We compared Nagios XI and Nagios Core across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Nagios XI received positive feedback for its versatility and adaptability. It offers a diverse selection of plugins and scripts for monitoring needs. Nagios Core is an adaptable solution praised for its integration, customizability, and ability to effectively monitor server availability and network connectivity.
Room for Improvement: Users have suggested Nagios XI could improve integration, simplify configuration, and make the platform more user-friendly. Nagios XI users also suggest improvements to network visibility and cloud discovery. Nagios Core users have requested better documentation, improved scalability, and a more user-friendly configuration process.
Service and Support: Some Nagios XI customers complained about the lack of chat or phone support options. Nagios Core lacks direct customer service, but users can generally find help from a supportive open-source community and large knowledge base.
Ease of Deployment: Some Nagios XI users found the setup to be relatively simple, while others considered it challenging. Deployment can take a few months to complete, and there’s a steep learning curve. Nagios Core's setup is generally seen as well-documented and straightforward.
Pricing: Nagios XI’s pricing is considered reasonable and transparent, with no extra charges. Nagios Core is free, but users may incur costs for installation and configuration.
ROI: Nagios XI users reported positive outcomes overall, but some said visibility limitations lower the solution’s ROI. Nagios Core users say they have saved money by replacing paid monitoring tools with this open-source solution.
Comparison Results: Nagios XI is an affordable, flexible solution with a broad feature set and a selection of helpful plugins. At the same time, users say the setup can be complex, and some expressed a desire for more convenient ways to contact support. Nagios Core is a flexible open-source solution that is highly customizable and offers robust functionality commonly found in paid enterprise solutions. However, some users have said that Nagios Core becomes unwieldy when used at a large scale and that the documentation could be more thorough.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The notifications are definitely one of the most valuable features of Nagios Core. We know what to look for and what to expect when things are down."
"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"Other products are good but from the configuration point of view Nagios is really very lightweight. The price is really good in my opinion. Another important thing is that my Nagios engine still works with Dual core 8GB ram for the last 10 years."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"The features I've found the most useful are the plug-ins, the fact that you can connect almost everything to it. That's very useful."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"The installation is no problem. I've installed Nagios several times."
"The most valuable feature is its support for different types of devices, where it can use all of the equipment that you need."
"The Script Module in Nagios is really easy to use and is really cost efficient."
"It's great for monitoring IT services infrastructure."
"Nagios allows us to configure any device so that we can send pager alerts when people don't have access to emails. It also allows us to schedule downtime and maintenance."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."
"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"The tool needs to improve the integrations."
"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."
"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."
"Nagios XI can improve its GUI for users with a new look."
"The way Nagios displays information isn't easy for a new user to understand. It's not intuitive enough. You need to read some tutorials or be trained to understand what it's displaying. Also, I think it needs more features to improve network visibility because there are some things you can't detect."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"The installation and monitoring need improvement."
"I would like a much easier GUI so that I can delete events and logs, which will free up a lot of space."
"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
"The product uses the backend as Perl and could be modified to a more lightweight solution like what's being offered by other vendors."
Nagios Core is ranked 7th in IT Infrastructure Monitoring with 46 reviews while Nagios XI is ranked 9th in IT Infrastructure Monitoring with 54 reviews. Nagios Core is rated 8.0, while Nagios XI is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Nagios Core writes "An Open Source Fully Featured Data Centre Monitoring Tool". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nagios XI writes "Great for monitoring IT services infrastructure with nice tools and helpful notifications". Nagios Core is most compared with Zabbix, Icinga, Centreon, OP5 Monitor and LogicMonitor, whereas Nagios XI is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, Wireshark, Icinga and SCOM. See our Nagios Core vs. Nagios XI report.
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Ultimately NagiosXI is the better solution than Core but shortlisting NagiosXI also definitely depends on the infra landscape, technology, network devices, and other scopes of activities in monitoring.
The biggest difference I see between Nagios Core and XI is the user interface, reporting, and onboarding any element for monitoring, and that onboarding is much easier in NagiosXI than Core. Nagios Core is little complicated where you have to use console called Nconf or editing conf files in Linux needs more technical knowledge than using NagiosXI.