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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
27th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
31st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (12th), Cloud Monitoring Software (26th)
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
11th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
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 May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.6%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.6%
Icinga1.3%
Other97.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Net Consulting
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.
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 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."
"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."
"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."
"People should know that it is simple and advanced."
"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 value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"Inspite of this limitation it is a fantastic product to use at zero cost"
"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."
"Dashboard provides monitor of total assets."
"Extensibility is good as this makes it easy to write checks on your own."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"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."
"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."
"The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me."
 

Cons

"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."
"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."
"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"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."
"I would like to see a much better Nagios Manager GUI that can support all type of configuration items, and advance search options."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"When compared to earlier versions, it looks like 4.x has lost the statusmap.cgi module."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"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."
"The solution is cheap."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The solution is free to use."
"It's an open-source solution."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"The solution is expensive."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
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Top Industries

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
What is your primary use case for Icinga?
We use Icinga as a monitoring solution to monitor customers' infrastructures. We work as a managed service provider, so we offer monitoring and many other services to our customers. So we use it in...
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: April 2026.
895,990 professionals have used our research since 2012.