Icinga Reviews

Icinga was created as a fork of the Nagios monitoring system. They are similar in graphics and other features, but most who have used Nagios have changed over to Icinga.

It was deployed using our enterprise application to monitor different services.

The most valuable feature is one that not many are even aware of. Icinga has an event handler. This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted. Not all monitoring solutions offer this feature.

The handler was deployed to take action after the monitoring station has received a critical alarm or a warning alarm. You can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction.

Also, we have used the integration between Icinga and terraform. When Terraform starts using a new VM it communicates to the APIs with Icinga, then puts the machine at the Icinga portal.

The GUI is very good; it is open-source and it's easy to implement.

The NRPE interactions are fine, and the Graphite is good, but there is another source called Grafan and it is better.

Development is needed between APIs, Icinga, and the Enterprise. 

One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine. If I have two machines, an X and a Y, and I would like monitors from machine Y, I would have to log into Machine Y and run a separate service. Icinga does not provide this service. It is implemented manually, not automated.

Icinga uses the latest plugins, it does not have its own plugins.

That database monitoring also requires a plugin that is offered with Nagios plugins. The Nagios plugins only monitor the past checks from the database. I would be happy to see more plugin features added.

Also, with the CSV importing, you can import the monitors to our CSV files, unfortunately, this feature did not work for me, it needs to be improved. 

More market awareness of the event handler is needed.

In the next release, I would like to see more plugins, that is number one, more records, and a better dashboard. If they could implement or automate a new dashboard using some colours it would make it easier to navigate through. Icinga dashboard is comparable with other solutions on the market in regards to the dashboard, they are all the same. The users who are monitoring only use the dashboard before they know the features, they don't have the experience.

We can write scripts using Tomcat and Java to make it as a plugin and run it, but it would be better to have more plugins available. The more plugins, the better.

The API between admin and everything for continuous integrations and continuous delivery needs to be improved.

I would like to see some log monitors in the next release. Nagios had some plugins to monitor logs but it did not work for me.

This solution is stable. It does not consume a lot of memory and the networking is fine.

We have not had any issues with the CPU, memory, or network.

It's compatible with the old machines with old platforms. It is not, however, compatible with all of the tools, but it's fine.

There are different machines and different environments with over five hundred nodes that have different structures.

This solution is scalable. 

You can scale by opening an RP file or configuration file, add your plugin, and monitor, then reload the configurations.

During the implementation, I added the automatic plugin with ansibles and Icinga. When you run the ansible file, it implements the automatics, it then reloads the plugin for you, no manual work is needed.

I have not contacted technical support.

The initial setup was easy and straightforward, but the implementation was not as easy as it was perceived.

We deployed Icinga and the event handler through our IT services.

This is an open-source solution with paid support.

 I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes. I like the clustering feature and running satellite servers, which check their own zones and report back to the masters. Truly a distributed monitoring solution!

I deploy this solution for customers; therefore, it didn't improve my organisation. Still, customers say that they like the modern design approach and the possibilities one has in terms of automated configuration and automation. Most of them integrate Icinga2 into their automation tools and therefore configure the monitoring solution without much manual efforts.

The modern Web GUI Icingaweb2, a separate product, though, has some issues when displaying data (such as downtimes). There are edge cases where it seems like the displayed data is not consistent.

In addition, in my personal opinion, Icingaweb2 should get a more structured design. Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening.

I used Icinga 2.4 for several months and have been using Icinga 2.6 for four weeks now.

We have not encountered any deployment issues at all. The deployment is very easy; there are even wizards helping you to skip manual configuration tasks. You still can automatize the deployment, though.

Stability is great.

Icinga2 is meant to scale in many directions; thus, no issues should occur here.

I did not contact the customer service. The community is very active and developers usually reply within hours on GitHub.

I did not contact the technical support.

I used Nagios 3.x and tested Check_MK. Both are great solutions. However, Icinga2 comes with the best scalability and flexibility in terms of configuration. Furthermore, the API is great.

The initial setup can be tricky, I highly advise to study the docs before getting started. Many configuration options are set indirectly, depending on how you set up Icinga2 (in terms of infrastructure design).

We are deploying it ourselves.

Icinga2 is free, but you can sign a support contract with the vendor.

Icinga 2 is so flexible that it makes sense to either have some people read the docs and carefully evaluate all configuration possibilities; or, if possible, it makes sense to get someone on board and receive help in designing your monitoring platform.

We use Icinga for the user portal.

Icinga does the job and is fairly stable.

Icinga’s automation could be improved.

I have been using Icinga for three years.

I rate Icinga an eight out of ten for stability.

I rate Icinga a six out of ten for scalability.

Icinga's initial setup, which takes a few months, requires the assistance of technical people.

Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it. You need to maintain it and develop some probes while its deployment is manual. When you want to make modifications, such as adding new assets to be monitored or modifying the config file, it must be done manually without any automation or detection.

Using Icinga doesn't require a financial investment, but it does require an investment in people and time to support it. You'll need technical staff and some time to get it up and running. However, once established, Icinga can easily detect and deploy issues quickly. In a couple of days, you can establish a certain base before moving on to fine-tuning. If you don't have a budget for a monitoring tool, Icinga can be a good option, but it will require some time and effort to set up and maintain.

Icinga does the job and is fairly stable. We didn't have any issues with it. However, it requires human resources for maintenance and upkeep, which is a drawback compared to using SaaS solutions.

Overall, I rate Icinga a six out of ten.

At this time we use Icinga to just do basic monitoring of our existing infrastructure. We are using SNMP Traps in all devices in addition so that when anything happens on the device it sends an SNMP alert. We can use this solution online or it can send us an email as well.

We started troubleshooting that issue as soon as we saw it. Icinga has a reactive approach. I think the solution is forewarning us but we are looking for some solution which can take a proactive initiative as well. For example, if the CPU is going too high or the net visualization is less than 90%, we should get information about such situations so that we can take actions accordingly to fix the problem.

It is not really adequate for our current needs. It causes additional issues which we have to work around and takes us time that a better solution would not.

I don't know what features are best because I don't like this solution, it seems inadequate, and I only use very basic features. You can get basic information out if it, like the number of devices, iOS, the model, this kind of stuff. But I am not able to find some more detailed information that is important. It may be that we have not deployed all the plugins. At this time we are not doing any research into expanding the deployment because we believe there are better alternatives. My team and I just inherited this solution by default from the previous IT person who deployed it. For now, we're just using it as it is with some workarounds. As it will likely not be deployed much longer, we are not doing any research on it or changing any functionality.

A lot of things could be improved because it has a lack of dashboards, no detailed information for reporting, no information for the audit purposes that we can send, no information about the configuration management, and very little inventory information. It is barely serving a purpose.

From a stability point of view, I think it's quite good. It has a few flaws in gathering information from virtualization and especially for configuration management. We sometimes face issues with the monitoring solution being down or it causes some abnormalities. But that is really functionality and not stability. From a stability point of view, I think it's good.

I saw another site that had different modules that could be integrated with the Icinga product but few things would still be missing if we deployed all of them. An IT or operations team must have these in their monitoring solution like monitoring of detail and monitoring virtualization. Independent of which virtualization solutions our companies use, the solution needs these things. Options like VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox — any DBM type solution that I am familiar with already has these things.

The solution itself seems to be quite stable, as in the last six months we did not have a reason to contact support. So I can't say whether support is good or bad. But even the person who deployed it did not note any knowledgebase article in our internal ticketing system or mention that someone else opened a case. It suggests there were no problems that required support. I have no idea about how the support team responds to queries.

I've worked with many other monitoring solutions and they are pretty good and they can become very user-friendly over a little time. This solution is not comparable. We are just using it as it is but we have planned to upgrade or to have a new solution. We are looking at a solution which can do monitoring, diagnostics, and configuration management — all in one.

As an IT administrator, I'm looking to make customized dashboards based on requirements and create some modular alerts. There may be some sort of utility that we can add to the product to get some more detailed information, but I think they need to improve specifically these two areas: supporting and the dashboard. Other solutions already have them.

I was not here for the initial setup so I cannot comment on that.

The solution is costing us time and money beyond what is paid for the license.

It is relatively inexpensive and may be okay if you are a smaller organization concerned with the price more than the utility.

I was not the one who chose and installed this solution. The product was already deployed when I joined. We are currently evaluating several potential solutions including Logistics I. We would prefer it to be a modular based approach which can help us to achieve multiple tasks from a single console. That suggests dashboards and diagnostic capabilities. We will probably replace this with a higher-priced solution that is capable of more.

If you have a small infrastructure or a small number of devices that you want to monitor, then I think it's a good solution. If you have a lot of devices or an enterprise level installation that you want to monitor, I don't think that this solution can be entertained. 

I've been in IT infrastructure support for the last 15 years and I have not seen such a solution which has this very basic level of monitoring.

I would rate it a four out of ten.

The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything. The huge spectrum of plugins enables users to monitor different technologies. That is Icinga's advantage. It is also open source.

The user experience – in terms of the usability of the application – could be improved. Another important thing is to work on a better tactical overview. 

Icinga should also be updated with the latest cloud capabilities. I don't know whether it does the monitoring of containers, but that would definitely be something important to hone in on. 

In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI.

I have been using Icinga in multiple companies for at least seven years.

This is a stable product. We have seen no problems with stability. 

I have never had any problems with Icinga, so I will assume that it is scalable. 

I do not have any experience with Icinga's technical support. Our people have been able to use it without technical support so far. 

The initial setup was easy. 

We do not have any licensing costs. 

I do remember that we evaluated multiple products but I do not recall their names. 

I would recommend this product. 

Network Services and Host Monitoring. Quick view of server status.

With Icinga 2's REST API, you can update your configurations on the fly or show live information about current problems on your custom dashboards.

Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful.

Three to five years.

No.

No.

Never used, but I would assume excellent. The open source community is amazing for this product.

Nagios. Just wanted to try something new.

Yes, simple install on Ubuntu Server 12.04, 14.04, or any LTS edition.

Very reasonable.

Not really. I searched for alternatives to Nagios and additional network monitoring software and this one was the best option.

People should know that it is simple and advanced. It is simple to install yet provides advanced monitoring capabilities and features.

The primary use case of this solution is for surveillance for some of the servers for our clients.

The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download.

The user interface is good, it's open-source, and it's easy to use.

They need to simplify the management of what the user can see and not see. The roles should be simpler.

At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos.

I started using Icinga approximately one year ago.

It's a stable solution. It's working as expected and there are no issues.

This is a scalable product. We have approximately 30 users in our company.

We do web checking for solutions when we run into problems.

At the start, the initial setup was a bit complex, but after reading everything it was simple.

It's a bit about the configuration and what you have to follow.

You have to install it on the web and then go through the checks. It can take some time, especially if you have many servers to be monitored.

We have our own team to maintain this solution.

It's an open-source solution.

I would recommend Icinga. It's an open-source solution. It's quite easy, it's simple to use. Checks can be run with Python code, and Shell Script code. 

Overall, we like it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Flexibility.

We monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains.

Object-oriented configuration.

The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web.