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Meraki Dashboard vs Nagios Core comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Meraki Dashboard
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Meraki Dashboard is 1.8%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pete Grimshaw - PeerSpot reviewer
It's intuitive and allows you to manage your devices from a single pane of glass
We're refreshing our networks and looking at the new Meraki MX250 firewall, one of the higher-end security devices. We're happy with what the devices can do, but they lack a few features found on older firewalls or competing products. For instance, you should be able to see if something has been blocked by a firewall rule by looking at a live log of traffic moving through the device. It helps you troubleshoot issues and understand if your rules are working. You need to ensure the firewall is blocking the right things. That's unavailable in the Meraki Dashboard. You have to send the logs to a log server. We use SolarWinds locally, but it's not natively built into Meraki. We're also using Cisco ISA and another tool called Smoothwall.
Nishith-Vyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements
The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Great visibility on the dashboard."
"The ability of the product to perform with simplicity of deployment make it a valuable solution."
"Everything is in a single pane and you can look at your network in one centralized place."
"We find that Meraki has all the features you need to be able to enable complex network protocols for AV equipment. We deal with a streaming product over IP, and Meraki is fantastic at that."
"Some of the features I have found valuable are the ease of access, simple configuration, and monitoring."
"What I found most valuable in the Meraki Dashboard is straight monitoring of the different devices, as well as the ability to easily set up VPNs, for example, both Meraki client VPNs and non-Meraki VPNs for different organizations that work with my company. I also like that the tool is a really good firewall."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"An excellent dashboard that is currently unique in covering both SD-WAN and SD-LAN with built-in security."
"The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me."
"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"Other products are good but from the configuration point of view Nagios is really very lightweight. The price is really good in my opinion. Another important thing is that my Nagios engine still works with Dual core 8GB ram for the last 10 years."
"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."
 

Cons

"There is a bit of a problem when you try to log in and you don't have a fixed IP address. If you're granting access, you need to log in by using the IP address. If your administrator's IP address is not a fixed IP address and it has changed, you might need to update the changed IP address in the interface. For this, you need to log in to the interface to update the IP address. This issue might not have so much to do with Meraki interface."
"An area for improvement in Meraki Dashboard is licensing management because it's a little complex. Product licensing can be made a little bit easier through license concurrency and a more straightforward approach to applying the license to products and services."
"The pricing for this solution needs to be improved."
"There are some issues with the NAT configuration, it is now impossible to some operations with the solution."
"The MDM, however, is bad. We're using another MDM now because Meraki was so bad."
"There needs to be more improvement on the device-connected interface."
"The wait time to speak with a Meraki support engineer is always long, but they get the job done."
"Price could be reduced."
"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."
"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."
"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."
"It is a bit slow due to latency."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the tool is relatively high compared to other solutions. It comes with a premium that exceeds that of its competitors by approximately 25 percent."
"Licensing for Meraki Dashboard is paid every year, and it's on a per-device model that costs roughly $300 to $400 per device, but that comes with full support and troubleshooting, etc. Compared to similar products, Meraki Dashboard is quite high-end, but the costs you pay are all-in."
"From a pricing perspective, they are still expensive."
"You don't have to pay for the dashboard."
"The price of Meraki Dashboard is not expensive because knowing that it is a cloud-based solution has its benefits."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"My view is that it's expensive, but it's the best."
"Typically, the license model is for one, three, and five years. They can just be a bit more flexible around it and look into providing an option for 24 months."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"We are using the free version."
"The solution is expensive."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Meraki Dashboard?
We greatly utilize the network because we can plug it into the DNS, VPN, or equipment. It's very good. Meraki Dashboard enhances wireless network management. We appreciate its flexibility, as it al...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki Dashboard?
Meraki Dashboard's pricing is reasonable. It is sold yearly, typically for one, three, or five years. I rate its pricing a five out of ten.
What needs improvement with Meraki Dashboard?
They could improve the product by providing enhanced utilization reports and more detailed independent access reports.
What do you like most about Nagios Core?
What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.
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 NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable a...
 

Comparisons

 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coop eG, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Priefert Manufacturing, Century Care Management, Clifton College, Zürs Ski Resort, Capital FM Arena, MAXI Autohöfe
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Meraki Dashboard vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.