We compared Nagios XI and Zabbix 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. Zabbix is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, scalability, and reliable performance. It provides customizable dashboards, trigger dependencies, SNMP monitoring, and problem tracking.
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. Zabbix could reduce false positives and improve integration, cloud monitoring, and reporting.
Service and Support: Some Nagios XI customers complained about the lack of chat or phone support options. Users had mixed opinions about Zabbix customer service. Some found it helpful, while others feel it needs improvement. Customers generally rely on online documentation and community forums for assistance.
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. The complexity of Zabbix's initial setup varies, and it may require an experienced group of administrators and engineers.
Pricing: Nagios XI’s pricing is considered reasonable and transparent, with no extra charges. Zabbix is a free, open-source solution, but users can purchase support services and additional features.
ROI: Nagios XI users reported positive outcomes overall, but some said visibility limitations lower the solution’s ROI. Users say that Zabbix provides a cost-effective 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. Zabbix is a highly customizable open-source solution with a wide range of monitoring capabilities, including the ability to monitor virtual machines and databases. However, Zabbix’s setup can be complex and may require technical expertise.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The solution has a lot of plugins and scripts integrated with it."
"You want to monitor a specific metric that nobody else has? You can do it even with the most basic of scripting skills, and you can always share it with the vast community of Nagios Exchange."
"Though I downplayed the administrative NCC GUI, this is by far the strongest aspect of the Nagios XI product."
"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."
"An excellent solution that is easy and intuitive to implement."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios XI is customization. We can customize based on our requirements. We can do modifications and implement a lot of scripts. Additionally, it is easy to use."
"Nagios XI is a simple monitoring tool with performance management."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"The flexibility of this solution is amazing."
"Dashboard and the customization of the items and triggers are the most valuable features."
"I have found that the reporting feature in Zabbix is most valuable. Additionally, the solution has given us bandwidth options, we are able to see where problems are. For example, we noticed a problem that occurred because of a bad interface going in the wireless VLAN."
"They've already added extra features, such as noise-canceling and facial recognition, which is great."
"Zabbix is a cost-effective solution. We're a small organization with a few dozen devices to monitor, and it was available for free. We can see what we need. We haven't done an in-depth analysis on it, but we're currently okay with the product."
"Zabbix is both stable and scalable."
"The integration with third-party tools and the alerts are most valuable."
"Zabbix is an excellent performance monitoring tool."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"We'd like to see more integration capabilities."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
"The product's stability could be even better."
"Nagios XI can improve network and hardware monitoring, these parameters should be simplified to allow usage for monitoring. Additionally, if there was automatic reporting it would be helpful."
"The Configuration Wizard needs improvement, because not all vendors are present."
"There's room for improvement in the visibility, and in the ability to extract information. Stuff like this should be more simple."
"The product does not have SAP monitoring."
"Improve the documentation, examples, and best practices, therefore users can understand how to do things."
"It could be more stable."
"I think the reporting part of Zabbix can be improved in terms of more user-friendly graphics to display the collected data. Many simple users who don't know how to use Zabbix properly might get confused by the reporting, although at the same time it is very versatile for my company."
"When using this solution in enterprise monitoring, you are able to see that there are some issues with equipment that could be causing a problem. Sometimes you want to make a root command that you do not want to be executed automatically. What we have tried to do is open an SSH session directly from the solution's interface but it is not possible."
"Its UI needs to be improved a little bit more so that an end-user is also able to handle it. I can handle it, but others should also be able to handle it in a better way. It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases. A lot of articles are available, but they need to be in proper documentation. For example, when you have thousands of servers that have to be monitored in different regions of the world, there should be some kind of documentation to describe how you can create proxies and add them. Sometimes, when you are using the database, it can get overloaded. When the network is growing, the number of transactions becomes very high, and the database gets overloaded. There should be information about how to reduce the load on the MySQL database, which is what Zabbix is using. The market is growing a lot, and it should be enhanced for a lot more things. We are currently bringing enhancements at our end for different use cases. For example, when dockerization is going on, how can we check the logs inside the Dockers. We should also be able to monitor and check the number of logins and add features such as SSO login and two-factor authentication as a protocol. These are the security features and concerns that we have to deal with. Currently, we are developing modules to add features to Zabbix, but they should also work on these features."
"I had problems using Zabbix when working with SUSE Enterprise; many companies use SUSE."
"For us, the initial setup was complex"
"The networking monitor is not too easy to work with."
"The product could be more secure and more stable."
Earn 20 points
Nagios XI is ranked 8th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 10 reviews while Zabbix is ranked 2nd in Cloud Monitoring Software with 25 reviews. Nagios XI is rated 8.2, while Zabbix is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Nagios XI writes "Reasonably priced, reliable, and good return on investment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zabbix writes "Very mature, easy to scale, and free to use". Nagios XI is most compared with Nagios Core, PRTG Network Monitor, Icinga, Wireshark and SCOM, whereas Zabbix is most compared with Centreon, Checkmk, SolarWinds NPM, Nagios Core and Amazon CloudWatch. See our Nagios XI vs. Zabbix report.
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ZABBIX ... of course :)
We are working with this wonderful monitoring tool since 2008
ZABBIX ... of course :)
We have been working with this wonderful monitoring tool since 2007 (before we had used Nagios, Openview, Whatsup, Hobbitmon, etc) and until now we haven't seen any limitations in our projects.
If you need to learn a little bit more about 'how to customize ZABBIX' you can search about:
- ZABBIX UserParameters;
- ZABBIX pluggable modules;
- ZABBIX LLD;
- ZABBIX API;
I think this things will help a lot to know how to extend/customize ZABBIX.
Luciano