We compared Meraki Dashboard and Nagios Core across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Meraki Dashboard users like its centralized console, cable testing, firmware updates, and group policy features. The solution is also praised as user-friendly, stable, and scalable. 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 say Meraki Dashboard could improve its client VPN, hardware discovery, and integration with external solutions, Some users mentioned a need for more comprehensive documentation and granular control. Nagios Core users have requested better documentation, improved scalability, and a more user-friendly configuration process.
Service and Support: Meraki Dashboard's customer service receives mixed feedback. Some users spoke fondly of the technical support they received, while others expressed frustration over long wait times and had a hard time finding the right person to help them. 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: Users said Meraki Dashboard was effortless and intuitive to set up, noting that features like templates and configuration cloning saved time during deployment. Nagios Core's setup is generally seen as well-documented and straightforward.
Pricing: Opinions on Meraki Dashboard's pricing varied, with some users finding it pricey and others deeming it fair. Nagios Core is free, but users may incur costs for installation and configuration.
ROI: Meraki Dashboard simplifies IT operations, and some users expect returns within a few years. Nagios Core users say they have saved money by replacing paid monitoring tools with this open-source solution.
Comparison Results: Meraki Dashboard is a scalable, user-friendly solution with a smooth, painless setup made easy by built-in templates and features like configuration cloning. However, some users complained that the solution is too expensive and needs better integration with non-Cisco platforms. 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."
"There is no need to swap the hardware at all the locations, and importing the APs into the Dashboard was a simple and quick process."
"We find that Meraki has all the features you need to be able to enable complex network protocols for AV equipment. We deal with a streaming product over IP, and Meraki is fantastic at that."
"I like that Meraki Dashboard is a user-friendly product."
"The product can scale if you need it to."
"Meraki Dashboard centralizes control of all our equipment into one cloud-based console, so we can manage it from anywhere. We can resolve problems remotely outside of business hours because it is on the cloud. You can use the dashboard to change security settings or configure routers and switches."
"We like how Meraki Dashboard lets you manage all the devices in a single pane of glass. The dashboard is intuitive and easy to use. They are constantly updating the functionality. Switches from other vendors have the same features for the life of the device, but Meraki is always improving."
"An excellent dashboard that is currently unique in covering both SD-WAN and SD-LAN with built-in security."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use and a single-pane-of-glass that allows us to identify issues across the entire network from one dashboard."
"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."
"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."
"The solution is quite efficient."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"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."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"It would be helpful to have the ability to create a floor plan based on an existing PDF or JPEG, which is automatically converted into a usable network map."
"You can't really clone or replicate a device, that sort of feature would be useful. You can clone the site but you cannot clone the device."
"I would like to receive decent notification alerts regarding the license's expiry. Or any help on correcting or optimizing licenses, because in certain circumstances you can add a license but it's the wrong licensing. However, the Dashboard adds the license in some way, and you do not utilize it. You can simply extend the license's expiration date."
"The solution has a limited routing table and needs improvement by increasing the numbers as well as providing a summarization for the table."
"More integration would be an improvement."
"The tool is useful for managing devices and monitoring their current state, but it falls short in troubleshooting network issues, particularly with access points. It does not provide a complete understanding of the root causes of the issues. As a result, network engineers have had to use additional tools to complement it and conduct assessments. The only way to improve the tool would be to enhance its capability to identify and resolve network issues effectively."
"The product is missing a VPN and it is a major issue when it comes to deployment."
"The one issue that we have had is that the VPN tunnel would go down unless you worked out with the ISP that you would be using a static IP address on the WAN interface."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."
"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."
"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"I would like to see more training videos."
"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."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."
Meraki Dashboard is ranked 9th in Network Monitoring Software with 51 reviews while Nagios Core is ranked 7th in Network Monitoring Software with 46 reviews. Meraki Dashboard is rated 8.6, while Nagios Core is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Meraki Dashboard writes "Incredibly easy to use, great troubleshooting and prevention of malicious events". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nagios Core writes "An Open Source Fully Featured Data Centre Monitoring Tool". Meraki Dashboard is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, SolarWinds NPM, ThousandEyes, Mist AI and Cloud and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, whereas Nagios Core is most compared with Zabbix, Nagios XI, Icinga, Centreon and Spiceworks. See our Meraki Dashboard vs. Nagios Core report.
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