We compared Nagios Core and SolarWinds NPM 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. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.
Room for Improvement: Nagios Core users have requested better documentation, improved scalability, and a more user-friendly configuration process. SolarWinds NPM needs improvement in edge computing capabilities and data reporting. Users also said the performance could be better and that they would like to see expanded IPAM functionality.
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. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Nagios Core's setup is generally seen as well-documented and straightforward. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.
Pricing: Nagios Core is free, but users may incur costs for installation and configuration. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.
ROI: Nagios Core users say they have saved money by replacing paid monitoring tools with this open-source solution. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.
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. SolarWinds NPM is a customizable solution that’s easy to deploy and features comprehensive network monitoring capabilities. However, some users consider it costly and voiced concerns about technical support and user experience.
"The single dashboard is a valuable feature."
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."
"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"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 most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."
"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"The SolarWinds NPM framework, upon which most of their flagship products are built, empowers a wide variety of admins and users to quickly find value in their installed products."
"The product is lightweight in terms of memory use, requiring only 10 megabytes or less."
"The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."
"I found a lot of valuable features in SolarWinds NPM, such as the customized application monitoring that allows you to customize any monitoring and script customization, and you also have the option to deploy and upgrade SolarWinds NPM online, which is very useful for my organization."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical user interface."
"It is very extensible with 'SWQL' and APIs to where we are beginning to integrate it with network automation."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The technical support needs improvement."
"The mapping is a little hard."
"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."
"The core version is no match for the XI version."
"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."
"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."
"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."
"I would like to see more training videos."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the short retention period. Currently, it's just for seven days of data, which is very low, making it hard for my organization to keep that data. SolarWinds recommended a seven-day retention period, but my organization needs a fourteen-day data retention period. Hence, I'd like an increase in the retention period or the database limit in SolarWinds NPM because you can't go back to the data for any investigation if seven days have passed. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the database, which needs to be a bit more mature. I want a modified database in the next release of SolarWinds NPM. I'd also like more options added to groups because, currently, it's very limited."
"If they could combine everything into one product, that would be very helpful."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
"Sometimes there are issues when upgrading to a new version of the product."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"The dashboards for this solution could be improved. We would like to divide the dashboards to give a clear view to our management team to show what we have and what deficiencies exist in our network."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
More Juniper Mist Premium Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →
Nagios Core is ranked 7th in Network Monitoring Software with 46 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 4th in Network Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. Nagios Core is rated 8.0, while SolarWinds NPM 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 SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". Nagios Core is most compared with Nagios XI, Zabbix, Icinga, Centreon and OP5 Monitor, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes and Entuity. See our Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds NPM report.
See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors and best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors.
We monitor all Network Monitoring Software 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.