We compared Nagios Core and PRTG Network Monitor across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Nagios Core is an adaptable solution praised for its integration, customizability, and ability to effectively monitor server availability and network connectivity. PRTG Network Monitor customers like its user-centric approach, straightforward reporting, and customizability.
Room for Improvement: Nagios Core users have requested better documentation, improved scalability, and a more user-friendly configuration process. PRTG Network Monitor could improve its performance and resource efficiency. Other pain points include usability and cross-platform compatibility.
Service and Support: Nagios Core lacks direct customer service, but users can generally find help from a supportive open-source community and large knowledge base. PRTG Network Monitor received mixed reviews for its customer service. Some users commended the support team’s prompt service, while others reported slow response times and noted the lack of remote session support.
Ease of Deployment: Nagios Core's setup is generally seen as well-documented and straightforward. PRTG Network Monitor’s setup isn’t considered to be overly complex. Deployment times may vary depending on the environment's complexity and device count.
Pricing: Nagios Core is free, but users may incur costs for installation and configuration. PRTG Network Monitor is deemed reasonably priced and cheaper than its competitors.
ROI: Nagios Core users say they have saved money by replacing paid monitoring tools with this open-source solution. Users said that PRTG Network Monitor has proven to save time and money through automation and proactive support.
Comparison Results: 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. PRTG Network Monitor is regarded as a simple, user-friendly, and cost-effective solution, but users would like to see improvements in performance, documentation, integration, and technical support.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful."
"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."
"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"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."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard interface. It's very clean, it's very simple to use."
"There was only one feature I liked about PRTG Network Monitor a lot, and that was bandwidth monitoring, though, in the newer versions of the tool, that feature is now a bit lacking. Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is also not as expensive. It's a good tool, even for beginners."
"The email notifications are helpful, and the dashboards are user-friendly for people with little network monitoring knowledge."
"The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts."
"The solution is easy to manage and the reports are very accurate."
"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is real-time monitoring."
"The best feature is that it lets me know what is going on. I need to know if something has gone down, I need to know if something is running very slowly. PRTG tells me that."
"The most valuable feature is the notifications. As long as you spend time and think about what and when you want to be notified, it's always accurate. It is always there. I find things out before my Internet provider."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The core version is no match for the XI version."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"It is a bit slow due to latency."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"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."
"It would be nice if the company offered a sales or contract manager that was dedicated to our company so that we would have some sort of link to Nagios, and if we had issues or questions, we'd be able to contact them directly."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"The solution has to evolve as an end-to-end monitoring solution. It has to do better at understanding the application at the deepest level."
"I know we're going to move to Docker applications and I understand that PRTG does some monitoring regarding this. I do not know if it is complete. If it's not yet complete, it's something they should consider improving."
"Technical support is an area with concerns in PRTG Network Monitor, where improvements are required."
"I would like to see a more robust platform and a new dashboard. In addition, the code is good, but it needs improvement."
"I would like to see network mapping."
"This product can be improved by updating the net flow interface. The one that is in place works – I can get all the information I need from it – but it is a little bit clunky."
"When using PRTG Network Monitor it is beneficial if you have prior experience with it, the user interface could improve."
"They should work on syncing the solution with Gmail."
Nagios Core is ranked 7th in IT Infrastructure Monitoring with 46 reviews while PRTG Network Monitor is ranked 6th in IT Infrastructure Monitoring with 96 reviews. Nagios Core is rated 8.0, while PRTG Network Monitor 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 PRTG Network Monitor writes "It's an all-in-one solution, and net flow is included in the licensing ". Nagios Core is most compared with Zabbix, Nagios XI, Icinga, Centreon and New Relic, whereas PRTG Network Monitor is most compared with Zabbix, Centreon, Nagios XI, SolarWinds NPM and ManageEngine OpManager. See our Nagios Core vs. PRTG Network Monitor report.
See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors and best Network Monitoring Software vendors.
We monitor all IT Infrastructure Monitoring reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.