PRTG Network Monitor Reviews

If you want to grant access for clients to the MSP service provider, you can use this solution. For example, if the client wants to monitor the net flow and net flow traffic with PRTG, you can analyze this traffic for them.

If you have a problem with your slow network, you can get visibility on the net flow and SNMP protocols in order to review them and then handle troubleshooting specifically about the issue.

We like the monitoring with the net flow and net flow protocols and SNMP protocols. 

The health check functionality is currently very good.

Its initial setup process is fast and easy.

It is stable. 

The scalability is pretty good.

The technical support services could be better. The service operation center also needs to be improved.

Users need to buy the more expensive licenses if they expect to be able to scale. 

We would like to see more advanced features. It would be great if they can help us exclude some protocols if you want to configure some scripts. 

I've been using the solution for two to four years. 

This is a stable product. You only need to deploy remote probes around the network and infrastructure, so you need to add enough remote probes to meet your needs, however, if you do that, it remains stable. 

You can scale the solution if you buy the most expensive licenses or limited sensors. 

We have 12 people using the solution within the company.

At this time, we do have plans to increase usage and add clients to the MSP.

Technical support could be better. 

Positive

I've previously used HPE and SolarWinds products in the past. 

The initial setup is really fast. We didn't need to download the setup on the webpage. You just click through. It is traditionally Vista for Windows.

We have ten users that are capable of handling maintenance tasks. 

We had a consultant assist us during the initial setup.

We have seen an ROI as it allows us to avoid downtime. When you have a problem with your network, and it goes down, it's a really big problem.

The solution is very cheap. You can buy 600 sensors for $1000 or a bit more. 

We did not previously evaluate other solutions.

Currently, I have Privileged Access Management solutions, Identity solutions, Privileged Cloud solutions, and Identity solutions. We use both cloud and on-premises deployments. 

I'd advise new users to implement a hybrid architecture. That way, you can get visibility around cloud solutions and on-premise solutions. It's very important to get visibility around these architectures.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

Our primary use case for this solution is monitoring all our live servers, their resources and networking equipment like firewalls, routers, switches and network switches. Additionally, we have a bandwidth monitoring map deployed in PRTG Network Monitor to monitor our internet bandwidth continuously. The solution is deployed on-premises.

We have found the ESXi feature very valuable. It allows us to directly add individual VMs independently. We can also add the ESXi so each VM is considered a sensor, and each sensor can get all the resource parameters like CPU usage, memory usage and network usage. Everything is combined in one sensor, and we can utilize it. Unlike other competitors, this feature is only available in PRTG Network Monitor. Otherwise, we have to go with multiple sensors and it will be costly.

The product could be improved by being cross-platform friendly. A feature we would like to see in the next release is support for bare-metal servers. For virtual machines, we have many options in PRTG Network Monitor, but adding sensors to the bare metal servers is difficult because it does not support all ranges of servers. It has to have a much better database of custom servers and resources. Some of the new servers are not added in PRTG Network Monitor. They don't have the database now and we would be glad if they added more databases of server templates.

We have been using this solution for four years and are currently using the latest version.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. Currently, we have about 15 people using it in our organization. These 15 people are in charge of deployment and maintenance. We intend to expand the usage to 2,500 licenses.

Our experience with customer service and support has been superb.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Deployment was done in-house and took approximately two hours.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten. The solution is good but can be improved by supporting bare metal servers and cross-platform friendly. I recommend this solution to all types of users because it doesn't require prior knowledge of other configuration sets. PRTG Network Monitor is user-friendly and takes just one click to install the solution in Windows. Amateurs with no previous knowledge of networking can use it because it is very user-friendly. SNMP configuration is straightforward, and unlike its competitors, it seems to be a user-friendly tool.

Additionally, it has a free version which can be used for 100 sensors. If it is a small-scale business they can use the free version with 100 sensors and utilize that as well. If it is for a big enterprise, they can have 2,500 to 10,000 sensors. They also have custom modes for payments. It is a superb product.

Our primary use case for this solution is for every computer operator in my data center to be able to easily operate and use devices.

PRTG does not allow us to scan devices like we can scan software or another problem in it. Also, I cannot draw graphical graphs in Woodview/look. Another problem is that we cannot draw a good diagram in PRTG.

In the next release, I'd like to see more integration with, for example, SolarWinds.

I have been using this solution for about five or six years.

I would say that this solution is stable, but we'd like something more out of it. We need it to improve a little bit.

My opinion is that this is a scalable solution. There are currently 10 users of this solution in our company.

My opinion is that the setup was straightforward. It took seven people to deploy this solution.

The licenses are paid on a monthly basis. My opinion is that this solution is not very expensive.

We are using a cloud version of this solution.

Overall, I would rate this solution a 10, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

We use PRTG to remotely check if devices are still online. It can also monitor temperature, traffic, and device connectivity. We configure it to send us alerts. For example, if a device exceeds a specified bandwidth, PRTG will send an email notification.

The email notifications are helpful, and the dashboards are user-friendly for people with little network monitoring knowledge. 

The icons on PRTG's network diagram are hard to find. For example, finding the icons for firewalls and servers is difficult, so we're struggling to create the network topology.

We have been using PRTG since the start of the pandemic. 

I rate PRTG nine out of 10 for stability. We haven't encountered any problems.

I rate PRTG 10 out of 10 for scalability if you have the budget to buy the license.

I rate PRTG support eight out of 10. They respond immediately. 

Positive

I did trials of SolarWinds and PRTG simultaneously and decided to go with PRTG because it's user-friendly and easier to understand. 

I rate PRTG six out of 10 for ease of setup from a beginner's perspective. Total deployment time was about a month because we had to do some studying and revisions. It was a continuous process because we would think about some improvements and apply them step by step. Two people were involved in the deployment: the network admin and our network security admin.

The full version of PRTG is a little costly, and the free version is limited to only 100 devices.

I rate PRTG Network Monitor eight out of 10. I would recommend it. 

My primary use case for the PRTG solution is network device monitoring. For example, if one of my Ubiquity access points goes down, PRTG will send an alert so that I can go and try to restart it and bring it back up before people start complaining.

This product can be improved by updating the net flow interface. The one that is in place works – I can get all the information I need from it – but it is a little bit clunky.

I have not had any problems with the stability of this solution. I have to reboot it once a year, which is a chance for me to do the updates anyway.

The scalability of this solution has gone smoothly for me so far. I am mostly using it just for pings, and because I don't have a ton of net flows going into it, I am not heavily taxing it. We have a couple of thousand devices that it i monitoring and we have had no problems.

I never had a reason to be in touch with the tech support for the solution.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. It's an application that you can run on a Windows box. I have it running on a virtual Windows server, so it's not a standalone operating system, and it can come off as an application.

PRTG is relatively intuitive and fairly straightforward. It has net flow monitoring and that works all right. I would describe it as a decent middle-of-the-road solution. It costs about $500 a year, so if you're looking just to watch basic traffic and keep an eye on devices, it works fine.

I would rate PRTG Network Monitoring a seven out of ten.

It's a globally distributed network. We have multiple data centers or IT setups, and PRTG is deployed at the local data centers. Some of the applications are in the cloud, and PRTG can also monitor those.

PRTG is simple to manage. First, you can create a template for a device, then apply it to hundreds of similar devices. That's a great advantage. Secondly, I can use the 80-20 functional rule for any devices I need to monitor. 

For infrastructure monitoring, 80 percent of parameters are monitored every minute or so. I can define all of them at the highest level, and those definitions are inherited at the lowest level. Then you need to customize the setup for the remaining 20 percent. You can deploy them in various groups and do a group-level setup, which will again percolate down to devices. 

The third thing is the concept of tags. PRTG assigns tags to devices and also the parameters you monitor. For example, if you choose to deploy a bandwidth sensor, PRTG automatically tags it with that parameter while giving you the freedom to apply your own tag. 

Let's say my organization has three or even four ISPs. If I'm globally distributed, the ISPs could be different. Now I can monitor all the bandwidth across ISPs based on the tag, or I can see the bandwidth of each ISP individually. I know my uptime and recovery in case of failure. I can also group by choosing a specific ISP tag and getting a report. I now know which of my ISPs is a better performer, which helps me improve the service and decide who to go with.

PRTG is constantly evolving. You have between eight to 12 releases every year, including enhancements to functionality and performance as well as security and bug fixes, so it stays current with our business requirements. It's a well-rounded product.

There's always room for improvement. The high availability feature is good, but it's an area that PRTG could marginally improve. For example, in PRTG, both servers have a different IP, but it would make things a lot easier if they were bound by a single IP.  I'm not necessarily trying to say PRTG should imitate other products. 

I'm saying it should be like a typical HA solution should be. It is a fail-safe feature, and the HA component should act like one. In PRTG, it is in an active-active mode, not active-passive. Now, the customers don't need to know the mechanism behind the high availability. They just need to know how many servers are required for deployment. If there is a cluster with a single IP address, it's much easier from the customer's point of view. 

We've been working on various versions of PRTG since 2003. While we are using PRTG, we are also looking at various alternatives, but we haven't seen a reason to switch so far.

PRTG itself is a highly reliable product because of large installed base.

Overall, PRTG is easy to install and understand. We provide frontline support for our customers, but our more competent customers don't come back to us for any support at all. If they don't have the skills, they can install and do the basic deployment, but they require hand-holding and coaching for some things. Still, I think it's a straightforward product. Once a user gets started with the product, they don't need hand-holding for basic functions.

The price of PRTG is reasonable. PRTG's competitors like SolarWinds and ManageEngine charge more for the same functionality. They are much more expensive at licensing level. What's more, PRTG comes as one bundle. For example, the database is part of the PRTG release, so Paessler takes total responsibility for all components they deliver. With other products, you need a separate database engine and databases, and these NMS companies don't take responsibility. When they put out new releases, what if it doesn't work with the previous release of a database? Things become a little tricky. You have to deal with two or more entities for NMS but only one with PRTG.

I rate PRTG Network Monitor 9.5 out of 10. If you're planning to implement PRTG, my advice is to first create a master plan. Set a goal for monitoring. Decide what you want to monitor and why. You need to get ready by organizing network management at the technical and policy level. If you start with a clear understanding of your goals and your environment, PRTG will be a cakewalk.

I use the solution to monitor the availability of devices and check if ping has generated ICMP requests.

They should work on syncing the solution with Gmail. Also, they should add a feature to monitor the bandwidths of different devices. In addition, it should be possible for us to check the connectivity of the devices via DNS servers.

I have been using the solution for more than two weeks.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution but depends on the license version. We have about 1000 devices integrated with the solution.

We have used OpManager. We switched to PRTG as per our customer's request.

The solution's initial setup was straightforward. I had to enable FTP to copy the server and then install the solution over the server. Further, I was able to access it remotely via a web browser.

I implemented the solution myself. 

I rate the solution as a nine. It is very user-friendly. I have downloaded it to my home devices. I receive an alarm when the network of any of the devices drops down. I can also add users by giving them static IPs. It is easy for a nontechnical person to use it as well. It can be used both for personal and enterprise purposes.

Our use case is limited.

It does what we need it to do in terms of learning.

I like the mobility of the PRTG Network Monitor and ITOps Dashboard.

Our biggest issue, and the reason we are trying to move away from PRTG, is that it is not scalable across an enterprise solution.

The scalability of this solution could improve as well as the automated provisioning of the infrastructure.

I have been using PRTG Network Monitor off and on for approximately ten years.

I don't recall the version that we are working with but we recently upgraded it.

PRTG Network Monitor is a stable solution. I would rate the stability of PRTG Network Monitor a ten out of ten.

The scalability could be improved.

When we first started using it, we had four hundred different resources. Now we have four or five thousand different resources, it is not a scalable solution that automatically correctly adds devices where they belong, they are added to the end of the filter. They don't monitor appropriately; it's highly manual in terms of what and how it monitors.

We don't use their technical support. I would rate them a five out of ten.

It's a complex environment. The initial setup was just as complex.

I have not seen a return on investment.

Pricing is comparable. 

I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten.

Check the size of your infrastructure. If you have more than a thousand units or thousand devices to monitor, you should choose a better solution.

In my environment, I would rate PRTG Network Monitor a four out of ten.