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Overview

What is PRTG?

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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

PRTG Network Monitor is a versatile tool that has proven to be invaluable for a wide range of users and organizations. Small and mid-sized …
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Network Monitoring above others

10 out of 10
February 24, 2022
This product is a key part of our overall systems monitoring, environmental monitoring, and logging. We use this system to act like a 24x7 …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 10 features
  • Alerts (55)
    7.6
    76%
  • Network monitoring (54)
    7.6
    76%
  • Automated network device discovery (49)
    7.4
    74%
  • Hardware health monitoring (52)
    6.8
    68%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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PRTG 500

1,750

On Premise
perpetual license

PRTG 1,000

3,200

On Premise
perpetual license

PRTG 2,500

6,500

On Premise
perpetual license

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

PGT 305 : MINI PROJECT - DEMO VIDEO PRTG NETWORK MONITOR

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Prtg demo | Prtg network monitor demo | Prtg

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Giám sát mạng máy tính với phần mềm PRTG Network Monitor

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PRTG Network Monitor Demo

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PRTG Network Monitor Live Demo

YouTube

Monitor Large Scale Environments the Easy Way - PRTG Network Monitor

YouTube
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Features

Network Performance Monitoring

A network performance monitoring system monitors the entire network for performance problems and collects performance data such as network traffic analysis performance bottlenecks, etc.

7
Avg 8.2
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Product Details

What is PRTG?

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. It also includes free VoIP monitoring software.

PRTG Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Reviewers rate Network monitoring and Alerts highest, with a score of 7.6.

The most common users of PRTG are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(234)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

PRTG Network Monitor is a versatile tool that has proven to be invaluable for a wide range of users and organizations. Small and mid-sized firms with limited IT resources have found it to be an effective solution for monitoring their servers, switches, storage, and essential services almost 24/7. By providing a quick overview of many systems at once, the software saves these organizations from receiving alerts from multiple places or watching several different screens.

Telecommunications companies also benefit greatly from PRTG Network Monitor's capabilities. It allows them to monitor major backhaul telecommunication links, thousands of devices deployed in multiple locations, and even multi-tenanted virtual environments. The software's event monitoring, alerting, capacity management, and uptime reporting features provide these companies with the metrics they need for OLAs and SLAs.

Similarly, organizations rely on PRTG Network Monitor to keep a close eye on their network devices, servers, and services both locally and remotely. By providing real-time information about the system's health and alerting the team when something goes offline or down, the software enables proactive issue resolution and quicker recovery. The ability to display the software on TVs throughout the department also allows other employees to see the status of the infrastructure.

In various industries, such as R&D departments or customer service centers, PRTG Network Monitor serves as a crucial fault and performance monitoring tool. It helps these teams monitor services, databases, bandwidth utilization, server performance, and application uptime. The historical data provided by the software aids in tracking trends and establishing baselines for resources. Notably, its flexibility in configuration and customization is appreciated by users across different settings.

PRTG Network Monitor is not limited to specific sectors but offers value to many use cases. From monitoring network gear and VPN tunnels to overseeing classroom environments or casinos' game floors' kiosks, this software proves its versatility time and again. Its extensive functionality allows users to consolidate multiple monitoring systems, meet customer SLAs, and proactively address potential problems before they impact users' experience. PRTG Network Monitor truly shines as a reliable and adaptable tool for network monitoring and system availability.

Intuitive Interface: Users have consistently praised PRTG for its highly intuitive interface, which makes it incredibly easy to use and set up credentials and device monitoring. Many reviewers appreciate how the user-friendly interface streamlines the process of navigating the system.

Out-of-the-Box Monitoring: PRTG's comprehensive monitoring capabilities right out of the box have impressed numerous users. The product offers detailed monitoring without requiring extensive customization or additional packages, saving valuable time and effort during implementation.

Automatic Device Discovery: PRTG's automatic device discovery functionality has received positive feedback from several users. They highlight how this feature simplifies the setup process by automatically detecting and modeling various types of devices, ensuring hassle-free monitoring with minimal manual configuration required.

Confusing User Interface: Some users have found the user interface to be perplexing, difficult to navigate, and lacking in intuitiveness. They have expressed a desire for improvements in the management of the user interface, including visual interfaces and simplification of the top ribbon menu.

Steep Learning Curve: There is a learning curve associated with using the software, especially for those who are new to monitoring solutions. Users have reported difficulties with the setup process and the auto scan feature, and they would appreciate a more straightforward navigation system in the web GUI.

Expensive Pricing Structure: Many users find frustration with the pricing structure since costs increase significantly once they exceed the 100 sensor limit of the free version. The licensing cost is considered expensive, particularly for small businesses. Users feel that there should be a more budget-friendly software option available for medium-level customers.

Users recommend purchasing a licensed version of the software for proper functioning. They have found that the licensed version offers better performance and functionality compared to the free version.

Reviewers advise regularly updating the software to resolve any bugs or issues. By keeping the software up-to-date, users have access to the latest features, enhancements, and security patches.

Customers suggest engaging with the user community for troubleshooting assistance. By exploring the user community, users can find solutions to their queries or problems more quickly and benefit from shared tips, tricks, and workarounds.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-19 of 19)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG is being used to monitor a number of different IT technologies mainly in the infrastructure realm. There are several key uses:
  • Device monitoring (Security, network, telephony, servers, power)
  • Device troubleshooting (monitoring statistics of problematic device which could be any network connected device) over time to determine a baseline and solve problems
  • Reporting on network utilization for capacity planning
  • Netflow reporting for external connections
There are various problems the tool addresses - both proactive and reactive use cases. It provides baselines, verification reporting and ability to alert to issues present. We use various technologies for alerting, from Teams messaging, to emails to direct incident creation in ITSM software.
  • Ability to monitor ALMOST anything that is network connected
  • Flexibility in monitoring choices (SNMP, Scripts, PINGS, WMI etc)
  • Easy to use web GUI for creating monitors, reports, and alerts
  • Licensing on a per entity basis can be cumbersome for devices which have a ton of monitoring points like network switches\routers. Each sensor may count against a license, which could be a lot of you were monitoring every TX\RX of an SFP for example
  • A better method to easily template\copy monitors across devices
  • The navigation in the web GUI could be a little more straightforward in terms of the hierarchy
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.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG Network Monitor to monitor and alert all LAN, WAN, VPN, and website-related load balancers, switches, routers & firewalls for connectivity, latency, and throughput. It is being used mainly by 1 team/department. It addresses the problems of having high-level as well as finely-granular views in one pane including historical & trending of network throughput and usage, and proactive issue alerting.
  • Allows for very easy agentless additions of monitors.
  • Gives simplified views and customizable dashboards in the WUI.
  • Gives excellent outputting/exporting options for structured historical data.
  • The WUI overall, although it is thorough, could use some simplification to find what you are looking for.
  • The WUI could also give better dependency linking, the existing tool is difficult to use.
  • An HTML5/more enhanced/more interactive UI design.
From my experience, PRTG NM is very well suited for medium to large companies with geo-dispersed, On-Premise/Bare Metal hardware or software-defined network equipment needing robust and efficient monitoring and alerting systems. Also, if you are needing excellent historical logging/trending with visual interpretations (graphs, charts, etc.) PRTG excels in this. The setup and administration of the system itself, although it can vary slightly by make/model of endpoint devices, can almost always be achieved by relatively inexperienced admin staff.
Yaniv Vararu | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG is used only by the R&D department in our organization. We're using it to monitor some of our services and databases, but not all of them. It helps us understand if something major "got broken" with our product and if there are servers or databases which are completely unavailable or unstable.
  • Ping for general availability of servers every constant time interval.
  • By doing so, we can check statistics of availability over a period of given time.
  • You can set different monitors for different needs.
  • The UI is very "old" and not appealing.
  • It's also not intuitive enough, UX-wise.
Since I'm not the one who configures the system and the different monitors, it's a bit difficult to explain, but I'd say that, in general, it's a very complex but very flexible software if your needs are diverse. In case you have basic monitoring needs, I guess it'll be easier to use a more basic monitoring service.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[PRTG] Network Monitor system is used as our primary network monitoring solution for monitoring critical business application servers as well as production servers. I had implemented this solution in PSMCL long time ago when I joined, since [then] I have deployed the solution on multiple times. [It's] very simple to deploy, maintain and manage. The auto discovery function along with sensor recommendation works well with minimal configuration. The best thing is that for smaller environments it has 100 sensors for lifetime. That is one more reason I deploy free version on smaller environment for trial then user decides to keep it or not.
  • Ping Jitter to identify connection problems
  • Traffic monitor for monitoring performance of wan links
  • Snmp sensors
  • Maps are difficult to make
For medium to small organizations [PRTG Network Monitor is] very well suited. I found it very easy to deploy and manage, updates are easy to perform, its very rare but if for any reason the system gets problematic it could be redeployed in few minutes and old data could be restored very easily. I recommend to deploy free version for evaluation first use it for as long as you want in that way you can get actual feel of product.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG Network Monitor is primarily being used by the IT department, however, the electrical department will also receive notifications for some device down notifications. We primarily use it for the notification functionality but also use the dashboard for some things. We work on a large construction site and have multiple locations - it's critical to respond to outages ASAP as they will have a negative effect on the business.
  • Prompt notifications when a device goes down.
  • Beautiful history graph showing you uptime/statuses
  • Interface is a little difficult to navigate if you aren't tech savvy.
  • Configuration of hierarchy can take a bit of time to set-up.
Particularly if you are a shop that has a lot of devices but not a ton of manpower to manage those devices, this software is a huge benefit. It's inexpensive compared to the big enterprise solutions and far easier to set-up than the open-source alternatives like Nagios. It's the right size for most groups. Node/monitor based licensing allows me to be flexible with what I need. Most devices are just up/down notifications, some have SNTP, etc. It's great!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG for real-time monitoring of all the servers across our various environments. It is, among other tools, a critical part of our infrastructure and alerts us almost instantly when a parameter has exceeded the specified ranges that we have setup. It is a very flexible tool and I have been extremely impressed with it overall.
  • Very easy to setup new sensors (new endpoints to monitor).
  • High level of customization for various features.
  • User-friendly, intuitive web UI.
  • Documentation could be a little more thorough/easy to understand.
  • Built-in reports could be expanded a little bit more.
  • Does not support SSO or more than one Active Directory sync.
It is an excellent real-time monitoring tool, good for things like device uptime and resource utilization. You can monitor parameters such as ping, CPU and memory usage, available disk space, and also generate reports and graphs based on historic utilization to help plan for future growth. What PRTG is not intended for is use as an Intrusion Prevention System, it will only report to you on what activities that are occurring.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG to monitor our entire IT infrastructure, applications, and websites. It is a critical part of our operational strategy to monitor system availability and performance. We use it to pro-actively tell IT staff of a current problem or even a potential problem so we find out in most cases before customers report the problem. I would say the pro-active component is most valuable.
  • Being able to customize sensors for each server or application (what is being monitored)
  • The variety of hardware and software sensors to choose from is great.
  • The accuracy of the sensors. If PRTG is reporting a problem then that event is really happening.
  • We can choose the thresholds for each sensor. So for example what is a down state or warning state.
  • A lot of options regarding notifications - email, text, timeframes, normal business hours, weekend hours, etc.
  • Ability to see and report on sensor history and get uptime stats.
  • There is a reporting feature but the reports are not necessarily "pretty".
  • The learning curve isn't real steep but it can be a little difficult to configure and get things the way you want them. Definitely trial and error.
  • The automatic scan of a server includes a lot of sensors that are not really usable. And considering licensing is based on the number of sensors, it's easier to just pick the sensors you want to monitor. It would be nice if could create a template of sensors to track.
We are a small IT shop, but I could see if your environment is extremely complex with multiple sites and decentralized it would take some effort to configure everything correctly using PRTG Network Monitor. Even if your environment has 100+ servers but IT staff are centralized it's very realistic to configure everything correctly and get the notifications where you want them.
April 16, 2020

PRTG for MSP's

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG Network Monitor is being used by our organization to monitor the health of all of our servers as well as ISP's. It is also being used to monitor the health of all of our clients servers and ISP's. We also use it to provide reporting on server and netwok usage.
  • System Monitoring
  • Server Monitoring
  • Network Monitoring
  • UI can be confusing
  • Notifications can be difficult to set up
PRTG Network Monitor is well suited for larger organizations who need to consistently monitor the health of multiple servers and multiple ISP's. The custom ping checks are a good tool to allow efficient alerting when a system could possibly be offline or inaccessible. It is extremely well suited for MSP's or larger organizations that monitor multiple sites.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG Network Monitor as a central monitoring platform for our 4 corporate sites (including Amazon AWS) as well as all of our customer locations (around 10 sites) that are spread across the USA. It's our primary monitoring tool for our entire organization. It does SNMP monitoring well and it makes remote support (an essential part of our business model) of all of our sites possible will alerts that get sent to whoever needs to be notified when something happens.
  • Consistent, real-time alerts.
  • A decent repository of MIB's and OID's for quick auto-discovery.
  • User-friendly interface.
  • Its MIB library could be expanded by quite a lot, I have to spend a lot of time with device manufacturer support when I need to monitor something specific (fan speed, firmware version, etc).
  • It's really not that scaleable beyond 10,000 sensors.
Our organization is quickly outgrowing PRTG as an SNMP network monitoring tool. We have around 20 total sites we monitor and we're pushing over 16,000 sensors. For a small organization, it's really great and affordable. Once you grow beyond the 10,000 sensor mark, however, it starts to get very pricey and not very efficient.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG to monitor a fairly large, complex and multi-site network. Monitoring in the region of 4000 sensors over a few hundred servers, network devices, printers, CCTV, Wi-Fi APs, web hosts, etc.
The biggest problem we used to have was that we had several monitoring systems managed by different departments around the business. With the introduction of PRTG, we have been able to consolidate these systems into PRTG and manage it centrally.
PRTG gives us a really good visual overview of all the relevant things we need to monitor to meet customer SLA's and we find that with the help of the email alerts and a visual map on a large screen in the office, we can keep on top of any issues.
  • Visual overview of the whole network making it easy to spot any issues straightaway.
  • Email alerting that is fully customizable.
  • Proactive monitoring using hundreds of different types of sensors giving the ability to actively troubleshoot issues before customers are affected.
  • 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.
PRTG is well suited to any organization that needs to monitor devices and systems on their network. Compared to other products on the market, it is is easy to set up, manage and use on a day-to-day basis.
The only place where it would be less appropriate would possibly be an environment where multiple probes were required for geographic purposes and a probe device (ie, a PC) isn't available in each location. This is fairly unlikely, however, but would depend on the network infrastructure.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG is a very useful monitoring tool, special for windows systems that are used for our internal infrastructure (also Unix Systems). You can use easy pre configured sensors or create your own sensor. In the beginning the creation of own sensor is a little bit tricky. You have to understand it first completely before you can create one. But the standard sensor cover already a lot. You can find a lot of useful things in the kb from paessler.
  • Easy to use
  • Very powerful sensors
  • Create custom sensors (SQL, Powershell etc.)
  • Good support from paessler
  • A lot of KB articles
  • In some points limitated (You cannot change a sensor, you have to delete them)
  • Create a SQL sensor is not that easy
  • You have to search in your system language (Example. In German RAM is called "Arbeitsspeicher" so when you search for RAM he will not find the sensor)
First you have to create a tree with all the servers and services. Here i would recommend to create a plan before, else you do this step twice. The thing that you have to decide a few things when you create a sensor and after this is not changeable. When you want to change this, you have to delete the sensor and create a new one.
Robert Paul | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG Network Monitor is one of our primary monitoring applications for our network and servers. It is used internally by the IT department only since no one else needs to see the status of these systems. From a business standpoint, it allows us to monitor many systems all at once, with a quick overview, which saves us from having to receive alerts from multiple places or watch several different screens.
  • Monitoring: PRTG does more than just periodic pings to see if a system is up, it has all sorts of sensors to monitor CPU usage, memory, hard drive space, specific processes, &c. It's very granular and quite robust in its capabilities. But it isn't overwhelming, as you can set up which sensors you want or don't want.
  • Ease of Setup: PRTG can discover new systems, and automatically apply templates to their profile. This means, for example, a new server on the network will always get a CPU, RAM, Hard Disk, and Network sensor if you set it up that way. Even the default templates are pretty great, not a lot of extraneous sensors that clutter everything up.
  • Dashboard: One of the best things about PRTG is that all this information is in one place. The dashboard view shows everything in a color-coded way, so everything is green, no worries! Yellows and reds, they stand out. From there, you can drill down and find out which specific things are in alarm without necessarily having to log in to the system.
  • Alerts: PRTG also sends out e-mail alerts based on whatever parameters you configure. A hard drive is 90% full? Email the infrastructure team!
  • Historical Data: Because PRTG monitors all of these systems in real time, all the time, it maintains a database of historical performance data. You can check to see which servers need more resources, or even if it's just a specific time (e.g., development always runs a database query at 2:30 pm, and you can see what that does to the CPU). It's extremely helpful for analysis.
  • Horizontal Dashboard: The dashboard page is responsive, which is a good thing generally, but it works much better on a vertical monitor, especially if you have a lot of systems to monitor. If you have a horizontal layout, you have to scroll often to keep track of things (although the alerts do help). It would be nice to have an option to force a specific scale and layout.
  • Database: The database PRTG uses is an internal black box. It would be nice if it were something more standard, MySQL, Microsoft SQL, &c. That way it could be tied into other things more easily, or we could write our own SQL queries against it.
  • E-Mail: The internal SMTP server of the application is not always reliable. It took a lot of tweaking to get it to send alerts correctly.
PRTG is fantastic for a medium or large business with many servers, switches, firewalls, and other systems. Having all of these monitored in one space is a lifesaver, and it helps analyze where an outage might actually be ("13 servers are offline, and so is this switch right where those servers happen to be"). It can be pricey, depending on the model, but it's worth it for the efficiency and ease of use.

That said, a small business, especially one with one or two servers and a couple of switches, probably won't find it cost effective. There would be less value in that kind of small shop to monitor everything this way, and one of the free solutions out there would probably be fine.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG is used by the university IT staff to monitor the network equipment and server across the entire enterprise. We have multiple probes configured to monitor server health and network performance, as well as basic up/down status. This allows us to have insight into possible issues that might arise before they have a chance to be a real issue. PRTG also gives us the alerts we need when equipment does fail or go offline.
  • There are many preconfigured probes to use for all types of network equipment and servers
  • Alerts can be customized and configured to alert the right staff for the specific alert
  • Graphs make it easy to spot trends for all probes
  • Auto-discovery makes adding devices easy
  • The mobile app gives you access to the system from anywhere
  • Alerts configuration is a little tricky to fine tune and could be easier. It can be very granular(good), but that adds to the complexity.
  • Mobile app could be a little better laid out
PRTG makes it easy to monitor the health of your servers and the status of your network equipment both from your office and while away. It will alert the staff when issues arise so that repairs can be implemented quickly.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG was used for infrastructure monitoring, system availability, and proactive monitoring. We relied on PRTG for our out of hours alerting. It allowed us to easily deploy and use a powerful and simple, yet cost-effective monitoring tool that suited our business needs.

Pricing was important to us but more important was ease of use, and although perhaps not as powerful as some of its competitors, PRTG handles large infrastructures well, and is particularly quick and easy to deploy, without the need for complex client installations.
  • Rapid real time monitoring
  • Great price performance
  • Ease of implementation and deployment
  • Very easy to configure and add / amend / remove nodes and alerts.
  • Good level of support from the vendor.
  • Highly customisable.
  • Ease of deploy,ent to different skill sets - i.e. HD usage, etc.
  • More refined SNMP support - Little bit too technical and hands on to use as fully as you want to.
  • Built in native support of more manufacturers
  • Ability to run the console on a MAC, without using a browser.
  • Small and medium to medium large enterprises.
  • Organisations with highly mixed environments.
  • Those looking for great value.
Bill Artinger | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG to monitor many VPN tunnels to our clients' sites from ours and in between client sites themselves. We also use PRTG for disk usage/free space in addition to keys Dell server metrics. Its software and e-mail alerts make sure you KNOW what's going on when it's happening. The customization and ease of use are what sold us on PRTG for our company!
  • Alerting you to changes in statuses
  • Customization and granular tweaking
  • Installation and setup is a breeze
  • Maintaining and growing PRTG is super easy
  • Sometimes there is A LOT of information to digest
  • Sometimes finding out how to name your alerts/metrics is tough
  • More followup/personal touch from PRTG sales
MSPs can greatly benefit from PRTG. Turning information into action or upsells is crucial to the success of an MSP. A home user or end user group would not have much use for PRTG as it is A) more geared toward professionals who know what they're doing and B) the cost would be tough to justify. PRTG is also well-suited for in-house management and monitoring of small to medium to large businesses wanting to gather their own info or do their own monitoring of equipment and services
Philip D | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG is used a classroom environment to acclimate students in using the product before they enter the field. Our students are required to take on an internship before graduation and using the products in the classroom transitions them directly to the employer to hit the ground running with industry tools. PRTG is used in a sandbox lab that is running various intrusion testing. The student has no fear of breaking an environment to analyze incidents that can happen in real time. PRTG is also run on the classroom VLAN which also monitors vSphere traffic of over 1000 virtual machines. These machines can be monitored for events and incidents that a demo could rarely perform. The plethora of data interpretation makes the incidents and events a real time situation.
  • Excellent graphs and eye candy.
  • The software can be used on small footprints like devices on the Pine64.
  • There is very little overhead on the product. You install out of the box and do a walk-through configuration.
  • I would like to see labs done where actual real alarms could be observed.
  • Although they have mapping software for dashboards, it doesn't look as easy as it should.
  • There is a huge learning curve to interpret everything you are seeing.
When you want to do network monitoring quickly PRTG has the way to do it quickly. This would be well suited for a NOC situation where an analyst could focus their time on the product and learn the ins and outs of monitoring.
June 01, 2016

PRTG Rocks

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am using PRTG to monitor all network equipment across 5 locations. I monitor: bandwidth, internet uptime, server performance including, CPU, RAM, disk space and bandwidth utilization. I also use the NetFlow/Sflow and remote sensor features. I've also used PRTG to import custom MIBs for UPS and PDU systems. Some of the more common sensors are the WMI Multi Disk sensors, Ping, Bandwidth and uptime sensors.
  • PRTG appears to be plain and simple and you can use it that way if you want. But it has power under the hood and can be used to monitor anything you can think of. I like the fact that it's simple to use, it's truely as easy as auto discover, tweak and forget (or wait until you get PRTG notices via email).
  • Alarms are easy to use and you can set them to be granular by error or by group/users.
  • PRTG upgrades are a snap with auto update.
  • I've set up PRTG in a cluster so that we don't have to log when we take the server down for maintenance for reporting on uptime, etc. Cluster setup is very easy.
  • In a previous job, I posted public pages to our IT intranet page so employees could see if there was a server outage. Again, very easy and a nice idea.
  • Reporting isn't as nice as I would like it to be. Nothing specific really, but depending on the report it can take quite a bit of time to generate, more time than expected. I think it would also be nice to make it more granular with more presentation options.
  • The Desktop application is not as easy and nice as the web interface. I'm a big fan of the web interface and I would consider not even deploying it.
  • I really like the notifications, but fine tuning it so that you get reports too often or not enough can take some time. I think the defaults don't work for everyone and making sure you are aware of that can prove embarrassing if you are not on top of it or prepared to explain the notices to everyone you send them to... e.g. IT director.
  • The maps have improved greatly over the years. I think there is still room to make them even better. I wish they had a grid view and a way to select all objects and size them equally and alighn them or snap to grid.
PRTG is an all around great network monitoring tool. The biggest competitor to PRTG in my book is Spiceworks. This is purely due to price and the market they are competing for. There are a ton of other network monitoring tools and I've used plenty of them and I find myself going back to PRTG everytime.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have recently made network changes which we have seen affecting our link states between our corporate location and our remote office. We were noticing the link going down from the provider end. With PRTG we were able to asses this very quickly and determine it was a service provider issue. Once we found out what was going on we were also able to determine we were getting the "paid for" bandwidth on that link. Through continual monitoring we were able to make this link more stable.
  • Easy to implement. It almost sets itself up through guidance from you to get you quickly monitoring your network.
  • We were able to easily find a communications problem through the sensor which was deployed.
  • 100 sensors are included free for life. Why not implement this product just to have this ability.
  • Sometimes the areas to add / remove sensors can be a bit confusing.
  • It is hard to find where to move a monitored device from one group to another. I had to look this one up in their documentation.
  • Better AD integration for use in establishing security roles with PRTG. It is hard to verify it is working properly.
I can see where it is extremely beneficial to have PRTG installed just to monitor the critical links in your network. With 100 included free sensors why not deploy to your network to see what you may be missing. You never know it can help you find a potential problem before it becomes one.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use PRTG to monitor our servers in an off site data center. We currently use it to monitor all the web, database, and application servers at the remote site. It works great at giving us real time performance data on our servers. What I personally like about network monitor are the custom alerts that can be configured for it. It has been a great tool for our organization.
  • It has an easy to use interface, that requires no training to use.
  • A user can create custom reports and alerts for each server being monitored.
  • The system requires little maintenance to keep working properly.
  • The web interface can be a little slow to work with.
  • It can be difficult to find specific settings needed to configure different nodes.
  • There are multiple interfaces, and it can be hard to change into the interface that is best for each user.
I have found that it works great in a remote setting. One of the primary uses is to monitor a VPN connection, and to notify me that all servers are still alive and working properly if the VPN connection fails. In this setting the system excels and does a fantastic job with the status reports when a failure does occur.
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