Overview
What is Nagios Core?
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.
Nagios [Core]: Best Open Source Monitoring Tool
Nagios for the win
Nagios Core--The best free monitoring solution around!
Nagios Core - sit back and monitor at ease!
Industry standard monitoring
Excellent tool that's widely used - and best of all, it's free!
Absolutely essential for any sys admin and IT department, plus it's FREE
Nagios - Open Source Versatile Infrastructure Alerting Solution
Simple to use - good value for your money
If you require reliability in your IT infrastructure then you need Nagios!
Nagios quick review
Powerful Monitoring tool
Nagios Core : A viable alternative....if you have the time
Nagios - Open Source Network Monitoring
Nagios: DIY Full Stack Monitoring
Awards
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Pricing
Single License
Free
Single License
Free
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
nagios core
Nagios Exploit DEMO - Remote CodeExec CVE-2016-9565 & Root PrivEsc CVE-2016-9566
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Nagios Core?
The vendor says Nagios is the industry standard In IT Infrastructure Monitoring. The vendor says the powerful Nagios Core 4 monitoring engine provides a high level of performance, and that its high-efficiency worker processes allow for scalability and monitoring effectiveness. It is designed to provide a central view of a company's entire IT operations network and business processes. Multi-user access to web interface allows stakeholders to view relevant infrastructure status. User-specific views ensures clients only see the infrastructure components they’re authorized for.
Nagios Core Features
- Supported: Advanced Graphs & Visualizations
- Supported: Performance & Capacity Planning Graphs
- Supported: Configuration Wizards
- Supported: Advanced Infrastructure Management
- Supported: Configuration Snapshot Archive
- Supported: Advanced User Management
- Supported: Service-Level Agreement (SLA) Reports
- Supported: Extendable Architecture
Nagios Core Integrations
- Sematext Infrastructure Monitoring module
- among others
Nagios Core Competitors
Nagios Core Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android |
Supported Countries | Global |
Supported Languages | English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Polish |
Frequently Asked Questions
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Reviews and Ratings
(164)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
Nagios, a popular IT infrastructure monitoring tool, has proven to be a valuable asset for organizations across various departments. With its robust monitoring capabilities and ease of setup, Nagios has become a go-to solution for many users. Users have found Nagios useful for a wide range of use cases, including monitoring applications and computing resources, gaining insights through reporting features, and proactively detecting potential issues. Nagios' ability to handle a large number of servers and services without stability issues has been commended by users. It also offers hassle-free implementation of plugins behind firewalls, supporting both Pull and Push Monitoring methods. The customization options in Nagios allow users to create plugins in various programming languages, making it adaptable to their specific needs. Integration with other technologies like MySQL, NRDP, Pnp4Nagios, and Grafana further enhances its functionality. For example, Nagios can be integrated with MySQL for storage and retrieval, NRDP for push alerting, Pnp4Nagios for RRD graphing, and Grafana for aggregated graphing, dashboards, heat-maps, and alerts.
Nagios plays a vital role in monitoring infrastructure for multiple departments within organizations. It is widely used by network operations teams to monitor infrastructure 24/7 and configure alerts for application status. Users have also found Nagios instrumental in identifying bottlenecks and patching issues during the testing phase. With its ability to monitor a diverse range of server operating systems and components like disk space, CPU and memory utilization, network availability, Kerberos replication, Active Directory, Novell NDS driver monitoring, among others; Nagios provides comprehensive coverage for system monitoring needs. It saves time by automating server space checks and sending real-time information to the IT team. Additionally, Nagios proves its worth in data centers by issuing early alerts on sensitive equipment such as servers, switches, routers, firewalls, and air conditioners. The tool is also used by various departments like Data Center Operations, Provisioning, Operations, Infrastructure, and Enterprise Monitoring to ensure the health and performance of their respective areas. Overall, Nagios stands out as an excellent open-source monitoring tool with a large community of users and scripts available for monitoring diverse applications, servers, websites, and services.
Flexibility and Configurability: Many users have praised Nagios for its extreme flexibility and configurability. They appreciate the ability to customize the monitoring according to their specific needs, including agent and agentless monitoring solutions with a variety of plugins.
Intuitive User Interface: The simplicity and ease of use of Nagios' user interface are highly praised by users. They mention that the interface is intuitive and easy to read, allowing them to quickly understand the monitoring status and identify any issues.
Extensibility through Plugins: The extensibility of Nagios through plugins, scripts, and customizations is highly valued by users. They mention that they have been able to add any needed functionality using plugins and scripts, making Nagios more flexible than other monitoring systems.
Dated and Unattractive User Interface: Several users have criticized Nagios for its dated and unattractive user interface, which they find less appealing. The interface is in need of a major overhaul to improve usability and streamline the experience. Some users have suggested improvements to make it less confusing and easier to navigate.
Reliance on Community-Driven Plugins: Users have expressed frustration with the reliance on open source community-driven plugins for third-party applications and hardware support in Nagios. This can lead to unpolished or broken plugins, requiring additional time to configure. Configuring and deploying these plugins was troublesome for some users, requiring patience to connect all the various components.
Steep Learning Curve: The learning curve for Nagios can be steep, especially for those not familiar with Linux. The configuration process can be messy and prone to accidental breakage, making it challenging for new users. Additionally, some background knowledge of Linux is required during the initial configuration process.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(26-42 of 42)Nagios - a soul of NW team
- Nagios network monitoring tool help us to know the status of the Internet service. We can easily identify from where the Internet service stop.
- Nagios reduces the effort of NW team here in our organization. The NW team first task is checking Nagios. Is the whole NW is working? which one is fail? By checking Nagios the NW team can easily manage the failing LAN.
- In our organization there are some server. We can easily their status by using Nagios.
- Nagios to be the first network monitoring tool it needs additional improvements, like the speed of connection.
Nagios - first in flexibility
Nagios handles the majority of our monitoring and we use a third party service for alerting (though the alerts originate from Nagios, or a different monitoring source). Specifically, we use Nagios for the following types of alerts: 1) Scripted custom checks 2) system cpu, memory, and disk space 3) Dell OMSA checks (hardware) 4) database monitoring 5) esxi monitoring. Admittedly this is just scratching the surface for Nagios uses. I hope to integrate more SNMP monitors for hardware devices including UPS and our firewalls.
- Nagios has never crashed, so it is rock solid stable.
- Standardization in the plugins makes it easy to rely on them.
- The web interface is simple enough anyone can work in it. So, sharing the monitored results are relatively easy too.
- Really, when compared to most other monitoring solutions, Nagios feels less flashy, and does less for you. It's strengths are in its configuration flexibility and that its rock solid daemon.
- 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.
Nagios, the only monitoring you almost always need!
- Connectivity checks in nagios are simple and impactful. Having a ping check on every host should be step one in any Nagios deployment.
- The plugin network for Nagios is huge, and very extensible. Chances are someone has already wrote and shared a plugin that does exactly what you need. But if not, you can write your own.
- With features like remote plugin executor (NRPE) you can do remote checks (pull style) instead of push. Having the option to do both is great.
- The Nagios web interface is not the prettiest, and stays fairly stagnant behind more modern approaches to displaying information.
- The ability to add service comments is a nice feature but the fact you must often manually delete them is annoying. It'd be great if comments were wiped when a status changed (critical -> healthy).
Belgium Telco company Nagios Advice
- Scalability
- Dashboarding
- Robustness
- Simplicity
- Cost
- Usability
- Doesn't support some proprietary equipment in the telecommunication industry
Less usefully when using some proprietary equipment without SNMP MIB
Nagios it is what's for lunch
- Scales well
- Simple to install
- Easy to customize
- Integrations with metric stores such as InfluxDB
- Golang integration
- Update the web interface
- Build out web API
- Kubernetes integration
Why, why the hell I chose Nagios
- Regular checks - never miss a lost service
- Statistics report - crucial to measure KPI
- Notifications - get instant calls about incidents to prevent issues
- Add users/services: it is sometimes difficult to add new users and services, but that is only because we haven't purchased a GUI to edit these.
- Difficult to connect to: since it is difficult to add new users, there is no interface and we have to opt for a third-party GUI
- No GUI: we have to opt for a third-party GUI to have a better visualization
Nagios personal experience for the enterprise world
- Free Space
- CPU used
- RAM available and used
- History reports of the software
- Performance recommendations based of threads
- Nagios Map integration to have a visual state of WAN checks.
- Checks based on groups that allows inheritance for each new infrastructure component added.
- Simplicity of use and the web interface and installation.
- Stability of product for years.
- After a certain number of hosts, Nagios tends to reach its limits in term of performance.
- Unlike concurrent tools, Nagios needs to install an agent on each server you monitor, which complexes the way to get vthe first results or the way you maintain agent versions.
- Compared to concurrent tools, configuration can be tricky when you are new to the tool.
Nagios (Check_MK) Review
- Simple. I can have a server setup within minutes that will provide 99% of all the functionality I need. Not a lot of monitoring systems can make this claim.
- Extensible. I have yet to encounter needed functionality that couldn't be added by means of plugins, scripts, etc.
- Stable. I have never had a Nagios server crash on me nor have I ever lost data due to bugs/instabilities in the software. I am more confidant in my Nagios install than I am in the underlying server/OS.
- Scalability. It hasn't been an issue for us due to the small number of hosts we are monitoring but once you get into thousands+ hosts, Nagios tends to have difficulty scaling.
- Configuration. Configuration can be difficult once you go off the beaten path, especially if you aren't proficient with scripting.
- Agent management. Having an agent definitely simplifies some things but it adds more complexity to the overall management process.
Ny Nagios review
- You can build your own modules.
- Extremely flexible and configurable.
- Configuration can be a pain.
- Needs to be more examples of how to set up host groups and how to set up any computer/server to be tied to a host group.
Nagios review
- There isn't a huge learning curve for someone who is new to the organization to jump in and start creating health checks and auditing the old ones.
- It provides information clearly and organizes it for the NOC or whoever may be looking at it to have a good idea of where to start their troubleshooting.
- At time Nagios isn't the quickest to clear alerts and some odd issues can stop it from clearing alerts that I've seen in the past, such as a new host type being added to the configuration without a valid host being spun up before hand. I've only seen it at one previous company.
Nagios - the gold standard in systems monitoring
- Cost - you can pay for support and an easier interface, or you can get all the monitoring you need for free.
- Extensibility - you can pick from the vast array of checks available, or roll your own custom checks.
- Customizability - you can pick different interfaces, add in historical graphing, configure maintenance windows, and much more.
- Learning curve - can be steep, especially for those not familiar with Linux.
- Messy configurations - it is easy to get your configuration files into a mess without careful management.
- Breakability - it is easy to break your configuration accidentally, and can be difficult to figure out what you did wrong.
Nagios--You can't beat the price!
- Free to start.
- Large open source community.
- Well established with over 15 years in the industry.
- Open source...that's both good and bad, you have to test every new plugin you find to make sure it'll work with your environment.
- You have to pay for the updated Nagios XI which has a friendlier user interface.
- It is potentially very easy to break if you don't know what you're doing.
My Nagios experience.
- Server monitoring.
- Service monitoring.
- Drive Usage.
- Application monitoring, which may be fixed by just using the enterprise version or by spending some more time implementing Nagios fully.
- Database monitoring, which may be fixed by just using the enterprise version or by spending some more time implementing Nagios fully.
- Ease of implementation, of course this is an issue with the free version and not being extremely familiar with Linux. I don't think this will be an issue with more knowledge of Linux or with the enterprise version.
Nagios - Oldie but goodie
- Trusted
- Easy to implement
- Many plugins already written
- Archaic
- Dated UI
- Quirky
Nagios - Easy and Dependable
- Readability: Monitoring screen is very easy to read and there are several other views that are very helpful as well.
- Easy of setup for new devices
- Reporting: Reports are accurate and easy to update using group settings
- Training is simple. Technicians are up and running in about 15 minutes.
- A GUI would be nice
- Being able to turn off monitoring a device for a period of time (removing the device from the screen)
- Database driven configurations
90s era Nagios is still hard to beat for self-hosted monitoring
- Nagios is the gold standard for compatibility; there is a community provided plugin for monitoring almost anything.
- Plugins are easy to write in almost any language - most engineers can put together a Nagios plugin in a short time if they can write a program that runs on a *nix server.
- Check schedules and notifications are flexible, although complex to configure.
- The web interface is complicated and hard to understand for new users.
- The configuration syntax is brittle and breaks in unexpected ways.
- It's very easy to get too many notifications from Nagios. This isn't really a problem due to Nagios itself, because with enough configuration you can stop it from doing this. But too many notifications very quickly leads to Nagios exhaustion in your team, which leads to people ignoring Nagios.