Nagios Core Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Susantha Kumar

Support on banking at Aithent

Jun 22, 2023

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Helps to monitor server applications

Pros and Cons

"We use the product to monitor server applications."

"The tool needs to improve the integrations."

What is our primary use case?

We use the product to monitor server applications.

What is most valuable?

I am impressed with the product's alerts and reports.

What needs improvement?

The tool needs to improve the integrations.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is stable. I would rate its stability a six out of ten.

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How was the initial setup?

The tool's setup is straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate the product a six out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer1330533

Partner Technical Support & Escalation Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Feb 26, 2022

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We are using the free version, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to

Pros and Cons

"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."

"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."

What is our primary use case?

It is used for monitoring services on a bunch of virtual machines.

In terms of the version, we're fairly up to date. We are perhaps not the most up-to-date, but we're fairly current.

How has it helped my organization?

It provides visibility of the platforms.

What is most valuable?

It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to.

What needs improvement?

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.

In terms of new features, we're just using it for what it is. We are using what we've got now. We don't have any additional requirements as far as I'm aware.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for four or five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is fine. There are no concerns there. Our biggest challenge is that we get a lot of timeouts, but that seems to be because of our network setup. There are a whole bunch of spurious events being reported, but they're more timeouts in getting to the Nagios agents.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It seems to be all right at the moment. We don't seem to be having any problems with that. We have upwards of 20 users, and it is being used on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

I have not contacted them for a long time.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Nagios is the first one.

How was the initial setup?

From what I heard, it didn't seem difficult to set up. It was quite straightforward.

We're still rolling out and deploying new instances of VMs that we want to monitor. It's an ongoing process.

What about the implementation team?

We deployed it ourselves. Its maintenance is done by one or two people.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are using the free version.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it to others. It does what it is supposed to. It is pretty good.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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it_user853911

Senior Systems Architect at Rezgateway

Jul 2, 2018

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It prevents disasters long before they can take place

Pros and Cons

"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."

"It is a bit slow due to latency."

What is our primary use case?

We use Nagios to monitor hundreds of CentOS cloud servers (and a few Legacy Windows servers). Nagios is monitoring well over 5000 service endpoints. Some plugins were handwritten in PHP, Perl, Python, Java and Bash.

How has it helped my organization?

It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place.

What is most valuable?

Historical Alert records/data
Plugins
Data sources (MySQL)
Grouping of services and servers

We use the Alerting and Graphing to minimize the downtime. The old RRD Graph module is now used by Grafana. We outgrew the old PNP4Nagios a few weeks back.

What needs improvement?

The GUI of the Core is still a long way off, but the features are 100 percent above average. It would be great to see better UI themes which could be configured by Netadmin or instructions that help combine graphs and Nagios.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have never had stability issues. Nagios has been stable for over 10 years. Although, we never left it running for more than two weeks without uploading new services, plugins, and threshold changes, then restarting it..

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No scalability issues, though it is a bit slow due to latency. However, after tweaking the Nagios and off-loading the graphing to NPCD, I was able to scale the Nagios to more than 5000 services checks with 0.5s latency.

How are customer service and technical support?

The end-users love quick alerting and Grafana dashboards.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use a different solution. Nagios was the first solution that we started using 10 years ago.

How was the initial setup?

Since its Nagios, it is a bit time consuming, but worth the effort. It took a few hours setting up the entire environment, including RRD, PHP, Apache, Nagios, PNP4Nagios, Perl, Python, OpenSSL, etc.

What about the implementation team?

We did an in-house installation.

What was our ROI?

We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

10 years ago, there were not too many options.

What other advice do I have?

There are thousands upon thousands of plugins. This is a winning product. Nothing can match the plugins, even I have contributed about six plugins.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer2032893

IT Monitoring & IT Service Automation Product Consultant and Team Lead at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Apr 22, 2023

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Is stable and customizable, but cloud monitoring needs improvement

Pros and Cons

"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."

"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."

What is most valuable?

Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs.

What needs improvement?

Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Nagios Core for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution, and I would rate the stability at eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability at five out of ten.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees.

What other advice do I have?

Nagios Core is a good tool overall, and I would rate it at six on a scale from one to ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

Aymen Dridi

Systems and Virtualization Engineer at Altelios Technology Group

Oct 27, 2022

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Beneficial plugins, large community support, and reliable

Pros and Cons

"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."

"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."

What is our primary use case?

We use Nagios Core to detect any issues in our infrastructure, software, system service, and network issues. It is a centralized monitoring service.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want.

What needs improvement?

Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Nagios Core for approximately eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Nagios Core is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Nagios Core is very good. We can add as many hosts as we like, and we can work with the concept master and client. It's very scalable and we have added the SentryOne as another layer. It's become very easy to use.

This solution is used by two engineering and three technicians. It is not used for end-user.

How are customer service and support?

We use the open-source version of this solution and there is a large community that can provide support for any of our issues.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I am using SCOM in parallel to Nagios Core, it's a monitoring solution by Microsoft. However, I prefer Nagios Core.

How was the initial setup?

Nagios Core is deployed in a Linux operating system and it is simple to do. For a medium-sized infrastructure, the deployment can take a day.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free.

What other advice do I have?

The free version of the solution does not have an interface, but the paid version does.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Nagios Core an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Massimo Rubboli

Information systems manager at Golfera

Jan 19, 2022

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It's a stable solution for infrastructure monitoring, but it's complex to set up and use

Pros and Cons

"Nagios Core is stable."

"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

I'm primarily using Nagios Core to monitor infrastructure like servers, virtual machines, and telephone usage like IP-DECT antennas. I don't use all of Nagios Core's data functionality. I only use the monitoring features.

What needs improvement?

The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Nagios Core for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Nagios Core is stable.

How was the initial setup?

The Nagios Core setup is complex, but I can handle it all myself.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Nagios Core seven out of 10. Nagios Core is not easy to use, so I don't recommend it for everyone.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user12222

Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Oct 24, 2013

Everyone ends up using Nagios or a derivative just because everyone else does

Everyone ends up using nagios or a derivative just because... well everyone else does. The size of your org really matters a lot with what you are doing here as Zabbix might fit you right or not at all.

Lately I've been setting up nagios with a graphite back end for people. Then taking advantage of writing your own plugins for nagios to send data to both systems. You can throw a lot of data at graphite and make some super pretty graphs if that is what you are after. For example imagine having all the contents of a vmstat/iostat every X seconds... for ALL your servers that can be queried with less than a minute latency. You can do that with nagios+graphite+yourownfixins. ... and then you show Dev how easy it is to log data into carbon/graphite and become a super hero.

When you start hoarding this much data you can start asking some really detailed questions about disk performance, network latencies, system resources, etc... that before were just guestimates. Now you have the data and the graphs to back them up.

I'm also a big fan of Pandora FMS but I've never implemented it anywhere professionally and the scope it takes is pretty large.

(I should note, nagios is pretty terrible, it's no better than things we had a decade ago.)

The real truth here is that all the current monitoring systems are pretty terrible given that they are no better than what we had a decade ago. Every good sysadmin group makes them work well enough, but there is a lot of making them work. Great sysadmins go on to combine a couple of them with their own bits to make the system a bit more proactive than reactive, which is what most people expect out of monitoring.

Reactive monitoring is fine for certain companies and certain situations and it is easily obtainable with nagios, zabbix, home-brew, stupidspendmoney solution, etc... However reactive monitoring is just the base point for most, it certainly doesn't handle big problems well, or have the capacity to predict events slightly before they are happening. This level of monitoring also doesn't give you much data after an event to figure out what went wrong.

Great admins go on to add proactive systems monitoring and in some cases basic logic monitoring. This is what a lot of us do all the time, to avoid getting paged in the middle of the night, or to know what to pick up at fry's on the way into the office. Proactive monitors a lot more things than basic, and it is essentially the level where everyone works at now, with nagios, etc... That's certainly fine for today and tomorrow. But it doesn't tell you anything about next quarter, and when you ask queries about events in the past they are often very basic in scope.

The other amazingly huge drawback with current monitoring is that if you want to monitor business or application logic, it is going to be something you custom fit into whatever monitoring system you have. This will lead to it being unwieldy and while effective for answering basic questions like, "What's the impact on sales if we lose the east coast data center and everything routes through the west?" That's a fine question but it isn't a question that will get you to the next level, better than your competitors.

So what's next? I'll tell you where I think we should be going and how I am sort of implementing it at some places.

Predictive monitoring on systems AND business logic, with lots of data, and very complex questions being answered. This can be done right now with nagios, graphite and carbon. Nagios fills the monitoring and alerting needs. Carbon stores lots of numerical data, very fast from a lot of sources. Finally with Graphite you can start asking really serious questions like "How did the code push effect overall page performance time, while one colo site was down? What's the business cost loss? Where were the bottlenecks in our environment? Server? Disk? Memory? Network? Code? Traffic?" Once you've constructed one of these list of questions in graphite you can save it for the future, and not only monitor it, but because of legacy data kept on so many key points use it for future predictions.

That said, how do you all that now? Well you throw nagios, graphite and carbon out there and then you CREATE a whole lot of stuff that is specific to your org. This is a lot of work, a lot of effort and takes time and real understanding of the full application and what your end SLA goals are.

So how do we do all this?

You as an admin do this, by creating custom nagios plugins and data handlers on your systems and throwing them in to carbon. As an admin you measure everything, and I mean everything. Think all of the output from a vmstat and an iostat logged in aggregate one minute chunks on every single server you have and kept for years.

From the dev site you get the Lead Dev to agree on some key points where the AppStack should put out some data to carbon. This can be things like time to login, some balance value, whatever metric you want to measure. The key here is to have business logic metrics AND system metrics in the same datastore within Carbon. Now you get to ask question across both data sets, and you get to ask them frequently and fast. You are able to easily make predictions about more load impacting the hardware in what manner, i.e. do we need more spindles, more memory, etc...

This is what I have been doing with some companies in SV right now. It's not pretty or fully blown out yet, because it is a big huge problem and our current monitoring sucks. :D
but it IS doable with current stuff and is quite amazing to know answers to questions that were previously only dreamed about.

What's after that? The pie in the sky next level, would be having an app box in every app group running in debug mode, receiving less traffic of course through the load balancers, and loading all that debug data into carbon. Then you get to ask questions about specific bits of a code release and performance on your real production environment.

... so those are my initial thoughts. Any comments? :)

Further once you have all this, you can now write nagios plugins to poll carbon for values on questions you have created and then alert not only on systems logics and basic app metrics, but real queries that are complex. Stuff like "How come no one has bought anything off page X in the last two hours, is it related to these other conditions? Oh. It is. Create me an alert in nagios so we can be warned when it looks like this is about to happen again." With much more data across more areas you can ask and alert on pretty much anything you can imagine. This is how you make it to next level.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user326337Customer Success Manager at PeerSpot

Report as inappropriate

Oct 20, 2016

Chris, do you still find this to be true? Is Nagios still a default tool when people are searching for IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions?

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it_user978732

Software Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 24, 2019

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Improves memory and disc space usage, but is not user friendly

Pros and Cons

"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."

"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."

What is our primary use case?

We used Nagios Core to monitor our servers in other countries. Our main server is in Cairo, while we monitor other servers in Germany, which are hosting Jenkins and other web services to make sure that the infrastructure is stable and if anything goes wrong it reports it automatically.

How has it helped my organization?

Before using this solution, sometimes Jenkins went down and we didn't know the reason. We eventually discovered that the issue was disc space that exceeded a certain percentage. Now that we have Nagios to monitor the servers, we know if anything goes wrong it can solve the problem before it happens.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features to us are the ability to improve memory usage, disc space usage, and the PDU load of each node.

What needs improvement?

It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through. In addition, I would appreciate an FNP server for sending emails, which now depends on the resting servers for Nagios Core. If it comes with its own FNP server, it would be much better. Also, if it can be installed in other cores, that would be awesome but right now it only uses Linux.

Alias excavation and configurations from the wall rather than the server itself would be great improvements. Also, general UI enhancements and better UX, user experience.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Nagios Core for four months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable because it's a Linux based code, which is very basic. It doesn't have many big features, so it's stable. You can add a node in less than half an hour, I think.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We're only currently using Nagios Core on one to ten servers. In the future, we may add more nodes.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't tried to contact support. I was searching on the support forums, but that was not for me. I tried many solutions from the support forums. One of them is working, but only after a long time.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex, mainly because it was in Linux and had many packages that we're not used to. I had to install them one by one on the app to configure the complication on the app that was solved to authenticate Nagios on the central app. It comes with regular users in files and in order to authenticate, you have to make a lot of confirmations, using Apache as well as Nagios. This was all very hard, and it took me a week to configure it.

I think deployment took about two weeks at the most. We did the deployment by ourselves. We have two people for deployment and maintenance.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Nagios Core is free to use.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Nagios Core as seven out of ten because it was hard to configure and the implementation process itself took about two weeks. Also, the UI is not friendly. Other products have features that aren't included in Nagios Core. I think that one was the easiest to restore. Also, Nagios supports only Linux, not A/UX. It can't be installed on the servers. If they supported all of these things, it would be much better.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.