We compared Meraki Dashboard and Nagios XI across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Meraki Dashboard users like its centralized console, cable testing, firmware updates, and group policy features. The solution is also praised as user-friendly, stable, and scalable. Nagios XI received positive feedback for its versatility and adaptability. It offers a diverse selection of plugins and scripts for monitoring needs.
Room for Improvement: Users say Meraki Dashboard could improve its client VPN, hardware discovery, and integration with external solutions, Some users mentioned a need for more comprehensive documentation and granular control. Users have suggested Nagios XI could improve integration, simplify configuration, and make the platform more user-friendly. Nagios XI users also suggest improvements to network visibility and cloud discovery.
Service and Support: Meraki Dashboard's customer service receives mixed feedback. Some users spoke fondly of the technical support they received, while others expressed frustration over long wait times and had a hard time finding the right person to help them. Some Nagios XI customers complained about the lack of chat or phone support options.
Ease of Deployment: Users said Meraki Dashboard was effortless and intuitive to set up, noting that features like templates and configuration cloning saved time during deployment. Some Nagios XI users found the setup to be relatively simple, while others considered it challenging. Deployment can take a few months to complete, and there’s a steep learning curve.
Pricing: Opinions on Meraki Dashboard's pricing varied, with some users finding it pricey and others deeming it fair. Nagios XI’s pricing is considered reasonable and transparent, with no extra charges.
ROI: Meraki Dashboard simplifies IT operations, and some users expect returns within a few years. Nagios XI users reported positive outcomes overall, but some said visibility limitations lower the solution’s ROI.
Comparison Results: Meraki Dashboard is a scalable, user-friendly solution with a smooth, painless setup made easy by built-in templates and features like configuration cloning. However, some users complained that the solution is too expensive and needs better integration with non-Cisco platforms. Nagios XI is an affordable, flexible solution with a broad feature set and a selection of helpful plugins. At the same time, users say the setup can be complex, and some expressed a desire for more convenient ways to contact support.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The most valuable feature of Meraki Dashboard is we can manage our switches and access point in one place."
"I like that Meraki Dashboard is a user-friendly product."
"It is very easy to manage. It has good security, and it is working well with our firewall."
"It is very stable and we have been using it for five years."
"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."
"What I found most valuable in Meraki Dashboard is that it's well-organized, easy to use, and practical."
"What I love most about the Meraki Dashboard are its user-friendly features."
"The most valuable feature is its simplicity in navigating through the dashboard. It's well set out, and the layout is nice and user friendly. A lot of clients enjoy seeing layer 7 visibility. They get a good indication and insight into what is happening in their network and what applications are being used the most. They can then customize and give preference to business-critical applications."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard, where I can have a single screen that provides a summary for hundreds of servers."
"I can monitor a phone on a desk to very big servers of any company."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"Nagios XI helped me to draw the network and check for system failures."
"The features I've found the most useful are the plug-ins, the fact that you can connect almost everything to it. That's very useful."
"The ability to set up templates and groups of checks, as well as customize the checks themselves."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The one issue that we have had is that the VPN tunnel would go down unless you worked out with the ISP that you would be using a static IP address on the WAN interface."
"The solution has a limited routing table and needs improvement by increasing the numbers as well as providing a summarization for the table."
"We would like to be able to test the health of WAN connections."
"Something that needs to be improved, is the fact that you if you don't renew the subscription license, it stops working. I would also like to see SSL BPM support for anything else."
"The downside to the simplicity is that you can't get as granular as you could with the Cisco APs."
"Meraki Dashboard could improve the user interface by making it more user-friendly. The configuring can at times be difficult."
"Meraki Dashboard could improve integration with non-Cisco platforms."
"Price could be reduced."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"The PNP4Nagios plugin not working easily with XI is an issue for me, because some open source monitoring plugins do not work out of the box. But in the end, you learn to live with it."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"Technical support is an area that needs improvement. It is not available 24/7."
"We'd like to see more integration capabilities."
"There's room for improvement in the visibility, and in the ability to extract information. Stuff like this should be more simple."
"The reporting part should be made simpler. While we can obtain all the reports we need, we always have to create work-arounds to get them."
"We often need to develop custom plugins to get Nagios to work the way we want it to work because the features we need are not always available in Nagios."
Meraki Dashboard is ranked 9th in Network Monitoring Software with 51 reviews while Nagios XI is ranked 8th in Network Monitoring Software with 54 reviews. Meraki Dashboard is rated 8.6, while Nagios XI is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Meraki Dashboard writes "Incredibly easy to use, great troubleshooting and prevention of malicious events". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nagios XI writes "Great for monitoring IT services infrastructure with nice tools and helpful notifications". Meraki Dashboard is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, SolarWinds NPM, ThousandEyes, Mist AI and Cloud and Centreon, whereas Nagios XI is most compared with Nagios Core, Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, Wireshark and Icinga. See our Meraki Dashboard vs. Nagios XI report.
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