No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Icinga vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
28th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
31st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (13th)
PRTG Network Monitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
5th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 3.1%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PRTG Network Monitor3.1%
Icinga1.4%
Other95.5%
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.
madhan kumar hs - PeerSpot reviewer
software engineer at Capgemini
Alerting precision has reduced incident response times and improved department-level network visibility
The auto-pause sensor during the maintenance window is good without any false alerts, and it prevents me from getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance, helping department heads understand their own network usage better. It has reduced incident response time by giving clearer ownership of each alert, ensuring alerts go to the proper recipient. SNMP testers and auto-pause are among the best features of PRTG Network Monitor, which is particularly useful for different departments such as HR and finance, where alerts can be filtered accordingly. The alerting features and dashboard of PRTG Network Monitor are very helpful, especially in our industry. However, the dashboard can look cluttered on smaller screens, which is one negative aspect. PRTG Network Monitor has impacted us positively; we have stopped getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance or unplanned outages. Compared to others, this gives specific alerts very quickly and helps department heads understand their own network usage better, thus reducing incident response time so that each alert has clear ownership.

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."
"We monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"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."
"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"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."
"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."
"Network monitoring - it's able to collect lots of detailed information on network devices and network traffic."
"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational."
"We have been extremely satisfied with PRTG's capabilities overall."
"Technical support has been very helpful so far."
"It is a very stable solution. There are no bugs, glitches and we have not experienced any crashing."
"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are bandwidth utilization, user-friendliness, all past report simple retrievals, and timeout features."
"PRTG has improved our visibility and response time to issues related to remote sites."
"The support is fantastic."
 

Cons

"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 tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"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."
"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."
"More training videos for installing and configuring this software would have been nice, especially when working with a lot of devices."
"There seems to be a big jump from the basic scan to the really thorough scan."
"The scalability of this solution could improve as well as the automated provisioning of the infrastructure."
"There are some vendor-specific sensors in PRTG Network Monitor, particularly for older hardware, that don't always provide consistent results."
"But you may need to do that with coding or plugins or with the support of Paessler AG, the manufacturer."
"The traffic, the status of the devices can stand improvement."
"Scalability is the only major sticking point for me. There is a recommended number of sensors, which is around 10,000 and we're double that... The only option we have to scale is to buy another core, which would be a separate, stand-alone instance..."
"The operations dashboard is only available in PRTG's enterprise version, but I wish it could be accessed in the standard licensing. It would also be nice if PRTG had templates for dashboard monitoring, software monitoring, etc. It can help me set up a dashboard because now we don't have a template from PRTG, so we need to create one from scratch."
 

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."
"The solution is free to use."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"It's an open-source solution."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The solution is cheap."
"When you have a lot of devices, PRTG Network Monitor can be costly."
"At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed."
"Sensors on free version can run out quick."
"I rate the licensing for PRTG Network Monitor an eight out of ten."
"It's an annual license that is based on the number of endpoints that we're tracking and using."
"We used a product called SolarWinds in the past, and its cost was high. Whereas, PRTG came in at a third of SolarWind's cost."
"I would like better pricing models for smaller businesses. The free version is fantastic, but it's too restrictive. If they could just get up to 200 sensors for a reasonable fee for on-premise, I would give PRTG my credit card right now."
"Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is a nine out of ten. It meets my company's budget and monitoring requirements. My company is on a perpetual license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
886,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise50
 

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 the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing was higher at the beginning, but the recurring licensing cost is affordable and reasonable. Overall, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing is fair for our industry. They have quoted us...
What needs improvement with PRTG Network Monitor?
The reporting features look very technical and that can be improved. If they can change the report so everyone can understand it, that would be helpful.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. PRTG Network Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.