PRTG Network Monitor Reviews

We're using PRTG Network Monitor for server-level monitoring and network-level monitoring, and in our network, we have switches and firewalls.

We're also using the solution for bandwidth monitoring and internet link monitoring.

We're also planning to use PRTG Network Monitor to monitor CCTV and other IoT devices.

I like that PRTG Network Monitor is evolving as a product. For example, it's releasing new sensors on the OT, Modbus, and MQTT side, but its most valuable feature is the remote probe.

Other OEMs in the market will charge you after some time if you have multiple sites distributed within a particular region. Suppose you have four or five locations and deployed the agent; other solutions will charge you extra or add commercial charges to your invoice. Still, PRTG Network Monitor allows up to sixty or eighty remote probes for one server, particularly when you buy the PRTG main server license. I find this pricing model helpful, mainly because my company has multiple sites here in India, between thirty to forty sites. The company doesn't need to buy an additional license or commercial license.

The remote probe will be deployed at the site remotely, and PRTG Network Monitor will monitor the site and feed all monitoring data to the central server. It is beneficial because it ultimately gives you visibility from the central server. The remote probe feature in the tool helps you monitor remote systems or your network, so it's an outstanding feature available in PRTG Network Monitor compared to other OEMs in the market. Some OEMs may have the feature, but the charges would be huge for such a feature.

Here's an area for improvement in PRTG Network Monitor: my company needs to perform SNMPv3 monitoring, and by default, SNMPv2 is there. From a security point of view, SNMPv3 monitoring needs to be stronger. Otherwise, it'll reduce performance when you need to monitor it at the server level. It'll impact performance, including the PRTG Network Monitor performance.

If my company does a large number of SNMPv3 queries, that will reduce server performance, so PRTG recommends not scanning or monitoring a massive amount of SNMPv3. If PRTG Network Monitor can evolve into agent-level configurations rather than server-level configurations, where you can install the agent on the server and the agent provides the necessary feedback, that would improve the tool.

Performance-wise, PRTG Network Monitor still needs improvement because a large number of SNMPv3 queries reduces tool performance. It could also impact the server level. If the monitoring method for PRTG Network Monitor could be similar to other OEMs, such as SolarWinds, where the agent is on the server and provides server performance information to the main console server, that would be great.

Another area for improvement in PRTG Network Monitor is reporting. For example, if you want the report or the dashboard in a particular format, you'd need to exert some effort. You cannot do it without the support of the vendor or an expert. As a customer, you cannot configure PRTG Network Monitor reports independently because reporting is difficult.

I've been working with PRTG Network Monitor for three years.

I didn't see many stability issues in PRTG Network Monitor, so it's a nine out of ten. Most of the time, the tool works fine.

PRTG Network Monitor is a scalable tool, and I'd give it a rating of nine out of ten.

At the moment, PRTG Network Monitor support is only email-based, and that has to be improved. You never receive remote session support from PRTG.  If you're facing an issue, you either need to work with the vendor, or if you need OEM support, you must send an email.

The PRTG Network Monitor support team responds to your email, but it usually takes a lot of time. If support can directly join the remote session to brief you on the process, it would be easier than just getting email-based support.

Whenever my team communicates via email, support will provide a reference link or KB article link that tells you how to configure PRTG Network Monitor.

It would be helpful for any customer if PRTG had remote-based support, and it'll be simpler to show customers how to configure the tool.

My company only takes a little support from the PRTG Network Monitor team nowadays, but I'd give support a seven out of ten. The PRTG technical support team usually responds quickly over email, and it's good. The only limitation is the absence of remote support.

I didn't use other solutions apart from PRTG Network Monitor. My company had a lot of issues at the time the decision to use the tool was made. My company was blind as it didn't have any monitoring tool, yet it had a lot of sites, internet links, and services. Because I worked on the PRTG Network Monitor in my previous company, I was aware of its performance and that it meets basic requirements and the company budget, versus SolarWinds, which would require a larger budget, so my company went with PRTG Network Monitor. I deployed it within the environment, and the tool works fine so far.

Setting up PRTG Network Monitor was easy, so I'd rate its setup an eight out of ten.

Installing the tool was straightforward, and there wasn't much required to set PRTG Network Monitor up. It's only the dashboard that requires a lot of effort.

Completing the setup for the tool took around two to three weeks, including the onboarding of all devices.

I followed the PRTG Network Monitor installation guide. I ensured all prerequisites by PRTG were ready, including the recommended OS or server, such as Windows OS, and other software prerequisites. I then installed the tool, and it had a GUI-based, intuitive installation, so it was instant.

What took time was onboarding the devices, though I gradually updated and onboarded the devices. I didn't do a bulk update, and onboarding devices into PRTG Network Monitor wasn't that difficult. You can even show how it's done to anybody, even a person with a limited skillset because installing the tool doesn't require much.

I implemented PRTG Network Monitor because, in my previous organization, I also implemented the tool, so I was aware of the process.

PRTG Network Monitor is very easy to use and doesn't require a lot of manpower for deployment and management, so based on this, the features of the product, and the cost, the ROI for PRTG Network Monitor is good.

You can get ROI from the tool quickly within a year. You won't have to wait three or four years to get ROI because PRTG Network Monitor is cheaper than other solutions.

I'd rate ROI from the tool as ten, so it's a hundred percent.

Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is a nine out of ten. It meets my company's budget and monitoring requirements. My company is on a perpetual license, particularly a basic license that doesn't require purchasing an additional license.

Regarding PRTG Network Monitor support, my company pays for it annually compared to other vendors, and the support cost is lower. You need to renew support annually for the tool. My company has an annual maintenance contract with PRTG.

My company is currently using PRTG Network Monitor.

I'm not using the latest version of the solution, but my company plans to upgrade to the latest one.

One person from the IT department handles the day-to-day maintenance of the PRTG Network Monitor.

Between five to six people from the IT team use the tool. Only a few members log into PRTG Network Monitor to generate a report or do additional monitoring. Usually, a person doesn't use the tool. That person receives an email alert based on his respective device and doesn't need to open the PRTG Network Monitor console because my team enabled email-based alerts. Different groups would receive the alerts, such as the application team, the security team, the frontend team, etc.

My company has plans to extend the license and apply the solution to another environment, an OT environment.

I'd tell anyone looking into implementing PRTG Network Monitor to go for it, especially if you're in a medium-sized organization that doesn't have a massive infrastructure, but it still depends on the customer. It varies from customer to customer. A large organization could still evaluate other solutions in the market, but PRTG Network Monitor is a good tool for small to medium-sized organizations.

My rating for the tool is eight out of ten because it has some areas for improvement, particularly the reporting, which could be more user-friendly, and the support, which is only email-based, with no remote support available. If I see improvement in the two areas I mentioned, I could easily give PRTG Network Monitor a nine or ten, but right now, it's an eight for me.

My company is a customer, not a partner, of PRTG Network Monitor.

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.

We are using PRTG Network Monitor mainly for real-time monitoring and communication in our environment.

The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is real-time monitoring.

PRTG Network Monitor should improve the NetFlow dashboard, there is no flexibility, and the NetFlow is not meeting the business needs. Additionally, they are missing part of the configuration management.

I have been using PRTG Network Monitor for approximately six years.

PRTG Network Monitor is stable.

I did not face any issues with the scalability of PRTG Network Monitor. However, I did not test it.

There are approximately 17 administrators using this solution in my organization.

I have not needed to use the support from PRTG Network Monitor.

The initial setup of PRTG Network Monitor is simple. It took approximately 15 minutes to deploy.

We did the deployment of PRTG Network Monitor in-house.

There is a license to use PRTG Network Monitor and it is annually.

We have evaluated a lot of software and we found PRTG Network Monitor the best solution.

It's a good solution regarding real-time monitoring only, but for the site of the operation, you can't rely on it without any other solution to fit all use cases.

I rate PRTG Network Monitor a five out of ten.

We are working with a web version of PRTG Network Monitor.

I use PRTG Network Monitor for the monitoring of all my switches and backbone infrastructure in my hotels. This includes my remote sites and for the monitoring and notification of our business lines in our hotels and traffic monitoring.

The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are the threshold notification when certain traffic increases and goes beyond the defined threshold. The up and down status email notifications and other notifications are useful. Additionally, it is user-friendly, and customizable, and there are many features available.

When using PRTG Network Monitor it is beneficial if you have prior experience with it, the user interface could improve.

I have been using PRTG Network Monitor for approximately six years.

The stability of PRTG Network Monitor is good.

PRTG Network Monitor is scalable and easy to scale.

We have a lot of viewers using PRTG Network Monitor but we only have approximately four administrators using it.

I have not contacted technical support. We did at some point have technical issues but the online technical documentation is rich, and we never had to call for support.

I have not used any other solution other than PRTG Network Monitor.

The initial setup of PRTG Network Monitor is straightforward. The setup is very dynamic and took us approximately one month to have some data, and devices in it. We referred to a lot of documentation that was very helpful.

We were not very fluent in the software. 

I rate the initial setup of PRTG Network Monitor approximately three out of five.

The deployment of the PRTG Network Monitor was done in-house.

There is not a lot of maintenance. We do regular updates and we do add quite a lot of devices on a regular basis.

We have received a return on investment using PRTG Network Monitor. We're able to do proactive support to tackle an issue before it collapses. There is a return on investment, but it's something quite hard to explain to non-IT personnel.

We have unlimited devices and sensors, and it is a bit pricey, but we do have unlimited sensors. With all things considered the price is fine, related to the solution itself. PRTG Network Monitor is good value for money.

I rate the price of PRTG Network Monitor a four out of five.

A price decrease would be welcomed by the financial and accounts departments.

We did not evaluate other options.

I would recommend PRTG Network Monitor to others and the main reason would be to have visibility of the traffic from all the lines. For example, the visibility on the status of devices, up or down, threshold configuring, and notification of capacity being overused on the line before they collapse. We are able to take action with the suppliers and with service providers before the service gets interrupted.

I rate PRTG Network Monitor an eight 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.