PRTG Network Monitor Reviews

PRTG has been a network monitoring solution for our company for over five years now. We constantly monitor our servers, switches, broadband. Anything that we can put a sensor on, it monitors. I monitor four domains and I use cross-domain network monitoring as well.

In terms of the historical data provided by the solution, I look at the network performance and, obviously, if I've got an offsite backup going through, I want to monitor what sort of impact that's had on the network. If it's detrimental, then I can change the times when the backups happen and make sure that there's not a severe impact on my local network.

Previously, other parts of the company have used different products, and PRTG has helped broaden their minds into what a decent piece of monitoring software actually does. I'm pushing it out further afield, which is why it's in four domains.

When it comes to helping our IT department to be more cost-effective, if I've got as-it-happens monitoring, I can deploy the resources to resolve the issues quicker.

One of the things I like is the fact that I can use it on my mobile phone. I use the mobile app and it alerts me if there is a problem. Obviously if I'm not in the office or available to get in. I can monitor it externally and am able to deploy resources to sort things out quickly.

The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature as well.

I use the Desktop app all the time, it's constantly on my taskbar so that I can monitor things. If there is a problem, it flashes up red and lets me know there's an issue and I get to deal with it almost immediately.

The remote probes are okay. I think that there could be more sensors available, especially with newer technologies coming along. It has been a bit stagnant. Unfortunately, it uses an almost "external workforce" through its forums to create new sensors.

Also, I have an issue with DFS, distributed file services. Currently, although there is a forum post with regards to the issue of PRTG and the DFS monitoring, there isn't one by default. I think it is quite a necessity that they make one, one that's actually easily integratable. Taking into account the difference between DFS and DFSR as well would be great. They need one that pulls up the report, shows you how much is out of sync, if it's out, and how much of a time difference there is between the synchronizations. Anything like that would be a help.

It's always on. I have a server dedicated to it, that's all it does. I've never had it fall down, ever.

With the remote probes, the ability to monitor external domains makes this product easy to scale.

I've only used the technical support a couple of times. There is a lot of information available on the forums. More than likely, if I have a problem, somebody else has had that same problem. The forums can help in that way to find a resolution.

Setup, is fairly straight-forward, but it can be a laborious task initially, once you have populated the sensors everything just ticks along nicely.

In-House setup but if there's a problem, I know that the support from PRTG is not far away.

The solution has definitely saved us time and money. Services need to be constantly monitored, if you don't have a good product to monitor these things you have to wait till something stops working and then use command-line tools to diagnose the issue. This is counter-productive.

Mostly I know if a DC is starting to go down because it stops responding to remote desktop session calls. I don't know why, but that's the first thing that goes down. It flags up that I can't get the user remote desktop and that's the first sign that that server is going to go down very soon.

At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed.

I have actually used other solutions, because I do look after four domains. Previously, they had other packages that were already there, and I still find PRTG to be the best.

PRTG is free for an initial trial of 30 days. Once you've used it, I think you'll find that it is a great product and well worth the investment.

The overall feature set is pretty good. It's not a complete feature set. I'd like to see more, but, as a general rule, I've been using it for over five years. I must be pretty happy with what it does, as it is.

I would rate the product at eight out of ten because there's always room for improvement. Nobody's going to be the best of the best. If a DFSR or DFS sensor were added, I'd give it a nine.

The primary use case if for monitoring bandwidth, uplinks and using SNMPs. We are slowly scaling out to monitor hard drive disk spaces, as well. 

Our bandwidth solution, which are the uplinks that we have at the moment for circuit breakouts, and ISPs don't give us the best information. So, we use what we can and monitor the uplinks before they hit the equipment.

Historical data provided by this solution helps us optimize our network performance by providing network trends. Therefore, we can go back 30 days or six months, saying to my boss, "We can see an upward trend over this amount, and these are our projections going forward." So, it allows us to predict and move forward.

We use a Citrix application, which we use to monitor certain ports and ensure we get response times that are essential. It makes it easier if we can benchmark scenarios rather than asking users if the speed has improved, etc.

This solution provides us with the needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It allows us to grab all the information from a single point of view.

The most valuable feature is being notified before we ask if there is an outage. Visibility is the main thing for us, which I can give to my boss. So, when people start asking him for information, he's not on the back foot straightaway. He can say, "Yes, we are experiencing this." We can at least get that information to the ISPs and provide them the correct timestamps and information, then go from there.

The sensors and remote probes are phenomenal. We use them for all of our global sites. The problem with our global sites are that they are all VPNs. If the link goes down, you can't monitor other solutions, as it just goes off the grid. Having remote probes allows them to still carry on and get the information that we need when it comes back up, sending the information to us.

We have been happy with the feature set, so far. It has compatibility with most of the product that we use, such as Juniper hardware.

They just released a newer version of the desktop app, a beta version, that I have been trialing out. I prefer the older version, only because of how the layout is designed, but they're making improvements to it all the time.

The clustering aspect needs improvement, as there is a bit of confusion about you do when hit that 5000 probe mark.

I would like there to be more cloud features with cloud stats. However, in every update, there seems to be more things add. 

I would also like there to be more APIs and access to them.

It is fairly stable. It gets a bit interesting the closer that we are etching in to the 5000 probe mark. 

There are some HA concerns. However, PRTG put that on the website and are not hiding it. One thing that I want to know, "Where the company is going with HA from here?"

Previously, we were easily under a 1000 sensors. We are now up to 3500. In the future, depending on how we scale out, we will be over the 5000 mark.

The product can easily grow with our business.

The technical support is good. They are fairly responsive. I have a ticket with them at the moment and am waiting to hear back on them, but it's all good.

For online resources, I pretty much go to Google more than anything else, rather than a dedicated place.

The time that it took to get the information required to be as proactive or reactive as possible is what drove us to PRTG. With the multitude of products that we had, it was the best solution since it allows us to see everything in one window.

We used the free trial of PRTG. Did a benchmark to see if the product is what we required, then went to the paid version.

The initial setup is straightforward. You just install it, and as long as you have got the right credentials and know the subnets to scan, it is fairly easy.

It took hours from the time that we set up the solution until it provided us with feedback on our IT infrastructure. However, in the time to get the core setup, we scaled it out for the rest of the business. The analysis that it provided was good and quick.

We implemented in-house.

This solution enables our IT department to be more cost-effective by saving. The product provide a single pane to see a lot of information, especially at an engineering level. Looking at multiple products takes more time. Having a single pane in effect can provide all the information in one place.

I had previously used PRTG 

Give it a shot. They have a free trial. If the product meets your needs, take it further. There is not much in terms of prerequisites, other than knowing the subnets and credentials.

The product does everything that we need it to do at the moment.

My clients primarily use PRTG for monitoring network devices, bandwidth, server status, and security devices like Sophos firewalls, and CCTV systems. It helps ensure efficiency, security, and reliability across their IT infrastructure.

The real-time monitoring feature in PRTG is invaluable to me. It provides immediate insights into network performance, which is crucial for proactive maintenance. Another standout feature is its recommendation system, especially in the enterprise version, which helps optimize operations by automatically managing failovers. Additionally, the flexibility to customize data storage and the option to remove old data after a certain period is also essential for efficient resource management.

Improvements in data storage flexibility, such as allowing customers to specify data retention periods, would enhance PRTG. Additionally, implementing OID panels for wider device support, especially for devices like UPS network equipment lacking standard OID support, would be beneficial.

I have been working with PRTG Network Monitor since 2008.

I would rate the stability of PRTG at a nine out of ten.

PRTG is quite scalable. It is not just about software; scalability extends to hardware with customizable solutions. PRTG is suitable for companies of all sizes, from small to enterprise-level, with support for up to 1,000 devices.

While the tech support offers good remote login assistance, there is room for improvement in response time for critical problems. Overall, I would rate their support nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was simple.

Pricing for PRTG depends on the number of licenses needed, ranging from as few as two hundred to potentially as many as forty thousand. The pricing model is flexible, making it suitable for a wide range of businesses and budgets.

PRTG and SolarWinds both offer comprehensive solutions, but PRTG's simpler pricing model based on device count makes it more appealing. With PRTG, everything is included in one package, whereas SolarWinds often requires additional monthly payments for various features. This straightforward pricing structure makes PRTG a preferred choice for many.

PRTG helps clients identify and resolve network issues by providing comprehensive monitoring without requiring configuration changes. It collects data from various devices and systems, including Cisco and Juniper, and offers flexibility in monitoring settings to suit different needs, such as traffic analysis or vendor-specific monitoring.

I would recommend PRTG, especially for users with limited budgets who want an effective monitoring solution. Overall, I would rate it as a nine out of ten.

I use PRTG Network Monitor to monitor server and network environments in my company.

Most of the products either provide features for network monitoring or efficient server monitoring. There are different products for server monitoring when it comes to ManageEngine or SolarWinds, and there are different products for server monitoring. There are different metrics to consider when monitoring servers and networks. RTG Network Monitor gives me a complete picture of both the modules, which are server monitoring and network monitoring.

Technical support is an area with concerns in PRTG Network Monitor, where improvements are required. The product is very good, but its local presence in the Saudi Arabian market is unavailable.

I would like PRTG Network Monitor to introduce some security features for monitoring the security devices. The server and network monitoring functionalities in PRTG Network Monitor are very efficient. The security features of the product should provide the same level of efficiency as it provides for server and network monitoring so that its users or customers get all its features in a bundle.

I have been using PRTG Network Monitor for six years. I am just a consumer of the product.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Around ten people in my company use PRTG Network Monitor.

The product's initial setup is simple.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

I took care of the implementation part of PRTG Network Monitor by myself.

I rate the price of PRTG Network Monitor an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price.

I compared PRTG Network Monitor with SolarWinds and ManageEngine. I chose PRTG Network Monitor over other products in the market since it provides complete monitoring of my servers and network devices. SolarWinds and ManageEngine have different products for server monitoring and different products for network monitoring.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

We use the solution to monitor customer sites.

PRTG Network Monitor helps us quickly and easily discover a large number of sensors, so we can spend minimal time monitoring customer sites. This allows us to focus on other important tasks.

PRTG Network Monitor could develop more tie-up sensors so that we can get more detail on the monitoring system. We have a lot of tie-up devices, and many of them we cannot monitor. However, we have to go to the price of this product to monitor them. I hope that in the future, Paessler could develop more sensors.

Sometimes, our PRTG Network Monitor system crashes and a lot of sensors go down. I have to reboot the prop to get the system back to normal.

I would like PRTG Network Monitor to add backup abilities.

The solution can be more stable.

The technical support needs improvement.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

I give the stability of the solution a seven out of ten. We have faced a lot of crashes in PRTG Network Monitor in the past.

The technical support is not good. I was not happy with some of their responses.

The initial setup of the solution is complex and our environment relies on three PRTG systems to monitor many customers. In the event our PRTG Network Monitor was to go down, we would have a lot of problems as we would have to check the sensors manually.

We used a consultant for the implementation.

PRTG Network Monitor is very expensive. We pay around $100,000 per year for each installation. We have four installations, so our cost is $400,000 per year.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We haven't used other solutions because we think PRTG is the best monitoring system at this time.

We have 30 people using the solution in our organization, but we monitor around 200 customers.

I recommend the solution but it is very expensive and some organizations don't have the budget.

I use PRTG because I have six clouds around the world, a mixture of our own and our customer data, so I need to know when it's all up and running and when it's dead. My team is the main point of call for all the infrastructure around the world. I get called out at all times during the night and day, including this morning at five am.

It allows me to spend less time firefighting and patching servers, and to spend more time with our customers, fixing their environments. Ironically, some of them have moved on to the monitoring tool as well. Time is the biggest thing that I have, and it's given me that back a bit. I'm no longer spending as many nights on call-outs as I used to, so for me it's been brilliant.

It also helps our IT department to be more cost-effective. Historically, people would build servers and they'd put far too much memory in them. When we would see that they're only using one percent, we'd know someone had specified far too much and been a bit cocky with what they were doing. It definitely helps to do tuning and save resources.

In terms of feedback on our IT infrastructure, it tells us when updates haven't been applied in a while, which is not a bad thing, especially with how Microsoft has been recently, breaking stuff. PRTG been great. It has let us know when a few of our SX servers have been having little issues, things you wouldn't necessarily notice under the covers unless you started hammering the system. It's definitely prevented downtime which, at the end of the day, is what we're after. It's done well.

One of its valuable features is the fact that it handles multiple operating systems. I've started moving over to Linux and away from Microsoft. Having the guys try to catch up on their Linux skills, it has been good to have a backup to make sure that we're not missing anything. It's definitely helped us a few times to make sure that stuff hasn't fallen over. And I like the fact that it tells me when things are about to fall over, which means I can preempt it and not have to wake up at three in the morning to fix it.

The Desktop app is good, although it's a bit in your face at times, but that is what you need. I normally just have it installed on a monitor in the background, so it doesn't keep flying up on my computer when I'm in the middle of an email. Other than that, it's really good.

The overall feature is set is very good. Originally, there were a few different solutions that we were looking at. I looked at the features that PRTG had and I bought it. I realized after I bought it that it could do a lot more than I wanted it to do, which was a godsend because I was looking for another bit of software to do just part of what it was doing. I managed to get a complete system. We don't use the ticketing side because we have our own ticketing from our managed services, but for other customers, big or small, I can see how it would help out massively.

It would be good if there were better graphical interfaces when you have it on multiple monitors. The way I use it is on multiple monitors so the department can see what's actually going on with the different geographies. It would make it an easier, visually, when they're working on emails or something else, to quickly work out if something is going on, without having an alarm saying that something needs doing. That's the one thing that is - I wouldn't say lacking - but the illustrations could be better for the different geographies. Because we have so many servers, things can get lost in the fog a little bit. Maybe having a better way of showing different geographies, Flash, etc., would help.

The stability has been great. It even says when to do a reboot, generally. I've only ever had a couple of issues where I've left it on for too many months without rebooting it and it's gotten its knickers in a twist, but other than that it's been absolutely fine.

The scalability is good. I know we don't push it to what it can do. The Remote Probe feature is definitely fantastic, especially with the different geographies we have. I can't really fault it too much. With the auto-updates it pushes out, it almost looks after itself.

The solution grows with our business. Having the miniature silo sites is very good. That's helped out quite a lot with keeping track of our clouds because we can have everything in a "tiered system." If we've got a customer who rings up and wants to check on something, we can easily navigate, see what's going on, do some predictive analysis, and then see if we can help the customer make their environment any better, or just make sure it doesn't blow up in the middle of the night.

We've only had to use technical support a few times, because everything's been pretty sorted. But when we have contacted them we've literally had a call back within half an hour and the problem has been fixed, or they've walked it through and told me to read the manual.

We used to use an old product called Servers Alive. It was good but very basic. It helped every once in a while, but it just didn't have anywhere near the kind of insights that you do with PRTG.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution because I was getting stressed out and annoyed at the fact that I was getting called out so often, firefighting and fixing and stuff in the middle of the night, as well as doing the day job. I needed another pair of hands to be able to handle the infrastructure that was rapidly growing.

Downtime wasn't really a driving factor in our decision. We just upped and moved to the cloud. We wanted something that could keep an eye on what was going on in the back doors. That was one of the main reasons for the switch. We used to have a data center down in London, and driving down there to fix things up in the middle of the night wasn't exactly ideal. Although cloud is a little bit more expensive, regardless of what people tell you, it frees up time in the fact that you can literally rebuild stuff on the fly now, so much faster than you would if you had to procure servers. Having something keep an eye out to make sure all that is working in the background works for me.

The setup was so easy: 

• Insert IP address here. 
• Is this your password? - Yes.
• Do you have a VM server? - Actually, I do, thanks.

It then told me: "This is what you've got, and this is broken." Okay, thanks then.

From the time we set up the solution until it provided feedback on our IT infrastructure would have been about 12 hours.

I rang up and said, "I like your product," and within half an hour I had it downloaded and semi-configured and spent the next couple of days just tuning the environment. It's fantastic.

It has definitely saved the organization money. We see ROI from the fact that the company hasn't had to employ another person to back me up because I'm fixing stuff in the middle of the night. It's like having another admin there to help look at stuff.

The pricing is not too bad. It's not massively expensive, and the ability to upscale or even downscale licenses every year is brilliant for us.

I tried out a few of the free solutions, but I just couldn't get on with them. Since going with PRTG, we haven't bothered looking anywhere else because it has done whatever we've needed it to do.

Give it a try. You can do a lot with the free version that you download. But the sensors that you get with the extra packs make life so much easier because you can literally customize anything according to your whim, depending on your application or your data type. It has worked well.

In terms of the sensors and probes, there are a lot of them. It takes a while to go through them. It's probably a bit of overkill. It's a situation where if you have too many sensors running you end up knackering your network. But then again, it has the sort of metrics you're looking for. If you want to look at stuff like disk and CPU usage, or use the new stuff where it is monitoring your websites so you can pick out key elements, that's fantastic. But when it goes into bytes that the adapters are going in and out every second, that's a little bit much. Some people might want to look at that. But overall, there's so much that you can do with it. It's fantastic.

The historical data provided by the solution hasn't helped us optimize our network performance but that's because we change our infrastructure quite a lot. Historically, they would sweat the assets quite a lot, but we have moved a lot of our stuff to the cloud. So every couple of years, if we see a new operating system is out we'll migrate to it. I will have a quick look to see if there's anything that's been stolen, but we've got quite a good development team and we hope that serves us well. They're constantly upgrading it every couple of weeks, so it's always on the move. Where the solution does help is with the trends, to know what has been breaking so we can either move away from operating systems or spend a bit more money on the dev side of it to increase performance.

I would rate PRTG at eight out of ten because it has literally saved my bacon on numerous occasions in the middle of the night, making sure our production servers haven't gone out and caused our customers outages. The only reason I wouldn't give it a ten is that it's not exactly clear what some of the sensors are for, and because of the graphical interface. Other than that, as I'm using it over time, it's just getting better and better.

The solution is used for infrastructure monitoring and for some limited automation and SNMP monitoring. If any parameters cross any threat, then it would trigger some healing, like restarting by sending some special commands.

The features I found valuable are its reporting modules and the graphs, along with SNMB utilization and the bandwidth utilization for reports.

Along with more room for automation, more room for advanced configuration can be integrated into the solution.

I have been using PRTG Network Monitor for almost ten years. I use it in my business company on my account. I am a customer of the solution.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Around 50 people in my company use the solution.

I am very satisfied with PRTG Network Monitor because it's easy. Also, I have been using it for a long time, either for configuration or providing any reports or support needed for PRTG.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

On a scale of one to ten, where one means difficult to implement and ten means easy to implement, I rate it an eight.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises.

The ROI is currently looked upon at the management level.

It's a cost-efficient tool.

The reporting module is easy to configure. Also, it is easy and nice looking, with a nice presentation triggered for utilization and for monitoring health. Also, you can integrate as much vendor hardware as possible using SNMP, and it has easy configuration and troubleshooting. Along with the solution being cheap, there is also support from the vendor, which is its main point.

There are more powerful software solutions available apart from PRTG Network Monitor.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Je l’utilise pour surveiller le système de défense, les différents commutateurs et les connexions entre les différents bureaux de vente. De plus, je l’utilise pour surveiller mes différents environnements virtuels.

Surveillance et prise de décision proactive

L’aspect le plus précieux est la gamme variée de fonctionnalités qu’il offre. Le tableau de bord est exceptionnel, offrant une vue d’ensemble complète.

J’y travaille depuis deux ans.

Il offre une excellente stabilité.

L’évolutivité est incroyablement simple et sans effort. Mille cinquante utilisateurs ont été intégrés.

En ce qui concerne les différentes questions que j’ai posées au support technique, le temps de réponse est impressionnant. Je reçois généralement des réponses dans l’heure. Je donnerais une note de neuf sur dix.

Positive

J’ai déjà utilisé Nagios, mais il était dépassé. PRTG, en revanche, est incroyablement facile à gérer, à développer, à promouvoir et à maintenir. Nagios, étant très âgé, est difficile à entretenir.

La configuration initiale était simple.

Le processus de déploiement consiste à prendre de la capacité, à l’installer sur un serveur, à appliquer les licences, puis à lancer une découverte de différentes catégories. Ensuite, il s’agit de surveiller les différents aspects du réseau. Il s’agit d’un processus relativement simple, en particulier pour surveiller les dossiers de défense et de paie sur des réseaux simples. Il a été achevé en deux jours. Le maintien de la configuration actuelle n’est pas du tout difficile.

Je vois un retour sur investissement significatif grâce à la simplification de la supervision avec PRTG. Les problèmes sont identifiés et résolus rapidement. Avant PRTG, il était difficile de détecter et de résoudre rapidement les problèmes.

Le prix est raisonnable pour les fonctionnalités fournies.

Difficile de concevoir des tableaux de bord

Dans l’ensemble, je lui donnerais une note de huit sur dix.