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Nagios XI vs Wireshark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (13th), Server Monitoring (8th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (14th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Nagios XI is designed for IT Infrastructure Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 3.6%, down 4.1% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 13.1% mindshare, down 13.2% since last year.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Network Troubleshooting
 

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.
DonniUgalde - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use
I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is pretty stable."
"Nagios XI is stable."
"The most useful aspect of this solution is the ability to customize it for the client agent."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"The most valuable features of Nagios XI are you can customize it based on your use case and requirements. It is flexible and easy to integrate with our systems. You can customize the solution by adding additional features using code."
"Though I downplayed the administrative NCC GUI, this is by far the strongest aspect of the Nagios XI product."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"The most valuable feature is its support for different types of devices, where it can use all of the equipment that you need."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"The session-level filtering features are valuable."
"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze. When I need to create an IPS rule, I need to check the traffic deeply to get more insights about the actual traffic, what's the name of certain flags, etc., and I'm able to do all that through Wireshark. The tool is also user-friendly."
"The initial setup is simple."
"The GUI is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
 

Cons

"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"The tool's AI model needs to be fixed."
"It is really difficult to integrate Nagios XI with another system to generate logs and alert our management of failures in security infrastructure."
"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."
"The product could be optimized to improve the administrative user experience via the Nagios Core Configuration (NCC) GUI module."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"The Configuration Wizard needs improvement, because not all vendors are present."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
"Wireshark is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."
"The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"DNS could be improved."
"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."
"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
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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
62%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due to numerous factors.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
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