Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Centreon vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring
22nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (25th), Cloud Monitoring Software (18th)
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (1st), Cloud Management (9th), AIOps (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Centreon is 2.9%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 2.3%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

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.
RichardG - PeerSpot reviewer
Effortlessly blends management systems for comprehensive infrastructure insight
ServiceNow IT Operations Management brought together Intune and SCCM or MECM really well. It provided out-of-the-box integrations, requiring only minimal effort, typically a couple of days, to massage those systems into a seamless operation. Additionally, the performance analytics of ServiceNow was especially beneficial for setting thresholds, aggregating, and correlating infrastructure data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important feature is that it permits us to receive alarms if there is an incident within the infrastructure. The feature I love the most is the reporting feature, the MBI (Monitoring Business Intelligence) which permits us to send advanced reports to our customers in PDF format or in Doc format. We also deploy Centreon Map which gives our customers intuitive views of their information system."
"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."
"The product is available in ISO image format, ready for deployment. Centreon also has a comprehensive guide and documentation that are simple and easy to follow."
"I can't point to one valuable feature. All of Centreon is good."
"We have all our tickets inside Centreon in real-time and can monitor a lot of ELP and CLN in real-time for application purposes."
"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."
"You can concentrate and orchestrate several other solutions from other vendors. You can consolidate those solutions all in one place, then maintain and monitor from that single point. This creates ease of use. It is a very powerful solution from this point of view."
"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."
"I like the tool's discovery feature."
"I like the solution due to the fact that it's scalable."
"I am impressed with the tool's ability to track information in an easy way."
"The solution allows you to subscribe to the features you need and utilize CMDB, ITSM, and discovery on the same platform."
"ITOM communicates information about incidents and maintains them. It handles tickets change, manages service networks, and reduces IT service downtime for the organization."
"The way this solution has helped us is that it improved our communication."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a stable product."
"I like the solution mostly for CMDB discovery."
 

Cons

"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."
"The reporting has room for improvement."
"I would like to see more plugins. That is something it needs. There is also room for improvement through dynamic thresholds, or self-discover thresholds. I would also like to see a discovery feature that could map the whole network environment and automatically suggest things."
"The product collects the information, but it fails to send them via SMS, WhatsApp or Telegram."
"Centreon technical support is only available during Central European business hours. When it comes to critical business solutions, there should be a 24/7 hotline that customers can rely on."
"I would like to see a better UI, one which is more responsive."
"Improvements I would like to see include a discovery solution, better reports, and end-to-end monitoring."
"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."
"I advise others not to customize a lot while using the solution."
"ServiceNow's pricing is expensive. A more streamlined configuration process tailored to use cases and industry would be beneficial."
"There is room for improvement in service mapping within ServiceNow ITOM."
"The solution’s licensing cost could be improved."
"The time for deployment of ServiceNow IT Operations Management depends on many factors. It's a SaaS application, it should not take too long, but if you want to define the tool based on your processes, then it would take some time. It fully depends on the company's complexity. There are out-of-the-box product flows and if you want to use them, you can from day one. However, if you want to customize it and change it to your company's practices, then it will take more time. The setup could be faster."
"There is a slower learning curve associated with the tool's scripting part. It is also not cheap."
"Service mapping is pretty limited."
"I would like more manual issues to have automated report-facing options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is acceptable."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is perfect and very cheap if you are a little company or startup. After that, it is quite expensive for a big company."
"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."
"There are additional costs, you have to pay more for everything."
"The cost of ServiceNow is much higher."
"We obtained discovery licenses at about seven dollars Australian per unit, which we found to be reasonable and competitive."
"It is expensive. It is around 10 Euros per server per month."
"The price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a costly solution. I'd rate the price at ten, on a scale from one to ten with one being the lowest and ten being the highest price. Some clients do have a problem with the price, but most find that the solution is worth the cost."
"My customers pay for the ServiceNow IT Operations Management license annually. I'd rate the pricing based on value. ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a premium product as it has better features than competitors."
"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
 

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 do you like most about ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
From my perspective as an asset manager, the most valuable feature of the solution is the configuration management portion, where I can actively add something to the database.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
We obtained discovery licenses at about seven dollars Australian per unit, which we found to be reasonable and competitive. The pricing model offers scaling where not everything consumes a license ...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
There is room for improvement in service mapping within ServiceNow ITOM. When we have more time, we'll look to extend that and apply it to business-critical services like email.
 

Also Known As

No data available
ServiceNow ITOM
 

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.
servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec
Find out what your peers are saying about Centreon vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.