Zabbix Reviews

As a network services provider we use Zabbix to monitor network infrastructure and customer services. I have also set instances for a number of government institutions to monitor their entire ICT Infrastructure. I will focus on the largest instances, the service provider use cases.

I used Zabbix to monitor network devices, servers, databases, virtual machines, services and applications. For the network services provider, I run an instance for our internal infrastructure and another instance for monitoring our customer services so they can have access to monitor the state and status of their services, SLA, view utilization graphs on demand or in real time and produce needed reports and also receive alerts when problems happen

We could easily monitor anything on our infrastructure and customer services using Zabbix as a consolidated solution for all the network infrastructure and customer services monitoring needs , as Zabbix is highly flexible and customizable to fit the specific needs of organizations.

Zabbix has greatly improved  operations and maintenance by helping management and technical teams be more proactive. They can easily spot problems or undesired states on the infrastructure or customer services

With the Zabbix out-of-box multitenancy support,  customers can have restricted access to their service utilizations and other operational data in real time or on demand. The feedback from customers shows they are very happy and they appreciate how easy it is to learn using it.

Time to work on issues is greatly reduced, as Zabbix provides powerful alerts and details into what is happening in our network. Issues that could take weeks to resolve can now easily be spotted in a few minutes as all essential metrics for all devices are monitored in real time.

Zabbix fits well with the multi-vendor environment and it has a lot of out-of-box templates that can be customized to fit our needs.

We can easily provide infrastructure status reports with Zabbix. We can produce reports even for old devices that were not properly and consistently monitored since they were installed.

Zabbix is highly customizable and flexible, which makes it easy to have all our monitoring needs accommodated. Many elements like auto-discovery, dashboards, templates, graphs, maps, metrics, SLA's can easily be customized to fit specific needs

Zabbix has a powerful API that support integration with third party software, automation and creating new applications. It can be easily integrated with other  tools as a data ingest, processing or visualization platform. The API allows for utilizing better software in specific areas that Zabbix may be lacking like Grafana which allows for more customizable dashboards.

Auto Discovery and Custom Actions are greatly helpful in doing mass discovery, the grouping of hosts, and templates association. The flexibility in setting discovery rules and actions is really helpful for complicated use cases.

Multi-tenancy support which a result of granular use roles, automatic actions, tags, and host grouping. User permissions can be limited to specific sections, services, applications, device groups, access level etc. This has proven to be very helpful for our customer's services monitoring instance.

Out-of-box templates that are customizable, can be changed or modified to suit specific use cases. Additional items can be added to these templates and more filtering or pre-processing rules can be specified in these templates

It has an intuitive UI with beautiful graphs and customizable maps. Although more powerful solutions can be used, Zabbix caters for all our needs in that area as it provides the flexibility we need.

Zabbix provides regular updates and a clear and timed roadmap. Very helpful as our c company can see whether  expectations will be taken care in coming releases of the software.

Although Zabbix is great, the documentation is a bit lacking. The documentation gets a bit messy between versions and is not too detailed, the learning curve is steep and can be difficult for first-timers, especially when they run into issues.

Zabbix depends on other open-source projects, so it would be a good idea to add more information on fine-tuning a Zabbix instance especially the essential details when working with specific choices of OS, database, webserver etc. I had to do most of the things with limited resources in the fine-tuning of the database, OS, and other packages. Although not entirely a Zabbix issue it is a good idea to provide guidance on the basics.

Automatic maps. It would be great if Zabbix could create automatic topology maps using discovery protocols like LLDP or CDP.

Automatic Updates of host templates. It would save a lot of time if that could be done with new releases while keeping personal configurations intact.

Out of box high availability setting for all sections of Zabbix

I have been using Zabbix for four years

This is a very stable solution. It is a low maintenance solution and if finetuned and optimized properly can handle a heavy workload with minimum resources.

This product is highly scalable.  HA and redundancy can be set for database, proxy and front-end.

Zabbix experts provide great ideas on the open-source forums for the products. The Zabbix community, including the CEO and the technical experts, are friendly. Since they are doing great with the community, I am confident they are doing great with their optional Technical Support which we have not subscribed to.

I had used other solutions before but the licensing was too expensive for our company and still, other solutions were limited because we have a multi-vendor environment.

The setup is a bit complex but can be done with the right  skills. More important than the initial setup is optimization and finetuning which requires multiple skills.

We implemented it in-house. I primarily worked on the database, Zabbix server, Zabbix proxy, frontend and other server side stuff. I also prepared agent and SNMP configuration scripts for other Engineers to implement on network devices and servers.

I can confidently say that our ROI is 100%.

Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed.

Zabbix provides support although we have not subscribed to the support. We implemented the instances on our own and we also operate and maintain them on our own.

We had to evaluate several options including SolarWinds NPM, PRTG, OpenNMS, Cacti, Nagios, and Zenoss Core. We used Huawei U2000, Cisco Prime and PRTG for some devices before we switched to Zabbix.

Overall, Zabbix is a great product. I have been using it for almost two years, and I am very happy with it.

Zabbix is used for monitoring infrastructure, including networks and servers. It is used for monitoring the performance of each device. It can also be used for application monitoring, but the integration is not easy.

Zabbix is an excellent performance monitoring tool. It's an open-source tool, and it's free to use. You don't need to pay anything, and it uses little resources. You can use Zabbix if you have a small infrastructure and not a critical one.

The integration of the product is not so easy, especially when it comes to the application database. Finding customized agents for each product needs some deep understanding. They also don't have a license for the product, but you can purchase a support contract they provide.

Unlike NETSCOUT, Zabbix lacks the capability to work purely on packets, drill down on root causes and monitor any infrastructure regardless of the vendor.

We have been using Zabbix for one year.

The product is stable, and it is a very good product.

Approximately 10 to 15 people are using the solution in our company.

Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use.

Zabbix is a really good tool because it is an open-source tool.

In the future, we might consider using products like NETSCOUT, capable of root cause analysis, which works at the pocket level and can give us some insights into our overall infrastructure.

Overall, I rate Zabbix an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is server and network monitoring.

The features I found most valuable are the user interface and a wide range of network devices that are easy to configure.

I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly.

I have been using this solution for about one year.

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

Previously, we used Splunk and we switched because the solution's pricing was too high.

I would rate the initial setup process a seven, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best. Our model of deployment is on-premises.

This solution was used by 200 people in our company.

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

I use Zabbix for monitoring. For example, monitoring networks and applications.

The solution has been proactive in altering while monitoring which has been helpful.

The most valuable features of Zabbix are flexibility and a single interface for different types of monitoring.

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.

In the solution's next release, customizing scripts could be easier and API interactions could be better. If they would allow larger data metrics on one chart would be helpful.

I have been using Zabbix for approximately four years.

The stability of Zabbix has been good.

We have approximately 300 network devices being monitored, including data center monitoring. Additionally, we monitor servers by different performance metrics and services.

Old versions of the solution do not scale well. We only had one master server and we had to switch off and turn on other features to allow scalability. It was not easy.

I have not used any support for the solution.

The initial setup of Zabbix is of a medium level of difficulty. The documentation is beneficial.

For a middle-sized integration of the solution of approximately 100 hosts, it can take one to two months to do all the necessary layers.

This solution is open-source and free to use.

The solution has quick integration, templating, mapping, and monitoring.

I rate Zabbix a seven out of ten.

We are using the solution for network monitoring for all of our appliances and devices as well as servers and switches. 

The solution offers a lot of templates, so you can find a template easily that will suit your needs.

There are a lot of graphs that are really useful. 

Once it's installed and working, it's very nice for monitoring.

The solution allows for good integration with other products.

It is stable. 

There is a bit of a learning curve during installation.

Support could be better. 

It's quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. However, if there are problems inside your host operating system, it may have an effect on the stability of Zabbix. 

I don't really have experience with big networks. I can't speak to the overall scalability. 

Support needs improvement. If you pay for it, it's fine. However, when you do not pay for support, you'll need to find answers to your questions by yourself. 

I do not have experience with other products. 

The solution is pretty straightforward to set up. It's not complex at all. I'd rate the ease of setup eight out of ten overall. There may be a bit of a learning curve, however, once you understand the solution, the setup goes smoothly. When you are new, if you make a mistake, you have to redo something. It's better to set up a virtual machine so you can take a snapshot.

You do have to pay for support. 

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. 

We use Zabbix to monitor the configuration and usage of devices on the network, including switches and printers. 

Zabbix alerts us about problems on the system, including damage to the hardware or network connectivity issues.

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.

Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need.

For example, Zabbix can be used for a company monitoring solutions by many vendors. We have only one site and one company, so we can't improve all the possibilities of the software.

Zabbix could add some more cybersecurity features. It isn't the same thing because network monitoring isn't the same as security. Still, it could include something like a VPN or firewall with the solution. It's a free software tool traditionally used for monitoring. 

I have been using Zabbix for around one year.

Zabbix is highly stable.

I rate six out of 10 for scalability.

We don't use technical support. We rely on the documentation. 

We previously used Centreon, another open-source solution, about four years ago. I wasn't used to this kind of software, but now I can understand them a little bit better.

I rate Zabbix five out of 10 for ease of setup. It takes about two weeks to deploy. We have many people working from home, which creates some difficulties. Sometimes, people left materials at home when they work at the office, and we didn't have the time to install all the components. That's why it took time.

We saved time one equipment intervention, preventing service outages. We had the information about network blackouts before they happened, so we could save our company by changing equipment before we experienced downtime. 

Zabbix is an open-source solution, and there aren't any additional costs.

I rate Zabbix eight out of 10. It's a good solution for everyone's needs. Maybe same users that we have, few users for the moment because we don't have a very big important network. I think that Centreon is better, but maybe easier than the subjects to use. This is maybe the best solution for small entities.

One of our services is implementation.

Basically what we're doing now in terms of use cases is we have customers that have implemented Zabbix including at one of the biggest banks out in Nepal and India. The basic monitoring for the banks are taken care of by Zabbix. Zabbix being open-source, has available APIs for any device or any service that can be easily mapped onto it for monitoring. 

If the customer comes and tells me that I need to monitor an ATM machine, typically, what happens is you need to go back to the OEM to ask for the API so that it can be integrated. However, in the case of Zabbix, we just need to get into the ATM machine or the contact OEM of the ATM and get the scripts for it and add it into Zabbix. It's that easy for us. 

Some customers may be using Zabbix, however, they don't know how to implement it. What we do is make our teams certified on Zabbix implementation. Sometimes customers may be using Zabbix but then have some issues in terms of configuration or they want to work on some specific reports that they need some help with. Getting in touch with Zabbix may be difficult  Therefore, we, as a partner, help out customers. If they need to do an implementation, we help them out in implementation and then with the support services.

We have our own certified guys who help the customers as a sort-of extended arm of Zabbix. Zabbix is open-source and therefore doesn't cost anything. That said, the configuration is something with which you need support, and it requires technical expertise. That's where we pitch in. We pitch and then we say, you download it and after that, whatever is required in terms of configuration, whatever it requires in terms of preparing reports, we can help with due to the fact that we are certified.

Easy addition of devices to monitor with customized thresholds and integrating with multiple tools for single dashboard.

The monitoring capabilities of the product are excellent.

The solution is quite mature and very stable.

The solution is very easy to scale.

The product is open-source, meaning there aren't any licensing costs associated with it.

• Action Log
• Agentless Monitoring
• Anomaly Detection
• Auditing
• Automated Actions
• Availability Reports
• Built-in Java Application Server Monitoring
• Capacity Planning
• Custom Scripts
• Custom Templates
• Data Retrieval
• Dependencies
• Distributed Monitoring
• Drill-Down Reports
• Encryption
• Event Correlation
• Hardware Monitoring
• History Data Analysis
• Issue Management
• Log Monitoring
• Messaging

• Metric Collection
• Mobile Apps
• Multiple Authentication Methods
• Multiple Severity Levels
• Native WMI Support for Windows Agent
• Network Discovery
• Notifications
• Optimized for High Performance
• Proactive Monitoring
• Real-Time Monitoring
• Root Cause Analysis
• Scaling to Large Environments
• Template management
• Trend Prediction
• True Open source
• User Permissions
• Virtual Marchine Monitoring
• WMI Support
• Web Services
• Widget-based Dashboards
• Zero-Maintenance

Zabbix isn't very good at automation just yet. It's something we are working on. The extent of automation and the scripts that we have in ManageEngine are much more than what Zabbix gives out. For Zabbix, what we are doing is, we are creating scripts and trying to run them, however, that's not always the right way to frame it. It would be much better if there was a tool within the solution itself.

The reporting is quite limited on the product. As an organization, what we did is we started utilizing a couple of connectors for the reporting. For example, we started using Power BI, and we started using Grafana. That's how we are enhancing our experience to the customers now. Zabbix doesn't give you a tool.

We are using Zabbix for the last three years now. 

On the stability front, we have never faced any issues. Zabbix has been in the market for many, many years, and has matured nicely. It's a very decent tool. 

The solution works with companies of various sizes. We have companies that are medium-sized, however, we also use this for enterprises.

I would recommend that enterprise customers start using Zabbix. Zabbix, being a free tool, saves a lot on operations. You remove out your license cost, and you don't have a maintenance cost, and it's only the housekeeping that is required. It's easy to take a contract with certified implementation partners to get going. For enterprise customers, if you go with any other tool, you pay licenses on 50 hosts or 100 hosts or 150 hosts. With this tool, you don't have to work with growing costs, and it still grows with you.

It's very easy to scale as you don't have a licensing model. You only have a proxy model. It's only that the client or the customer has to have a supported VM to add more hosts onto it. There's nothing that the customer loses. There's also no investment as such. It's just a matter of for VM to be popped up and then you can start adding those devices to make it scalable.

When it comes to the code level on the development of issues, we contact Zabbix directly. Everything else, we have a few different people that can handle it internally. If we fail on that is when we contact Zabbix. Over the last three or four years, we have only contacted Zabbix once for a technical issue. Otherwise, our team is capable enough 

They also have a good amount of data on the forums. It's very unlikely that we would need to get in touch with the support service as the forum itself is great in that it has huge amounts of data. Any issues that you have, you just browse the forum, and you get a response if you ask questions. 

For us, that has been a good experience.

Positive

We also use ManageEngine for monitoring.

Comparing the two is tricky. When it comes to Zabbix flow, I would not be comfortable working with Zabbix as there's a bit of a lack on the reporting and automation front. That's the negative part of Zabbix at this point in time. When it comes to ManageEngine, they have been very proactive. They have a very good reporting dashboard and they have very good automation. The only concern that comes to us when we go to the customer is that I can sell Zabbix at very low costs as I don't have any investment in it. I can fulfill almost 75 to 80% of the customer's request with very little overhead. However, when it comes to ManageEngine, it's expensive as you will need the licenses.

Even though ManageEngine gives you better reporting and automation, there's a cost to it. That is where we are trying to make Zabbix more efficient. We have started working on the automation front. When it comes to reporting, we have reached a level where we can say that we are okay with the reports. We are using a couple of other reporting tools to extend the data. However, with automation, we're starting at zero. That's where we are working hard.

The initial setup is a very simple process. It's only when it comes to configurations where it gets complicated. You need expertise so that you do the right configurations and set up the right parameters for the devices. Before that, it's very easy. You just follow the steps that have been given to you and you can just install it. 

For a basic installation, it takes just two days. You set up a VM and you have the basic configuration, and that part takes two days. Configurations, however, depend on each customer. Some customers need some devices to be monitored at track level, for example.

It doesn't require maintenance, per se, however, there is required housekeeping. That's how I would put it. For example, today you may have to put in a hundred devices for monitoring, but tomorrow you start decommissioning some devices. If you don't remove them out from Zabbix, then your dashboard itself is going to give you false alerts. That's why you need to have regular housekeeping whereby you know your map, and what is required. 

When it comes to upgrades, it is pretty easy. We have a change management process. We have never faced an issue on the maintenance spot as such with any of our customers. 

We handle the process for our clients. We've got a couple of clients who already have Zabbix on-premise. Typically we come in to configure the devices as per the parameters for that specific device. So that is something which you need expertise on the tool now. The customers are not able to do that. If they want to outsource the entire local operations to us, then we take it up. If they say no, that they want to run their own lock, then we put in our team and we stabilize their entire Zabbix implementation beside it. 

Depends on the environment and the existing product the customer is using .

The solution itself is open source and doesn't cost anything, however, many companies need technical expertise for configurations.

We are a certified implementation partner for Zabbix.

In our operations, we are the only certified implementation partners for Zabbix and just two months ago, we got certified for the Middle-East operations as well. When it comes to this region, we are the only certified implementation partners for Zabbix in the entire Middle-East.

We are working with the latest version and it getting upgraded right now. We have two environments basically. We have a production as well as a development (or staging) environment. Presently, our upgrades are going onto the staging environment. We have a go ahead on the staging environment after that. We will start on the production as we have around 50 to 70 customers who are already on the Zabbix. Directly upgrading it on the production is a challenge for us. We don't want to get into a situation where the entire thing goes down. We plan to roll the updated version around February.

Presently we have it on a hybrid module. With a primary running on the cloud and a secondary running on our data center, which is on-premise. This way, if the primary site goes down, we have a secondary site to support the customers. 

I'd recommend organizations try the solution, however, if they have issues, they should not just throw it out. The tool is capable. You just need implementation partners. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I'm using it to have a global map overview of all my machines. We also use it in simple scenarios to check that our applications are up. We haven't really created that many dashboards at this time, but our next mission is to create good dashboards to efficiently track the VM performance.

There is a problems page that shows us every warning or problem that occurs on our VMs globally. The map screen is also really useful because this is something that was missing. I don't know every other tool in the market. So, I don't know if this is a good point of only Zabbix, or other tools are also doing it, but from my point of view, this is the most useful page that I use, along with the problems page that efficiently lists the problem, recovery time, ending hours, starting hours, and so on.

In terms of user-friendliness, large maps could be more interactive. We should be able to click on some areas and move some objects. It would make it simpler to see things while analyzing some dedicated parameters.

It has been six months.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have 15 to 20 users of this solution. It is used by the IT department. So, the operations teams, which is my team, and the system admin team, which is in charge of the infrastructure and the network, are its users.

I have never contacted them.

We used Centreon previously.

I was not a part of the deployment project, but I didn't hear that the deployment was complicated. The tool is very detailed, and maybe the configuration needed afterward to do the setup everywhere might be heavy.

From a user's perspective, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We develop applications in Python and we use Zabbix for the monitoring of the network for people connecting to the bank.

We have many proxy servers using this solution.

The overall functionality of Zabbix is very good. The monitoring of bank applications that Zabbix provides is great. The information is displayed on a dashboard that is easily viewed.

The customization of Zabbix is easier than with other solutions, such as DX Spectrum. We need to send requirements to the vendor for DX Spectrum to do the customization for us. In Zabbix, we can create a template by ourselves, and we do not need to send any information to the vendor This is a large advantage of using this solution.

There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting.

In a future release, they should add a NetFlow feature, and improve the dashboard templates.

I have used Zabbix for approximately one year.

We use a SQL database on the server and sometimes the performance of Zabbix is not the best. We have upgraded our servers to Oracle and the performance is okay. When we were using DX Spectrum we did not have any stability issues.

We have an application for mobile banking and we have ten million accounts running, we are large in Thailand.

We have approximately 75 people using the solution at one time.

My team has contacted support from Zabbix but they have very expensive. However, our management is still considering using the support.

The support from DX Spectrum we have not been happy with here in Thailand. They only have sales teams and not someone who can provide useful technical support.

We have used DX Spectrum previously and it was stable in operation in WAN and LAN networks.

The initial setup of Zabbix was complex and took us approximately one year to fully complete.

We did the implementation ourselves for the production and distribution.

We have five people who do the maintenance and support of Zabbix.

Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money.

The license for DX Spectrum is expensive.

I rate Zabbix a seven out of ten.

We use it to collaborate with each other internally as a company for video conferencing, meetings, teams, and those kinds of things. We implement it in customer environments as well for the same reasons, and also for eHealth solutions, for instance, in hospitals.

It improves the way we work, the way our customers work. With eHealth, for instance, surgeons can make appointments with patients at a distance and they can still see each other. That's very, very good.

The most valuable aspect is it's very robust. It has a lot of features and it also integrates with a lot of the Cisco hardware around it, such as Smartboards, video conferencing units, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's a really robust and complete solution.

The initial setup is easy.

It's a stable solution.

We find the product scalable. 

The use is very straightforward. It's actually pretty much ready to go out of the box. It's very easy to start using it, to be honest.

You can also integrate it without Microsoft Office 365 and put it in the agenda of Outlook for instance, for meetings.

They've already added extra features, such as noise-canceling and facial recognition, which is great.

One of the things we don't like is that Zabbix has a license structure with a price that is high compared to the competition. It's very high, for example, compared to something like Microsoft Teams.

We have used the product since Cisco acquired it. It's been maybe ten years or so at this point.

The stability is great. There aren't bugs. It's not glitchy and it doesn't freeze. it's reliable.

The scalability on offer is good. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so. 

All of our people in the company in Europe use Zabbix for sure. That's at least 1,000. We also use it for events to stream video content, to customers, for instance, on a fairly large scale.

Technical support is very good. We have straight contact with the Cisco technical assistance center. If there is anything that has to be changed or improved, then we can directly call them.

We previously used Microsoft Teams. The number of possibilities in Zabbix was better than in Teams, and it also integrates very well with the hardware solutions from Cisco which was why we switched.

In general, the initial setup is very straightforward. It's not a difficult implementation process.

There isn't much staff needed for deployment or maintenance tasks. 

If more functionality is added to it, that might be a reason to use it more and more. However, as it is, at this point, we are already intensive users.

We buy the solution yearly. I'm not very aware of what the actual pricing and the licensing are, however, I know that for extra features, there is a possibility to buy a little bit more.

We looked at Zoom, however, we never ended up using it. 

Currently, we use it and we implement it as a partner.

We're always on the latest version. It's automatically updated via the cloud.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten.