Nagios Core vs Zabbix comparison

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Nagios Core

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Zabbix and Nagios Core are competing in the open-source monitoring solutions category. Zabbix appears to have the upper hand due to its automation and scalability advantages, making it suitable for complex environments.

Features: Zabbix offers automation with Low-Level Discovery, network mapping, and a customization API. Its flexibility and comprehensive templates are highly valued. Nagios Core focuses on extensibility with a wide range of plugins. It is reliable, with a lightweight design and easy text file configuration for customization.

Room for Improvement: Users of Zabbix often seek better reporting, user experience customization, and integration features. Enhancing the interface and graphical capabilities is also desired, particularly for non-technical users. Nagios Core users face a steep learning curve in deployment and configuration and desire an updated user interface and advanced management capabilities. Its centralized architecture may limit scalability in complex environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix supports versatile deployment options, including on-premises and hybrid clouds, and receives praise for its community and professional support. Nagios Core primarily deploys on-premises and requires expertise for setup, relying heavily on community support due to limited built-in options. While challenging, Zabbix offers more structured support for resolving issues.

Pricing and ROI: Both Zabbix and Nagios Core are free open-source solutions, offering cost savings over commercial alternatives. Zabbix may incur professional support and training costs but is often viewed as providing greater ROI for enterprises. Nagios Core provides a zero licensing fee solution but may incur additional operational expenses due to the need for skilled administrators. Zabbix's extensive features contribute to quicker ROI recoupment for large enterprises.

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

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Nagios Core vs. Zabbix

January 2025

Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

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

Zabbix

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

1st

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

104

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th), Server Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

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 Zabbix is 11.5%, down from 11.8% 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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ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

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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

"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."

"The notifications are definitely one of the most valuable features of Nagios Core. We know what to look for and what to expect when things are down."

"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."

"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."

"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."

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

"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."

"Dashboard provides monitor of total assets."

More Nagios Core pros

"The resource usage, CPU utilization, disk usage, network monitoring, network performance, and alerting features are invaluable."

"It not only provides the preconfigured item monitoring feature, but it is also easy to configure custom items."

"I like being able to use proxy servers for different locations. The agents are pretty cool. They're easy to roll out. The standard out-of-the-box templates are also pretty easy to use. The integration with other learning products is also good. I have, in the past, used Slack, but we've integrated it with Microsoft Teams. We also use it for SMS with a service called Redcoat. It is very flexible. It does what I need it to do, and my manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything. We are nearing 4,000 hosts inside Zabbix, and we've got another 6,000 access points to add to it. We've thrown everything at it, and it has managed to keep going. I am very impressed with the tool, and I'd shake their hand very hard if I got to say the compliments to the Zabbix team. They keep improving it and doing refreshes, which is one good thing about it. There is also online information as well as books that you can purchase if you're willing to read enough. There is a lot to pick up, but it is a pretty complete solution."

"The level of discovery-based configuration that lets us auto-configure the monitoring for various systems is a valuable feature."

"We have found that Zabbix is more easy to use than other applications."

"The flexibility of this solution is amazing."

"It is a great product. The SNMP protocol tracking feature is good. I really like how it tracks SNMP. The alerts are also great."

"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."

"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."

"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."

"Nagios Core is limited in terms of distributed setups, and there is no central view for remote data centers."

"The initial setup process could be easier."

"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."

"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."

"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."

More Nagios Core cons

"Outside of the normal standard monitoring, I would like to extend patching, importing patching, and supporting patching for Windows Servers."

"We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."

"We had some scalability issues with a large number of nodes."

"Zabbix technical support is sold separately."

"In an upcoming release, there should be automated reports which we are currently doing manually. For example, if we collect a report file every day and want to send it to a moderator for review. We are expecting this feature to come out soon but it would be valuable to have now."

"Implementing Zabbix is difficult. I've deployed many solutions over the years, and Zabbix is the hardest to implement. You have to do some development to get it to work with IBM, Micro Focus, or HP products."

"In the next release, I'm hoping for features targeted towards larger users with more customizable options. Despite this, I think pre-canned reports that can be used straight out of the box would be beneficial rather than having to configure each report individually. Additionally, a deeper dive into software configurations on the machines would be useful, although I understand there may be challenges in implementing this due to scripting requirements. More documentation would also be appreciated."

"When we have a problem, we have to do a lot of research to solve it."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."

"It's free."

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

"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."

"It's free."

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

"The product is cheaply priced."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed."

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"The solution is free. However, many open-sourced tools start out free but eventually start charging."

"It is open source. If you want to have a subscription or official support, you can pay for it. They have different plans, which are not that expensive. The plans are based on per monitoring server, not per monitored equipment. So, it is not at all expensive, and you can also live without the support if you want a cheaper option."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."

"We use the open-source version of Zabbix."

"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

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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

39%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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?

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

I use the tool's free version.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds.

OP5 Monitor vs Nagios Core

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LogicMonitor vs Nagios Core

Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

Checkmk vs Zabbix

Compared 8% of the time

Icinga vs Zabbix

Compared 7% of the time

Centreon vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Zabbix

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Nagios Core product report

Nagios Core

January 2025

Download Zabbix product report

December 2024

Learn More

Nagios

Overview

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba