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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

(1-25 of 31)
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Mohd Rehan Ansari | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
It is very easy to use in any type of network infrastructure. The free version of the software provides at least 10 sensors which a basic network setup requires. It is easy to integrate and view. The licensing model for PRTG Network Monitor is also good. We can buy a set of sensors and then can use them as and when needed.
  • It is scalable
  • It has graphical monitoring tools
  • In licensed version you get almost all the features and it is pay per feature
  • It is windows based specifically, so gives issue on Linux systems
  • Managing too many Linux machines causes issues
I can configure all my firewalls, wifi devices, ISPs, etc., and monitor them through this tool. Whether they are down or up can easily be known by warning or alert messages on your mail id. We can get weekly graphs of any device associated with it very easily. Constant monitoring shows any loopholes or bottlenecks in the network.
Graham Murison | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Paessler's PRTG Network Monitor IT operation monitoring. This is used throughout the organization.

We needed a more robust monitoring tool that was capable of delivering more in-depth monitoring of our network devices and other end-user nodes as needed. We had previously set up SNMP on most devices, but the previous free tool had limited reporting.

I was also looking for per-interface traffic stats on my Cisco inventory.
  • Setup was easy.
  • Adding devices/sensor is so easy.
  • Support is great.
  • Cost is reasonable.
  • Updates are automatic.
  • A more built-in dashboard would be nice.
  • Licensing can be tricky since it is not device based. Currently, each sensor (IE interface) counts as a sensor license
We are using PRTG to monitor our NetApp storage device and Cisco switch network activity. It also has uptime and ping sensors to help notify us when network nodes are down or unavailable i.e. we are using it to monitor our information displays (tv's) to make sure we are notified when they go down. All monitoring is done using SNMP.
Rekha Yadav | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG software is being used as the network, servers and appliances fault and performance monitoring, event-based alerting, and network traffic flow analysis. Primarily PRTG was deployed for network monitoring, alerting, and reporting. It provides near to real-time monitoring data and supports the Network team to support their operations SLA.
  • Fault and performance monitoring
  • Alerting and reporting
  • Custom parameters monitoring using custom probes.
  • Support monitoring of large number of devices from same instance.
  • By-default integration with 3rd party tools such as Splunk, Service Now
  • More stability in the product.
  • Probes for cloud services monitoring.
Although PRTG has the capability to monitor each and every aspect of network devices, servers, and appliances (basic only), still it is being treated as the small scale monitoring solution of lightweight monitoring solution and the reason for that is scaling issues with respect to the stability of the product. Hence, it is recommended to small-scale environment monitoring with default probes options.
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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The software is used by our IT Department. We monitor all of our network devices to check our availability. The second goal is to notice failures or blackouts before the user informs us, so we can react and resolve issues without notice by the users. One big advantage of PRTG is monitoring automated processes. We don't need to check them on our own. PRTG will send us notifications if any errors occur.
  • Easy usage and implementing.
  • Fewer resources needed.
  • Low costs for purchases and services.
  • More possibilities for monitoring Windows systems, not only over SNMP.
  • Easier way to create our own sensors without programming.
  • Notification if VPN or internet connection is down.
  • Monitoring printers for ordering toner or ink.
  • Monitoring automated processes that are very important and need to be checked every day/hour.
Nikhil Kumar Sharma | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG is used as a light weight Network Monitoring Solution for our customers where team just want to have a visibility on Network Fault and Performance Data along with Syslog and Traps with Netflow Data analysis. PRTG also offer notifications and integration options for ticketing and alerting command center tea and hence PRTG is helping us out for end to end network monitoring
  • Out of the box default probes is available
  • Distributed architecture
  • Light Weight
  • More integration options
  • Enhanced probe management
  • Application Stability and scalability is a must
PRTG is well suited when you want to monitor network infrastructure of small size such as 1000 or 2000, for basic fault and performance monitoring. If you have custom monitoring requirements then make sure you have enough probes to do this or else it will make your system sluggish. Application scalability is another challenge for more number of devices.
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
PRTG is basically a network monitoring solution. It is being used by the whole organization and most of our clients too. When compared with other solutions like SolarWinds in terms of network monitoring, it is far better in many ways. It is budget friendly where you have unlimited licensing XL1 which is one of the best solutions for big enterprise solutions. When it comes to monitoring, auto-discovery of all the nodes, devices, networks using wmi or snmp easily can be done. GUI is easily understandable.
  • Best for small to big enterprises especially XL1 - unlimited licensing.
  • Auto-Discover of all the network devices, VMs in one shot and can easily monitor temperature, latency and such values with less efforts.
  • Customized dashboards for NOC, alerts which glimpse, API many other features are available.
  • Pricing model is very convincing for small to big business.
  • API which you can pull the data from PRTG of your whole network and you can integrate with SOC. This is the best in PRTG.
  • It has its own internal database and does daily auto-backups, just copy-paste is enough.
  • No need to worry about database.
PRTG is not restricted to one business, like you can do monitoring in Aviation, satellite division or in Medical Fields and even Electric substations. We do monitoring of temperature, latency, crc8 errors, monitor IOT devices, medical equipment. OID (object identifier) helps a lot in terms of monitoring any devices other [than] network devices. API are always available where you can easily pull the data.
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.
Sam Livermore, MCP, iTIL | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We monitor all production servers, network appliances and services on each. Currently utilizing over 600 of 100 sensors, and used as our early defense mechanism for any health issues or down devices. Easy way to get a baseline of resources, and look back at historical data to track trends or look at disk consumption, etc.
  • Monitor servers, CPU, memory, disk, services.
  • Monitor network and bandwidth, port up/down.
  • Provide options for custom solutions to meet your environment.
  • Support is great and always helpful, the often forgotten value of any product.
  • OID/MIB import tool.
  • SNMP error, doesn't point you in the right direction.
Small to medium businesses where they have an on-staff SysAdmin or Network Admin who can support the on-prem server and all the services. If this is not monitored or set up properly, the app can quickly get out of date, and the sensors not work properly with correct notifications to do the intended job of letting you know that there is a problem.
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 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG Network Monitor across our IT infrastructure to monitor uptime, availability, Windows service status, and various other relevant items. PRTG Network Monitor gives us the ability to tailor monitoring to the individual system and offers a lot of flexibility in configuration. It has a Maps feature that enabled us to design a custom four-display NOC that IT technicians can use to monitor infrastructure health at a glance. One great use case is for player kiosks on the casino game floor. With PRTG Network Monitor, we can get down to the kiosk and have it running long before guests encounter it, report it to staff, and it makes its way to IT for resolution. The same applies to other task-based machines and endpoints that are customer-facing. With configurable email alerts and a heads-up display, IT staff can be far more proactive in our ability to provide a best in class guest experience. This is critical because you only get one chance to make an excellent first impression.
  • Huge array of sensors to allow detailed monitoring of varied systems.
  • Extremely configurable and tuneable to meet custom environmental needs.
  • Active Directory/LDAP integration is rudimentary and needs improvement.
  • Easy to introduce a lot of network noise and load with default sensor recommendations - care is required to avoid causing load problems on endpoints.
  • We've found that PRTG Network Monitor is excellent for monitoring critical endpoints, VMware health, Microsoft Exchange, and other essential items of infrastructure. PRTG Network Monitor licensing is based on the number of sensors deployed, so it's wise not to accept all of the default recommendations. Spend some time thinking about what matters. For example, there's no need for a Ping sensor on a system where you are also monitoring service states - if the service is up, pinging it is unnecessary, and if the service is down. Still, the system is up; the fact that it responds to pings is not very useful. We've found that a good approach is to let PRTG Network Monitor recommend sensors and then remove those that are not relevant to our monitoring needs.
  • Paessler support is also excellent. They've been very responsive and worked with us to enhance the value of the product.
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
We use PRTG Network Monitor in the Infrastructure Department to monitor our network gear, as well as view Netflow information from switches. It also is used for out-of-band monitoring of externally-available applications and websites.
  • Great for inexpensive monitoring of devices
  • There is a lot of customization options available
  • Integrates with Netflow information for detailed views
  • Dashboards integrate with other APM's and NOC views as well
  • Could use abilities for synthetic transactions
  • GUI is simplistic
Great for an NPM software to supplement your existing APM solutions. It is very easy to implement and control. PRTG Network Monitor integrates well with ticketing and APM systems for detailed monitors. It also works very well as a pipe for your Netflow data from your switches for a comprehensive view of network flows.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG is our primary monitoring application for our internal and external networks and servers. We use PTRG internally by our ITops and DevOps departments to improve reliability.
  • PTRG allows us the customization of alerts from very basic to very granular.
  • It's very simple to get PTRG up and running and you can use PTRG to monitor 100 endpoints free of charge.
  • PTRG is cheaper than most competitors.
  • The mobile app needs work. You're not able to add sensors from the mobile app.
  • I wish PTRG was cross-platform for those running Linux Servers.
  • Being able to geo-tag locations.
PTRG is great at monitoring your critical IT infrastructure. The alerts can go from basic to granular. The reporting is great during quarterly meetings with management. Being able to show management within 1-2 minutes how reliability has gone up with new equipment investment is a great selling point to PTRG and justifying your yearly IT budgeting to management.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use PRTG to monitor all infrastructure equipment and servers in our environment. Previously I had multiple products to monitor specific types of systems. I was able to combine these systems into one by implementing PRTG. I have much more flexibility now by using the PRTG mobile app. I can acknowledge alerts when not in the office and check the performance of different sensors.
  • PRTG's mobile app is great for me. Previously I would need to be at my computer to acknowledge or pause an alert. I am not able to do that from anywhere.
  • I am able to very easily purchase new licenses or renew my licenses through PRTG's website without needing to get a sales pitch. The website also offers upfront pricing. You can see right away what licenses will cost you.
  • PRTG's user interface is very intuitive. I am able to even create dashboards to show non-technical admins the current health of our environment. Showing an administrator a red gauge easily gets the point across that something is wrong.
  • I moved to PRTG from SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. I was able to save a great deal of money moving to PRTG while still gaining functionality and ease of use.
  • I wish the mobile app would allow me to add sensors and devices. I am only able to manage existing sensors.
  • Moving from Solarwinds I lost the ability to backup switch configurations. This is the only feature I miss and causes me to utilize other methods.
PRTG is very easy to get up and running. In less than an hour, I had a fully functioning monitor. PRTG is very scalable and works for small to very large environments through simple licensing and the availability of remote sensors. I am able to set up automatic discovery jobs which can scan networks and automatically add newly detected systems based on a template.
Dan Reynolds | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a small, mid-sized firm and many of the network monitoring systems are just too big, too complicated and too expensive to meet our needs. I wouldn't say our needs are simple or simplistic but we don't have a large IT department (1-me) to handle that. I guess you could say we have enterprise needs on a shoestring size firm! We need to monitor servers, switches, storage, essential services almost 7x24. Most of the employees work at least part time remotely and our systems have to be up to support that. It has become part of the business model. PRTG effectively monitors and alerts when things are wrong. It has been a crucial part of our infrastructure.
  • 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.
  • Although I like their sizing model for pricing they do need an intermediate level at the lower end. The first jump in the pricing model is too big.
  • Because of the complexity of setting up sensors I do have some difficulty understanding what exactly I'm monitoring or what I could monitor. I figure it's there but I just don't have the time or motivation to figure it out. Not entirely sure how to solve that other than educating me...
I guess I would have to say for small environments like ours it's perfect and you can't complain about the price - FREE. I have also heard of lots of enterprise situations where it has performed well. As I mentioned before I think one area they miss out on is have a few more intermediate levels on the lower end. For example I have thought that perhaps I could implement more VMware monitoring functions with PRTG but the price of entry point is just too high for us. If there was an intermediate level there maybe it would be more attractive.
But even with that said I LOVE PRTG. It gives me a level of confidence that things are being "watched" that I hadn't had before. In a small firm with very limited staff that is very important.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a very small I.T. department so we're stretched thin on a good day. PRTG saves us significant time and trouble through its monitoring capabilities. We currently use PRTG to monitor all our I.T. systems, minus a couple SaaS applications. This allows us to generally stay one step ahead of our users, so when they come in to inform us of a paper jam we can inform them we are already working on it. It also gives us insights into how our systems are performing.
  • General monitoring.
  • Real-time operations map/dashboard.
  • Network traffic monitoring.
  • Weak with monitoring SaaS applications.
  • Print monitoring could be better.
  • Maps need an interface update.
PRTG is great for our small team, it provides the higher-level insights we need. We do not need much depth at this point, so we disable those sensors. Having a couple maps up on a screen in our office is also great eye-candy for our users when they walk in, it always impresses the head of our institution.

Getting more in-depth monitoring and general analytics will require significantly more work. Sensors will need to be adjusted and added, and there are no pre-built maps of any kind. It just seems to lack some serious built-in "power tools."
August 14, 2019

PRTG Monitoring System

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PRTG was used to monitor small to medium environments. It is being used by a department to monitor segregated instances which we do not monitor in our main monitoring tool. It enables us to quickly and easily add devices to monitoring and receive email alerts for availability and performance issue.
  • Simple and Intuitive: PRTG is very easy to use and get into. Its interface is highly intuitive and allows you to very quickly set up credentials and add devices to monitoring.
  • Low customization effort required: immediately out of the box, PRTG can provide very good detail monitoring without having to customize or add packages or plugins. It can automatically discover and model many types of device and monitor that device in great details without much tinkering.
  • The vendor provides 100 free sensors which make it very easy for you to start using the product without requiring a license and get a very good understanding of the tool before making a purchase decision. The tool allows you to continue to use it for free permanently for the first 100 sensors.
  • If you already have a bigger and more powerful tool, PRTG can be very good as a secondary monitoring tool which some times can help you troubleshoot, validate, and compare with your main tool.
  • Windows Only: PRTG does not support any other platform. Personally, I do not like tools that run on Windows because Windows requires a frequent update, which means downtime. You want your monitoring tool to be as highly available and low maintenance as possible. That and you also require a server license and Windows consume more hardware resource than other platforms. PRTG needs to add support for Linux.
  • Limited ability to do things in bulk. There is no way I know of to mass onboard devices or to mass edit devices. So you will by modifying 1 device at a time. For instance, it would be useful to modify the name or company of 200 devices in one shot.
  • Somewhat weak widgets and dashboard. If you put a lot of effort into it, you can probably come out with a very useful dashboard to keep an eye on key systems/devices. However, some widgets can look nice at first but they are not so useful or easy to understand. Again, it can be done, but a lot of effort is needed to get it right.
  • White interface only. This might not seem like a big deal, but if you have people who use the tool all the time to keep an eye on the system, it can strain your eyes. Need a dark theme.
If you want to setup a tool to quickly monitor a group of device or do troubleshoot/validate then PRTG is a very suitable tool as you can get setup and going very very quickly.

If you have a smaller environment, PRTG is a very suitable tool as it is easy to use and low cost.
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 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PRTG for almost all of our systems monitoring, i.e., your normal expected web servers, file servers, etc. that we use for Linux and Windows.

We also use it to keep an eye on the random network devices - building automation systems, etc. Like any monitoring system, it's useful for keeping an eye on everything and providing some historical data.
  • Allows multiple sensors - we watch disk space, memory, and services on most servers.
  • Alerting works well. We are notified when security cameras and badging systems go offline just as quickly as when the file server is filling up.
  • Custom sensors are possible, such as monitoring inodes or web page loading time.
  • Like many products, PRTG seems to like Windows better than Linux. As a mostly Linux-based shop, this can be annoying.
  • I wish it could run on a Linux server.
  • The dashboard isn't as useful or customizable as some products.
For a small to medium shop with a variety of assets, PRTG is a great monitoring solution, especially if you run on mostly Windows servers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize PRTG for the internal monitoring of all network infrastructure including firewalls, switches, servers, and IP phones. PRTG is a one-stop shop for our monitoring and alerting needs as a small business with limited infrastructure.
  • PRTG is extremely useful in reporting the basics.
  • Simple interface.
  • A number of sensors available to monitor.
  • It can be overwhelming for the first-time user. I would like to see additional basic setup features.
PRTG works great for monitoring/alerting on events inside your corporate network. I find it limited when troubleshooting IP phone issues but that is not really our focus.
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.
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