Nagios Core vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

Nagios and Paessler GmbH are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Nagios is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while Paessler GmbH is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.6. Nagios holds a 3.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to Paessler GmbH’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 79% of Nagios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Paessler GmbH users who would recommend it.

Nagios Core

Read 50 Nagios Core reviews

4,671 Views
3,482 Comparison Views

79% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

Read 101 PRTG Network Monitor reviews

8,114 Views
5,456 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

PRTG Network Monitor

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

PRTG Network Monitor and Nagios Core both compete in the network monitoring solutions category. PRTG Network Monitor seems to have the upper hand due to its ease of use and scalability, while Nagios Core offers deeper customization capabilities.

Features: PRTG Network Monitor provides rapid deployment, scalability, and ease of use. It offers frequent updates, vendor support, and functionalities for network traffic, resource monitoring, and customizable alerts. Nagios Core is open-source, providing extensibility and integration opportunities, but requires significant configuration effort.

Room for Improvement: PRTG users often request more advanced application monitoring, improved graphical interfaces, and better cloud service integration. Nagios Core has areas for improvement in its outdated UI, complicated setup, and lacks cloud hosting options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PRTG deployment is straightforward with substantial documentation and diverse options, including cloud and hybrid environments. Its customer service is generally responsive. Nagios Core requires significant technical expertise for deployment, relying heavily on community resources.

Pricing and ROI: PRTG Network Monitor offers flexible licensing based on sensor numbers, providing cost efficiency. It ensures minimized downtime and proactive system management. Nagios Core, being free, offers a high return when leveraged correctly for customized monitoring needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Nagios Core vs. PRTG Network Monitor Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. PRTG Network Monitor

January 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

PRTG Network Monitor

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

5th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.4%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.2%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Nishith-Vyas

Tech Lead at STL Digital Limited

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.

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Tochukwu Uzomba

Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited

Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set

PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities."

"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."

"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."

"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."

"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."

"Monitoring with Nagios Core is helpful because it provides immediate alerts if something goes down, such as a server, or wireless router, or if there's a cable break. This allows us to respond promptly to any issues."

More Nagios Core pros

"The real-time monitoring and alerting are its most valuable features."

"The reporting module is easy to configure."

"We like the alerting system, the SNMP monitoring and the customization of the bandwidth."

"The most valuable feature is the notifications. As long as you spend time and think about what and when you want to be notified, it's always accurate. It is always there. I find things out before my Internet provider."

"It has made our infrastructure more reliable."

"The initial setup was easy. We didn't have any issues with the process and everything rolled out smoothly."

"The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature."

"I think net flow is PRTG's most valuable feature because it doesn't cost much for us because the net flow sensor is already included in the PRTG license. We can monitor our traffic in our proxy and router."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

Cons

"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."

"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."

"It is a bit slow due to latency."

"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."

"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."

"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."

"The mapping is a little hard."

"I would like to see more training videos."

More Nagios Core cons

"In terms of sensors and probes, it would be really cool if PRTG had a purely Azure-based solution. We had to install a probe on one of our cloud servers and then let that probe out from there. It would be really cool if it just monitored Azure without having to install something on the device."

"PRTG Network Monitor can improve by having better integration with devices."

"The icons on PRTG's network diagram are hard to find. For example, finding the icons for firewalls and servers is difficult, so we're struggling to create the network topology."

"We've had some issues previously with the performance of the sensors. We tend to deploy quite a bit of WMI, which is quite processor-intensive, and we've found that that impacts the sensors quite a bit."

"PRTG Network Monitor needs to enhance network performance monitoring. Moving towards observability, similar to what Datadog offers, could be beneficial."

"The desktop app is the one area where it do with some improvement. From a user's perspective, I would like to be able to get more out of the desktop app as opposed to where we are now with it."

"We would like to monitor certain aspects of the user experience. We should be able to analyze the cause of end user experience, bad or good, so we can do some research and development on our own."

"This product can be improved by updating the net flow interface. The one that is in place works – I can get all the information I need from it – but it is a little bit clunky."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."

"Most the plugin features are free."

"The solution is expensive."

"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."

"The product is cheaply priced."

"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."

"It's free."

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"When you have a lot of devices, PRTG Network Monitor can be costly."

"I rate the price of PRTG Network Monitor an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."

"We pay for PRTG Network Monitor annually. The price is approximately 10,000 rupees annually."

"The pricing is okay and it is cheaper than some competing products."

"PRTG Network Monitor's price is a little high."

"PRTG Network Monitor is cheap."

"It's an annual license that is based on the number of endpoints that we're tracking and using."

"While I am not the person who deals with pricing, I would say that we pay around 1000 pounds a year."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

54%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

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.

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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.

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What needs improvement with Nagios Core?

See all answers

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...

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What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor. That's why I'm using the free100 sensor license.

See all answers

Comparisons

Icinga vs Nagios Core

Compared 25% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 22% of the time

Zabbix vs Nagios Core

Compared 16% of the time

Centreon vs Nagios Core

Compared 10% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs Nagios Core

Compared 1% of the time

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Zabbix vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Nagios XI vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

More PRTG Network Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

January 2025

Download Nagios Core product report

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor

January 2025

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

Learn More

Nagios

Paessler GmbH

Overview

This is IT infrastructure monitoring's industry-standard, open-source core. Free without professional support services.

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

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

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. PRTG Network Monitor

January 2025

Free Report: Nagios Core vs. PRTG Network Monitor

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