes is useful. Sometimes it is not very useful, as you cannot find the information or enough examples of configuration. The answer for me was to contact the support, who helped me, but I was not able to find all the information by myself on Centreon's website. A Centreon community or blog would be helpful."
"Improvements I would like to see include a discovery solution, better reports, and end-to-end monitoring."
"This solution lacks service monitoring in the cloud."
"The problem with the reporting is you have to configure the report, and after that, you will have the same report every month, every week, every day. You have to sync it in order to have a great report."
"I went through a few things with them to do with Centreon MAP, to do with active polygons, being able to draw an area and make that active. The functionality was in the older version of Centreon MAP and in the new version, which was a complete rewrite, they dropped it."
"I think Centreon's security could be improved by leveraging AI. That's where things are heading in the industry."
"Improvements are needed in the area of cloud monitoring, as that's a newer feature."
"I would like to see an improvement of the communication with big data systems, because Centreon is a monitoring system. In our point of view, Centreon should be a part of a source for a big data system, not a big data system itself. So, it should be easier to add data from the Centreon system to a big data system. For example, it should be able to teach machine learning."
"I have an issue with DFS, distributed file services... there isn't one by default. Taking into account the difference between DFS and DFSR as well would be great."
"PRTG Network Monitor can improve Layer 2 and Layer 3 network maps and the GUI more user-friendly. Additionally, they should bundle the features so I can monitor everything on one particular device."
"Along with more room for automation, more room for advanced configuration can be integrated into the solution."
"The thing that we do struggle with a bit is in the historic data. If I want look over 30 days, because it averages out onto one graph, you can't zoom in and drill down information."
"Can be slow in the way it polls the different engines."
"Performance-wise, PRTG Network Monitor still needs improvement because a large number of SNMPv3 queries reduces tool performance."
"Needs ability to monitor standard notification time (notify after X time)."
"We've had some issues previously with the performance of the sensors. We tend to deploy quite a bit of WMI, which is quite processor-intensive, and we've found that that impacts the sensors quite a bit."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of licensing, you have to think through if the components that need licensing are really needed. For example, the Map module: If you don't need a map to be shown, I don't see a point in paying for those licenses, if you just use it a couple of times a month or a couple of times a week... You can use the Centreon free version and get the main features. The licensing part is, I would say, only for bigger customers who have the option to pay more and who really need those kinds of modules, fancy reports, etc."
"If you need basic monitoring without dashboards, just monitoring, the plugins are very useful and really cheap. If you want a more complete solution with dashboards and reporting, the EMS solution is great and it is not that much more expensive. It's a good value. Really good."
"For more complex tasks, we use prepaid support days and ask Centreon to come onsite."
"The pricing works out well for us, given our environment and where we are."
"Their licensing model is really easy. You have one license and you have access to all the features, compared to other tools where you have to purchase add-ons."
"Centreon is always available to develop new plugins when needed. The most important thing is that their maintenance account yearly subscription fee includes the fact that they will maintain the new plugins that you requested them to deliver."
"Centreon is better than Nagios XI in regards to cost and support response times, when you have a problem. If you have a problem, it costs money to contact the Nagios XI support."
"I think Centreon's pricing is fair, especially given the criticality of our system. They were cheaper than the other solutions. The licensing terms were pretty straightforward. I believe it was based on the number of hosts."
"We have unlimited devices and sensors, and it is a bit pricey, but we do have unlimited sensors. With all things considered the price is fine, related to the solution itself. PRTG Network Monitor is good value for money."
"When you have a lot of devices, PRTG Network Monitor can be costly."
"While I am not the person who deals with pricing, I would say that we pay around 1000 pounds a year."
"We have an unlimited perpetual license, so we just pay support costs and it can scale throughout the organization."
"It is about £4,500 for the first year, then about another 15 to 20 percent annually after that. So, we are looking at about £1000 running costs a year. When you think about how much an outage costs per minute, it's negligible."
"If you're looking for a cost effective software I’d suggest this product."
"Sensors on free version can run out quick."
"At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Centreon?
Centreon's most valuable features are preventative maintenance and cost-efficiency. Everything is monitored, and we get a log before the system fails. We have an opportunity to fix the issue and av...
What needs improvement with Centreon?
The issue my company has with the tool stems from the fact that it didn't give an on-time response to us. The product collects the information, but it fails to send them via SMS, WhatsApp or Telegr...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor. That's why I'm using the free100 sensor license.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus, Bollore, BT, Canal Plus, Kuehne Nagel, Limagrain, LVMH, Oberthur Technologies, Orange, Darty, Addax Petroleum, Plastic Omnium, Auchan, Valeo, Saint Gobin, Clarins, Hugo Boss, JC Decaux, French Government (Defense, Justice, Environment, Agriculture), OptiComm, Thales, Zeiss.
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Centreon vs. PRTG Network Monitor and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.