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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
38th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
47th
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

"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"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."
"People should know that it is simple and advanced."
"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."
"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 monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains."
"We have the ability right now to see and create reports to tell whether or not we're meeting our SLAs on our production servers, through it."
"The poller is really good, I can easily implement new stuff and it is scalable."
"Inspite of this limitation it is a fantastic product to use at zero cost"
"This is a fit for purpose product which means that if you have a definite list of requirements and are not willing, or unable, to spend money on big enterprise tools, then Nagios is a tool to go to."
"Provides timely notifications."
"You should really try Nagios; it will help a lot and I have found that it is the best buddy for system admins."
"The features of Nagios Core that we find most valuable are the plugins we use, we can check the uptime and see how many servers and routers and create groups accordingly."
"Nagios is able to minimize server downtime and this in turn helps to generate more revenue."
 

Cons

"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"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."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"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."
"Don't use it. If you're starting from scratch, there are products that scale better and perform better, and they use the same plugin syntax as they were initially Nagios forks."
"I like to have the option to configure Nagios using the web interface."
"A better UI for graphing would make it better. The present graphs are not very friendly and good to see."
"Nagios Core would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"This is the open source product, so it's a toolkit rather than a complete solution."
"The dashboard should be improved."
"It would be nice if it was hosted in cloud. Also, they need to improve the graphs."
 

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 is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The solution is free to use."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The solution is cheap."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"It's free."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
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Top Industries

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

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.
900,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.