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Nagios Core vs Nagios XI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
6th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
13th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.9%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios XI is 4.0%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 26, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Amir  Said - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective alerting enhances network monitoring experience with an easy setup
We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful. JPS monitors the modem and performs switching, monitoring the computer, and performing switching. We implement some applications and traffic monitoring. The alerting system is very effective. For instance, if we have an alarm on some RAM storage if the traffic is cut or dropped.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."
"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."
"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"Nagios allows us to configure any device so that we can send pager alerts when people don't have access to emails. It also allows us to schedule downtime and maintenance."
"The ability to set up templates and groups of checks, as well as customize the checks themselves."
"Since this is an open source technology, if we are capable of writing the plugins in any scripting language, this product allows us to monitor anything we want."
"Nagios XI helped me to draw the network and check for system failures."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"Nagios is stable and it's easy to use the monitoring software, which is why we chose this product."
"The solution has a lot of plugins and scripts integrated with it."
 

Cons

"The UI is a little outdated and graphics could be displayed in a better way."
"It would be nice if the company offered a sales or contract manager that was dedicated to our company so that we would have some sort of link to Nagios, and if we had issues or questions, we'd be able to contact them directly."
"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."
"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"The scalability of Nagios XI is scalable. However, it is not easy to do."
"The product uses the backend as Perl and could be modified to a more lightweight solution like what's being offered by other vendors."
"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."
"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"The GUI could be improved."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"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."
"It's free."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We are using the free version."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 26, 2019
Aug 26, 2019
I installed it in my AWS and Google cloud computing environments. Following the documentation explicitly, logs all indicated successful results yet neither environment was able to open up the GUI to confirm it was functional. I opened a support case which I've done with almost every product I have ever installed and was informed that I needed to have a licensed product before support could answ...
See 2 answers
it_user1142991 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 13, 2019
Ultimately NagiosXI is the better solution than Core but shortlisting NagiosXI also definitely depends on the infra landscape, technology, network devices, and other scopes of activities in monitoring. The biggest difference I see between Nagios Core and XI is the user interface, reporting, and onboarding any element for monitoring, and that onboarding is much easier in NagiosXI than Core. Nagios Core is little complicated where you have to use console called Nconf or editing conf files in Linux needs more technical knowledge than using NagiosXI.
WL
Aug 26, 2019
I installed it in my AWS and Google cloud computing environments. Following the documentation explicitly, logs all indicated successful results yet neither environment was able to open up the GUI to confirm it was functional. I opened a support case which I've done with almost every product I have ever installed and was informed that I needed to have a licensed product before support could answer my questions. I just finished a project where I installed crushftp and I had a similar problem and I hadn't purchased the product. They asked me for logs and supplied a solution in short order. I couldn't suggest the product with support like that as I've spent years apologizing for HP support that was almost nonexistent.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
61%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Nagios XI?
It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic, and maybe having a GraphQL interface would resolve this. Also, there is room for improvement in the interface.
 

Comparisons

 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. Nagios XI and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.