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Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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 XI
Ranking in Server Monitoring
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (13th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (13th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Active Directory Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 9.3%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 4.7%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Script Module in Nagios is really easy to use and is really cost efficient."
"I can monitor a software made in-house to software of bigger companies."
"An excellent solution that is easy and intuitive to implement."
"Nagios XI helped me to draw the network and check for system failures."
"We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful."
"You want to monitor a specific metric that nobody else has? You can do it even with the most basic of scripting skills, and you can always share it with the vast community of Nagios Exchange."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios XI is customization. We can customize based on our requirements. We can do modifications and implement a lot of scripts. Additionally, it is easy to use."
"The technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
 

Cons

"The product's stability could be even better."
"I would like to be able to extend it to all of our data centers, whether they are in the cloud or not. It would be helpful if I could connect everywhere."
"The technical support is variable - sometimes I get answers, but most of my tickets go unanswered."
"Improve the documentation, examples, and best practices, therefore users can understand how to do things."
"The reporting structure could be more streamlined."
"It is really difficult to integrate Nagios XI with another system to generate logs and alert our management of failures in security infrastructure."
"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."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"The price is too high."
"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
61%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
46%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios XI vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.