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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
41st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
48th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (17th), Cloud Monitoring Software (32nd)
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
19th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
16th
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 August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.4%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.4%
Icinga1.1%
Other97.5%
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

"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."
"I would recommend Icinga; it's an open-source solution, it's quite easy and simple to use, and checks can be run with Python code and Shell Script code."
"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."
"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."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"Using Nagios, I'm managing more than 1000 services, which involves the following operating nodes: IBM AIX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, HP-Unix, Windows enterprise-grade OS, Cisco router/switches, FortiGate and WatchGuard firewalls, APC UPS systems, and many more."
"The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful."
"This is probably the greatest advantage of Nagios - it can be customized to a degree to suit your monitoring needs."
"Nagios allows IT staff and end-users to see the status of critical services on the network and can alert and notify selected users if critical services fail, reducing the mean time to recover."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities."
"We have used this product now for quite some time and we are happy with it."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"The user interface should be improved."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"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."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"I like to have the option to configure Nagios using the web interface."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."
"Setup is bit complicated due to the large set of libraries it needs, but this may be because it's open source."
"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."
"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."
"Default interface is clunky and slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The solution is free to use."
"The solution is cheap."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction 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: August 2026.
910,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.