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
SolarWinds Log Analyzer (LA)
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Log Analyzer is log management and analysis tool, designed to fully integrate with the Orion Platform. With real-time log collection, analysis, and visualization, it enables visibility into the performance and availability of the monitored IT infrastructure. According to the vendor, key feature and business benefits include: Log and event collection and analysis Any infrastructure is constantly generating log data to provide performance…
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.
Some of equipment does not support correct monitoring of particular errors via standard SNMP requests (example - Juniper SRX licenses expiration). In this case getting and analyzing syslogs as well as creating event-based alerts/notifications brings great relief of a network administrator life! The second case - is a simple analyzing firewall log events as SolarWinds Log Analyzer (LA) can keep logs for a longer time than an equipment built-in tool.
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.
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.
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 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.
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].
Based on my personal experience SolorWinds Log Analyzer is the best product on the market. Splunk Enterprise is the other system we use for monitoring but it's more complicated and requires extra skills Moreover Solarwinds Support Team response fast to any issues
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.
