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Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Centreon
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
25th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
21st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
20th
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
6th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 3.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.2%, down from 5.5% 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.
Noman-Saleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting
We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"We have a single GUI where we can view the status of all our infrastructure."
"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."
"The downtimes feature is helpful. If the ISP is doing some maintenance on its network, we have the option to put downtime on the devices or the services, so we won't get any false alarms."
"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."
"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."
"For servers and for applications, it was very, very efficient."
"The Slack integration is fantastic, and I've actually found it to be very useful recently."
"I think net flow is PRTG's most valuable feature because it doesn't cost much for us because the net flow sensor is already included in the PRTG license. We can monitor our traffic in our proxy and router."
"The real-time monitoring feature in PRTG is invaluable to me"
"There is a simplicity to setting up the extra sensors. It's really easy for us to build infrastructure and start monitoring very quickly."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"There was only one feature I liked about PRTG Network Monitor a lot, and that was bandwidth monitoring, though, in the newer versions of the tool, that feature is now a bit lacking. Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is also not as expensive. It's a good tool, even for beginners."
"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are user-friendly, and the graphical interface is good for all the network devices that are mapped in this organization. It's very easy to find reports for any devices that we are looking for."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is being able to see things graphically."
 

Cons

"There are improvements that they need to make to their API. When we're using different systems and we want to disable monitoring for a specific server, we still can't do that through the API. That's something that's lacking."
"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."
"During the initial setup we faced some issues. Part of it was because we had to become more knowledgeable in the solution. There are some gray areas and if you don't know the product well you may have issues. Another part of it was some bugs that we came across, although that's part of every software solution in IT nowadays. But the initial setup could be easier."
"I would like to see a better UI, one which is more responsive."
"The Home view could be improved by adding customization functions that allow users to change the size of the widgets for a more uniform layout."
"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."
"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."
"Can be slow in the way it polls the different engines."
"Users need to buy the more expensive licenses if they expect to be able to scale."
"In our organization, we encounter performance issues with our PRTG probe service. I saw documentation from the vendor or Paessler mentioning that there are limitations for WMI sensors. Other than that, we are okay with PRTG."
"When using PRTG Network Monitor it is beneficial if you have prior experience with it, the user interface could improve."
"PRTG Network Monitor could improve by having descriptions for the tab usages. The dashboards or interface could be easier to understand."
"If PRTG could help me see the bandwidth for each host I have on my network, either for a wireless or a wired network, that would be very helpful."
"The Desktop app is good but it can be really sluggish at times, especially when you're editing different elements."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is very effective, despite the low price."
"The price is not too high. Licensing is driven by how many hosts you monitor, but because you can run the agentless version, you don't have to declare every host to Centreon, one at a time. That means you can drive your infrastructure supervision with a very low number of declared hosts."
"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."
"For more complex tasks, we use prepaid support days and ask Centreon to come onsite."
"The pricing is acceptable."
"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."
"It is perfect and very cheap if you are a little company or startup. After that, it is quite expensive for a big company."
"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."
"We have an unlimited license for this solution."
"The pricing is reasonable for the features provided."
"The ability to use the base version with 100 free sensors is great. The cost on other packages can be very reasonable."
"Because we are only on the free version, we have a limited number of sensors. Therefore, we are not monitoring as much as we want to be to obtain historical information."
"I rate the licensing for PRTG Network Monitor an eight out of ten."
"The pricing is not too bad. It's not massively expensive, and the ability to upscale or even downscale licenses every year is brilliant for us."
"There is a license to use PRTG Network Monitor and it is annually."
"Our licensing costs are 10,000 euros over three years."
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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
20%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
8%
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?
PRTG comes in different bands: there are options with 500, 1500, 2500, and so on. Pricing is by the number of devices, not by sensor.
 

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: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.