Prometheus vs Zabbix comparison

Prometheus and Zabbix are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Prometheus is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.4, while Zabbix is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.4. Additionally, 100% of Prometheus users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Zabbix users who would recommend it.

Prometheus

Read 33 Prometheus reviews

6,761 Views
5,996 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Zabbix

Read 103 Zabbix reviews

5,599 Views
4,314 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Prometheus

Zabbix

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Zabbix and Prometheus are leading solutions in the monitoring sector. Prometheus is often seen as superior due to its advanced features, while Zabbix is favored for pricing and support.

Features: Zabbix offers a range of comprehensive monitoring and alerting capabilities. It is strongly noted for its ease of integration into existing systems. Prometheus, however, features a robust time-series database and a powerful querying language. Its flexibility in integration with modern infrastructures stands out, plus its scalability in handling large amounts of data.

Room for Improvement: Users mention Zabbix could strengthen its reporting features and simplify configuration. Its integration capabilities can also expand to support more diverse environments. For Prometheus, improvements in long-term data storage are desired alongside enhanced out-of-the-box visualization options. There is also a call for making the interface more user-friendly for less technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix is noted for easy deployment in traditional setups, requiring more manual configurations but benefiting from excellent customer support. Prometheus deploys well in containerized environments but requires deeper technical skills. It benefits from strong community-driven support resources.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix is appreciated for its open-source model, providing solid ROI without significant initial costs. Prometheus, while having higher upfront costs due to its configuration needs, is valued for its high ROI potential through scalability and rich features.

To learn more, read our detailed Prometheus vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Prometheus vs. Zabbix

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Prometheus

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zabbix

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

Featured Reviews

Noam Blidstein

Head of Global IT Operations at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

A very flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need

Make sure that you have dedicated manpower to configure and manage the solution. It requires handling, not necessarily on a daily basis, but it definitely requires someone who is focused and has expertise with the solution. Know in advance what you want to gain from the solution. Don't jump in to configuring or deploying before knowing what you expect from it. I like the solution very much. I think it is a major tool, especially in advanced environments. The open box provides a lot of flexibility and gives a very holistic view of the entire Kubernetes environment. Integrating with the Rancher management tool gives the solution even more abilities. There are several tools that we use behind the scenes to ease the process but the solution on its own is a very good tool. I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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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 highly valuable as it serves as the foundation for our infrastructure monitoring tools."

"The most valuable features of the solution are metrics scraping capabilities and the open source community and support."

"The most valuable features of Prometheus are the many functions available. The functions are helpful for understanding the behavior of applications and infrastructure."

"The resilience of the solution's metric collection is very nice."

"The solution is useful to collect huge metrics."

"The product’s scalability is valuable."

"The sky is the limit because the solution is a flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need to monitor applications."

"The dashboard is very valuable."

More Prometheus pros

"We like the user-interface for this solution, which makes it an easy to use tool."

"I really enjoy network traffic triggers that allow us to check traffic threshold from ISP."

"It meets my organizational needs. It's pretty easy to use."

"The initial setup was not complex."

"We use Zabbix to monitor our organization's IT infrastructure and workstations. We don't use Microsoft Intune since it's expensive. The tool's real-time alerting system has proved crucial for us, particularly when a new device joins a network that is not one of our own devices. It notifies us about the presence of this new device, allowing us to investigate further. Additionally, it alerts us about disk usage, memory usage, and the software installed on the machine."

"The solution is stable."

"I'm supervising all the IT departments, and Zabbix seems quite good for them. It provides graphics and information in real time. We get alerts about crashes on the system, enabling us to quickly repair issues. We can easily find devices with problems."

"The initial setup was very quick. The first time it was long because I didn't know it yet. I was only using Windows. The first time was very difficult because of the operating system."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"One potential area for improvement would be fixing the occasional glitches and bugs."

"Prometheus' UI color can improve. Using the Prometheus UI for configuration or analyzing queries is a horrible experience."

"The setup process could be more straightforward."

"The setup could be made easier for new users because it requires a bit of advance knowledge or experience."

"The primary area where Prometheus could be improved is in terms of pricing, particularly when used with managed services."

"The alert functionality is kind of lackluster."

"The simplicity of the query language could be improved. The current query language is not easy to work with."

"Its stability could be even better."

More Prometheus cons

"I had problems using Zabbix when working with SUSE Enterprise; many companies use SUSE."

"Zabbix could improve when it comes to large-scale use cases. Additionally, the inventory could be better when connecting to other solutions, such as ServiceNow. There show to be better integration with other platforms and storage."

"The documentation could be improved."

"The documentation gets a bit messy between versions and is not too detailed, which is a bit painful for first-timers, especially when they run into issues."

"The only issue we have had with Zabbix is when we decided to make an update or upgrade."

"Sometimes, the documentation is a little bit written in Estonia – a country in Europe. The language barrier and translation to English can sometimes make it difficult to understand what they're trying to get at. It's just a language thing."

"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."

"The user web interface is a little bit too basic, we need to link Zabbix to Grafana to have more options, such as graphs and charts. The interface needs to be improved. Additionally, there could be better integration with Grafana API."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Prometheus is available as an open-source product."

"The solution is free of cost."

"This is an open-source solution."

"Prometheus is an open-source solution."

"The solution is not expensive."

"Prometheus is an open-source solution."

"The tool is open-sourced."

"It is an open-source tool."

More Prometheus pricing and cost advice

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

"We were searching for an open source solution and Zabbix fit the bill because it is free and open source under the GPL license."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"We pay the subscription for support by year."

"Zabbix and Grafana are both open source products, we only needed to go to their website and download the application and we began to use them. The solutions are free."

"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."

"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."

"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability 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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

15%

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 Prometheus?

The most valuable feature of Prometheus is its ability to collect metrics.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prometheus?

Prometheus is an open-source tool.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Prometheus?

We use Prometheus for observability and analyzing data for business metrics and system metrics. It helps us with messaging services observability. It also helps a lot with the architecture and scal...

See all answers

What do you like most about Zabbix?

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

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

I use the tool's free version.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure Monitor vs Prometheus

Compared 16% of the time

Dynatrace vs Prometheus

Compared 9% of the time

New Relic vs Prometheus

Compared 9% of the time

Apache SkyWalking vs Prometheus

Compared 7% of the time

Sentry vs Prometheus

Compared 7% of the time

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LibreNMS vs Zabbix

Compared 9% of the time

Icinga vs Zabbix

Compared 7% of the time

Checkmk vs Zabbix

Compared 7% of the time

Centreon vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Zabbix

Compared 3% of the time

More Zabbix Competitors

Product Reports

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Prometheus

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Prometheus

Zabbix

Overview

Prometheus specializes in gathering, monitoring, and analyzing logs and metrics. Utilized for data visualization in Grafana, cloud deployments, Kubernetes monitoring, and financial transactions, it provides a comprehensive view of application performance.

Prometheus is widely adopted for its robust metrics collection and scraping capabilities. It integrates seamlessly with Grafana for detailed visualizations and supports installations in cloud environments like Azure and Amazon. Prometheus is especially valued for monitoring Kubernetes deployments and ensuring efficient operation of servers, databases, and microservices. Its open-source nature provides reliability, flexibility, and scalability. Users appreciate its extensive integrations, APIs, and libraries, supporting multiple languages. Prometheus also offers remote writing, dynamic conflict resolution, high availability, and lightweight configuration with detailed documentation.

What are the key features of Prometheus?

Extensive Integrations: Supports APIs and libraries across multiple languages
Metrics Collection: Efficiently handles large amounts of metrics
Scraping Capabilities: Effective data gathering from applications
HTTP Monitoring: Reliable and detailed tracking
Grafana Integration: Seamless dashboards and visualizations
High Availability: Ensures system reliability
Lightweight Configuration: User-friendly setup process
Robust Querying: Advanced data querying and long-term storage integration

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Holistic Application Performance: Provides a comprehensive view
Scalability: Handles growing amounts of metrics
Flexibility: Adapts to various cloud and on-premises environments
Reliability: Ensures consistent performance
Detailed Documentation: Offers clear guidance for users

Prometheus is extensively used in industries requiring robust monitoring and alerting systems. Financial services leverage it for tracking transactions, while tech companies deploy it for Kubernetes and microservices monitoring. Its scalable and flexible nature makes it a preferred choice for cloud environments, supporting the efficient operation of infrastructure and applications.

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

Information Not Available

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

Buyer's Guide

Prometheus vs. Zabbix

December 2024

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