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Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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
25th
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 April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 2.5%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.2%, down from 5.0% 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

"Predetermined templates allow for simple and fast service monitoring configuration."
"It supports active monitoring so we don't have to use traps. From time to time traps are not very useful because we never know if they are actually working or not. The reporting part is also valuable as are the event logs. Using them we can check right away if something has had a hiccup."
"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."
"I find the product's scalability to be one of the most valuable features since it allows us to add unlimited devices for monitoring and to set up additional polling servers without additional license cost or downtime in our monitoring."
"The customizable reports and dashboards are really flexible. We started this partnership with Centreon, when we were looking for a solution, because of the flexibility of the reporting. That's what we found to be most attractive in the solution. You can display the data as you want."
"For servers and for applications, it was very, very efficient."
"I really like the filtering capabilities of it. You can easily tell what's critical next to what's okay, the state of the services. It's very easy to get the whole picture quickly."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that most of its plug-ins are free."
"The network visualization helps us to drill down deeper."
"The sensors and probes are great, nice and lightweight, they don't take up too many resources on the system. We just deploy them out and they start reporting instantly."
"It is a very stable solution. There are no bugs, glitches and we have not experienced any crashing."
"PRTG is integrated on Windows."
"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 product is simple and easy to implement."
"My opinion is that this solution is not very expensive."
"PRTG gives us true visibility of the downtime of particular circuit functions. So if a circuit is up but not routing traffic, I will know with this tool. I can write a customized script for a sensor to detect specific things."
 

Cons

"It is necessary to improve service monitoring of database services in the free version."
"I would like to see a better UI, one which is more responsive."
"Centreon is actually missing an easy way to create a trendline for the metrics. Actually it is possible to create it, but you need a good knowledge of math, Centreon, and RRD."
"Currently, we have to go through all of the different templates and take a look at how the template is configured, and how specific parameters may change across different templates with different precedents, megatons, etc. It's a lot of work and involves trial and error. I wish they could simplify the process."
"Improvements I would like to see include a discovery solution, better reports, and end-to-end monitoring."
"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."
"Sometimes, when the GUI and some of the search fields are being reset, and I return to the page, then I have to set them again. Therefore, some improvement on the UI and the filtering is needed."
"We need something that is more predictive. We would prefer if it wasn't a solution that was corrective and instead offered predictive insights so that we can handle problems before they even occur."
"PRTG's documentation could be improved."
"The solution could be better and faster when it comes to performance."
"It would be nice if it gave us alerts via Gmail or SMS message."
"It probably has this already, but if it had a mobile app that would be helpful. For example, on a day like today when I'm out, if I could just fire it up and see green, green, green, green, green or red, that would be good."
"They could improve the process of updating the license."
"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."
"The licensing policy needs more flexibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution has a free part and after that threshold, you will need to pay. For example, if you believe you can create an interesting map, most of the time, you will have to pay 10,000 Euros per year for having access to these components."
"Open-source solutions like this can be very cost effective for an organization looking for a product that they can quickly implement, as there is no initial cost and there are no license renewal fees. However, it is important to take into consideration some of the related costs that may come along as needed, such as training, support, and product enhancements."
"They only sell four hour slots for support, so if you have just one question, then you need to pay for four hours. Or, you need to wait until you have enough questions to fill those four hours. They are not flexible in this."
"The tool is cheaply priced."
"The pricing starts at around 5000 euro. However, this depends on: Your environment, the size of your host, how many hosts you have, how many remote pollers you have, and if you want to use the Monitoring Business Intelligence or Centreon MAP functionalities."
"The pricing works out well for us, given our environment and where we are."
"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."
"If you are not too sure about it, try the free version. Then, if you like it, you can go to the paid version and roll it out."
"When you buy PRTG, everything comes in one bundle. Licensing is very easy."
"We have an unlimited license for this solution."
"I rate the price of PRTG Network Monitor an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"PRTG Network Monitor is very expensive."
"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."
"We pay for a perpetual license and we have a support fee."
"It's an annual license that is based on the number of endpoints that we're tracking and using."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.