Nagios Core vs. Panda Systems Management

Nagios monitoring is well suited for any mission critical application that requires per/second (or minute) monitoring. This would probably include even a shuttle launch. As Nagios was built around Linux, most (85%) plugins are Linux based, therefore its more suitable for a Linux environment.

As Nagios (and dependent components) requires complex configurations & compilations, an experienced Linux engineer would be needed to install all relevant components.

Any company that has hundreds (or thousands) of servers & services to monitor would require a stable monitoring solution like Nagios. I have seen Nagios used in extremely mediocre ways, but the core power lies when its fully configured with all remaining open-source components (i.e. MySQL, Grafana, NRDP etc). Nagios in the hands of an experienced Linux engineer can transform the organizations monitoring by taking preventative measures before a disaster strikes.

Incentivized

Panda Systems Management is well suited for small to medium sized organizations looking for a tool to centralize asset management not only physical but also assist with rapid deployment of patches, applications, etc. It proves also to be very beneficial as permits (to and extent) to do troubleshooting without interfering or interrupting end users.

Incentivized

• Monitoring of services is one of the biggest benefits for our company. Being able to respond in a timely fashion keeps business smooth.
• Hardware and device monitoring are easy to set up with proper parameters.
• Notification to key staff to be able to respond quickly makes issues go away faster.

Incentivized

• Remote access. It's as good as any other on the market. It also allows for RDP connections which is a nice feature.
• Inventory management. We get some great insight from the reports we can run.
• Quick Jobs. If there's an app or service you use, there may be a quick job to install and update it remotely.

Incentivized

• Nagios could use core improvements in HA, though, Nagios itself recommends monitoring itself with just another Nagios installation, which has worked fine for us. Given its stability, and this work-around, a minor need.
• Nagios could also use improvements, feature wise, to the web gui. There is a lot in Nagios XI which I felt were almost excluded intentionally from the core project. Given the core functionality, a minor need. We have moved admin facing alerts to appear as though they originate from a different service to make interacting with alerts more practical.

Incentivized

• Licensing. With the possibility of monthly splitting
• Integration with firewalls even outside the corporate network

Incentivized

We're currently looking to combine a bunch of our network montioring solutions into a single platform. Running multiple unique solutions for monitoring, data collection, compliance reporting etc has become a lot to manage.

Incentivized

The Nagios UI is in need of a complete overhaul. Nice graphics and trendy fonts are easy on the eyes, but the menu system is dated, the lack of built in graphing support is confusing, and the learning curve for a new user is too steep.

Incentivized

I haven't had to use support very often, but when I have, it has been effective in helping to accomplish our goals. Since Nagios has been very popular for a long time, there is also a very large user base from which to learn from and help you get your questions answered.

Incentivized

We rate and recommend Panda Systems Management not only because it is a very effective and very cost effective solution that pays itself for us (ROI) extremely fast, but also due to all reason described previously and possibly a few more I'm sure we missed here. I do have to says tech support for this solution sometimes leave a bit to be desired.

Incentivized

Because we get all we required in Nagios [Core] and for npm, we have to do lots of configuration as it is not as easy as Comair to Nagios [Core]. On npm UI, there is lots of data, so we are not able to track exact data for analysis, which is why we use Nagios [Core].

Panda is a bit of a greatest hits between some of these other things. I feel like GoToAssist has a stronger remote support option, but Panda is more convenient. Kaseya has a ton of features, but from an ease of use standpoint, Panda seems stronger. Spiceworks has a fine inventory system but it lacks features. I added Azure as well since we are a 365 shop and Azure supplies a lot of the same visibility that Panda does. However it is a completely different animal, and it's way easier to hop into Panda and get what you need than get waaay more data than necessary from Azure/Azure AD/ATP.

Incentivized

• With it being a free tool, there is no cost associated with it, so it's very valuable to an organization to get something that is so great and widely used for free.
• You can set up as many alerts as you want without incurring any fees.

Incentivized

• It has facilitated us in the management of controls on the various clients, reducing the cost of human resources
• Thanks to the alerts, in case of intrusion, it is possible to intervene promptly

Incentivized