Nagios Core and Zabbix are open-source IT infrastructure monitoring solutions. Nagios Core is a mature solution that focuses on flexibility in customization, timely alerts, centralized dashboards, and plugin support for versatile monitoring solutions. Zabbix offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities, customizable alerting, user-friendly interface, and extensive reporting.
Comparing the features of Nagios Core and Zabbix:
Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core and Zabbix are free and open-source. Zabbix's user-friendly interface and web configuration might reduce setup and maintenance costs for some. Conversely, Nagios Core's large community and extensive plugin library could minimize the need for paid support. Ultimately, ROI depends on your technical expertise.
Room for Improvement: Nagios Core reviews highlight the need for a more modern UI and easier configuration options. Zabbix reviewers mention occasional scalability limitations for extremely large deployments.
Customer Support: With an open-source model, both rely on community support forums for free assistance. Paid support options are available for Nagios XI and Zabbix enterprise versions, offering faster response times and dedicated help. Reviews suggest a slight edge for Zabbix's community support due to its larger user base.
Deployment: Zabbix offers a more straightforward installation process with a web-based interface for configuration. Nagios Core requires manual configuration through text files, although a web interface is available with the paid Nagios XI version. Both have good documentation, but Zabbix's web interface might be easier for beginners.
The summary above is based on 58 interviews we conducted recently with Zabbix and Nagios Core users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."
"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."
"The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."
"Dashboard provides monitor of total assets."
"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."
"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 product is very stable."
"Simple network monitoring that is easy to install and manage."
"Dashboard and the customization of the items and triggers are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of Zabbix are flexibility and a single interface for different types of monitoring."
"We have found that Zabbix is more easy to use than other applications."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides network segregation for server monitoring."
"The integration capabilities and APIs are the best part."
"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 Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"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."
"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."
"The tool needs to improve the integrations."
"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"Documentation terminology could be improved."
"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."
"To improve Zabbix, adding more features to support the monitoring of modern workloads like containers would be beneficial."
"The networking monitor is not too easy to work with."
"The event correlation could be better."
"One of the things we don't like is that Zabbix has a license structure with a price that is high compared to the competition. It's very high, for example, compared to something like Microsoft Teams."
"Having a more customizable interface and dashboard would be an improvement."
"When using this solution in enterprise monitoring, you are able to see that there are some issues with equipment that could be causing a problem. Sometimes you want to make a root command that you do not want to be executed automatically. What we have tried to do is open an SSH session directly from the solution's interface but it is not possible."
Nagios Core is ranked 7th in Network Monitoring Software with 46 reviews while Zabbix is ranked 1st in Network Monitoring Software with 101 reviews. Nagios Core is rated 8.0, while Zabbix is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Nagios Core writes "An Open Source Fully Featured Data Centre Monitoring Tool". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zabbix writes "Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes". Nagios Core is most compared with Nagios XI, Icinga, Centreon, OP5 Monitor and LogicMonitor, whereas Zabbix is most compared with Centreon, Checkmk, SolarWinds NPM, Nagios XI and Amazon CloudWatch. See our Nagios Core vs. Zabbix report.
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