Overall Satisfaction with Nagios
We currently use Nagios to monitor more than a 1000 server operating systems. We currently monitor basic operating system components, such as disk space, CPU and memory utilization and network availability, but we have also spread our monitoring to Kerberos replication, Active Directory and Novell NDS driver monitoring by building our own scripts and adding plugins provided through the Nagios website.
- 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.
- With the only investment being your time to install and configure, the ROI is pretty positive.
- The product has a large community to help you fix any issues you have, which is also free.
- There are also a ton of free plug ins and add-ons to expand Nagios' capabilities...nothing more but positive ROI.
I think Nagios stacks up very favorably to other monitoring tools in the industry, especially when you factor in the start up costs and the maintenance fees (i.e. free). Nagios is a great example of how open source can really help everyone and improve productivity for an organization. Being able to monitor and avoid potential downtimes is incredibly powerful and an essential tool for any IT organization.