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Icinga vs Nagios Core 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

Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
37th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
48th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
11th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.2%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.5%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.5%
Icinga1.2%
Other97.3%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201 - PeerSpot reviewer
Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect
It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated. The alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.
HY
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
Monitoring solution provides comprehensive visibility across IT infrastructure
The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything. Everything in the IT domain, you can monitor anything. You can even monitor printers, the ports of printers, Core workstations, and storage. You can monitor the workflow Core and the utilization of computes. If you want to grasp everything of your IT equipment on a single interface, you can use Nagios. It's the best one. It provides dashboards, and you can also configure your emails and alerts with it. If something is critical, you can configure it to notify via emails. It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated."
"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"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."
"If you have a small infrastructure or a small number of devices that you want to monitor, then I think it's a good solution."
"Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"Extensibility is good as this makes it easy to write checks on your own."
"We can get real time statistics of our servers which improves our monitoring."
"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."
"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."
 

Cons

"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."
"The user interface should be improved."
"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"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."
"It is not really adequate for our current needs. It causes additional issues which we have to work around and takes us time that a better solution would not."
"Application level monitoring is limited."
"Nagios Core is limited in terms of distributed setups, and there is no central view for remote data centers."
"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."
"I would like to see a much better Nagios Manager GUI that can support all type of configuration items, and advance search options."
"Nagios SLA. I'm currently working on Nagios Digger, which has many code-level problems."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"The core version is no match for the XI version."
"Nagios Core is not easy to use, so I don't recommend it for everyone."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"It's an open-source solution."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"The solution is cheap."
"The solution is free to use."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"We are using the free version."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"It's free."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
What is your primary use case for Nagios Core?
I was a senior system administrator. I've been using Nagios Core for more than ten years now. It can be used to monitor hosts, such as machines, and monitor services of any kind. I'm using it to mo...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.