Nagios provides monitoring of all mission-critical infrastructure components. Multiple APIs and community-build add-ons enable integration and monitoring with in-house and third-party applications for optimized scaling.
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PRTG
Score 8.5 out of 10
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PRTG Network Monitor is the flagship offering from German software company Paessler, for monitoring local and wide area networks (LANs & WANs), servers, websites, apps, and more.
$1,750
perpetual license
Pricing
Nagios Core
PRTG Network Monitor
Editions & Modules
Single License
Free
Single License
Free
PRTG 500
1,750
perpetual license
PRTG 1,000
3,200
perpetual license
PRTG 2,500
6,500
perpetual license
PRTG 5,000
11,500
perpetual license
PRTG XL 1
15,500
perpetual license
PRTG Enterprise
Custom Pricing
subscription license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Nagios Core
PRTG
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Nagios Core
PRTG Network Monitor
Considered Both Products
Nagios Core
Verified User
Administrator
Chose Nagios Core
As a backup NMS, it is better to invest to Nagios since it costs less than any other competitors which [provide] the same level of service. Maybe PRTG gives more features but you don't need all [those] features for your daily use so Nagios gives you what you need when it comes …
Nagios is more configurable than competitors and we originally wanted something we could spin up quick for some simple checks. As our needs grew, our understanding and use of Nagios grew, and it was a natural choice. Having personally used other monitoring solutions, I prefer …
We selected Nagios because of economic constraints with a tool completely free, nor to have a stable product that has reached a stable state since years. . We wanted an extensible product based on number of plugins and a product that can grab datas from many infrastructure …
PRTG is much simpler to implement than both Nagios and Zenoss; mind you, this was before Zenoss released their cloud option.
It has a wide range of sensors and some are specific to both storage and network devices. The previous version didn't have any NetApp reporting at the …
In comparison with two other similar tools I have used in the past, I would put PRTG in the middle strictly in terms of features/performance, but at the top when overall value is considered. While SolarWinds does have some features that PRTG lacks, it comes at a much higher …
I found Nagios very difficult to manage and use. I used it on a Linux server and we are a Windows shop so it was not as easy for other IT staff to administer. It was also mostly text-based configuration so it was more difficult to configure.
With PRTG it comes down to ease of use. Compared with products like Nagios, PRTG is so much simpler and more straightforward to set up, use and maintain, making it easy to manage existing sensors as well as add new ones, and create a clear and easy monitoring platform. Users …
The mobile app and ease of use set PRTG apart from the others. PRTG can be up and running in a much shorter time than any other product I have used or evaluated. Templates can be set up so once a system is detected the appropriate sensors will be created automatically.
PRTG wins on price. Other tools have similar capabilities. However, there was always some trade-off to make. Products like Zabbix and Nagios are overly complicated to configure, so there is a significant time cost. Tools like Datadog and OpManager just cost too much for a small …
Nagios and Icinga (which is itself a fork from Nagios) are decent enough solutions for free, being open source. They do take more to set up and maintain, with quite a lot of manual work and agent installs in some cases. So in comparison with PRTG, they require more labor, but …
PRTG has superior performance, a greater community and online documentation, more accurate data collection, and more complete configuration and operating environment than competitors.
Verified User
Technician
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
I'd like to say that it was because of the amount of features, because it is faster than the others, or because it is easier to use, or maybe because you really may want to scan your network really fast and list the device, but the real situation is that is cheaper than the …
PRTG is what you'd expect from a solid tool for network and infrastructure monitoring. The hierarchical structure of the device views, the ability to group like sensors with tags, and even the printable QR codes at each level are key usability features that put a wealth of data …
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.
If there are a number of different protocols and devices to monitor PRTG is really an all in one solution. There are network specific solutions, telephony solutions, server solutions, etc - but this tool can do anything. Even if you don't use this tool as your main "monitoring solutions" every IT professional should have access to this tool for at least troubleshooting purposes. If you are looking for something specific built for a task you may be able to find [a] more direct and easy tool to use that would be easier and quicker to setup as customization is not needed.
Very, very configurable. You can create all kinds of monitors for all kinds of things. Plus it has loads of suggestions out of the box. It can get complicated but monitoring is complicated. Pretty decent interface and good support - active community.
I really liked how easy it was to add alerts by SMS. So easy to setup.
I like their sizing models (for purchase). We're actually small enough that we are free. But it's not free as in stripped down - it's free because we don't use many "sensors" and don't honestly have the need.
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.
The probe service can be quite resource-intensive. This can cause false-positive readings from some sensors sometimes.
The software gets updated very regularly. Whilst this is usually a good thing to fix bugs etc, it does meantime downtime of the monitoring quite often while they are installed.
The ability to create Maps from Libraries. Very specific issue but a lot of people have been asking for it for years and it is still not available.
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.
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.
The tool is very intuitive to use and it is Windows-based (everybody knows how to use Windows) so it's easy to get into. Every time is setup in a hierarchy so if you have a good initial hierarchy design, it will really reduce administrative effort down the road.
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.
I am giving this a 6 simply because I have never had to contact support. The online documentation is adequate for most things, and the user-maintained knowledgebase is excellent. The few times I have run into issues that were not easily resolvable with intuitive UI, I was able to find the answers that I needed either in the PRTG-provided documentation, the knowledgebase, or with a quick online web search.
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].
I have deployed and tested three products for evaluation I found [PRTG Network Monitor] very easy to deploy, the deployment literally took not more than one hour including basic configuration and network discovery. After deployment few configuration changes and creation of maps, reports and little tweaking is required. [Then] it would go through its process of recommendation that took some time to complete, while [on] other hand other software's took lot of time to install and configure. And features were also missing, which resulted in decision in favor of [PRTG Network Monitor].
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.
The ability to analyze multiple pieces of information in one place, especially with historical data, has saved our IT department time and headaches. It would be so much more difficult to trace an issue without PRTG, just relying on event logs and an open task manager window.
The cost is not cheap, so it's an expense that hits the bottom line like everything else. Figure in hardware costs as well, ideally a server outside of your main environment.
I keep saying this, but the historical data piece is worth so much. There's really no good way to collect all of that information in one place without something like PRTG. And that definitely saves time and money in the long run.
