Amazon CloudWatch vs Nagios XI comparison

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) Logo
4,580 views|3,689 comparisons
88% willing to recommend
Nagios Logo
7,152 views|5,443 comparisons
86% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Aug 11, 2023

We compared Amazon CloudWatch and Nagios XI based on our users' reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.

  • Features: Amazon CloudWatch users liked the solution’s simplicity, intuitive interface, and ability to handle large workloads. Users also praised CloudWatch’s comprehensive monitoring and alerts. Nagios XI received positive feedback for its versatility and adaptability. It offers a diverse selection of plugins and scripts for monitoring needs.

  • Room for improvement: Some reviews mentioned that Amazon CloudWatch could improve performance and dashboard visualization. Others noted that the solution lacked compatibility with some databases. 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. 

  • Service and Support: Customers generally have positive opinions about Amazon's customer service. They commended the support team for its availability and timely issue resolution. Some Nagios XI customers complained about the lack of chat or phone support options.

  • Ease of Deployment: Amazon CloudWatch is generally described as easy to set up. 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.

  • Pricing: Amazon CloudWatch offers a flexible pricing structure based on usage and processing, without any separate licensing cost. Some users said that scaling up can be costly due to the need for additional storage space. Nagios XI’s pricing is considered reasonable and transparent, with no extra charges.

  • ROI: Amazon CloudWatch offers a return on investment by minimizing the need for manual monitoring. Nagios XI users reported positive outcomes overall, but some said visibility limitations lower the solution’s ROI.

Comparison Results: Reviewers say that Amazon CloudWatch is a simple, intuitive solution that can handle large workloads, but some mentioned dashboard visualization and customizability as areas for improvement. 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.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon CloudWatch vs. Nagios XI Report (Updated: March 2024).
767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Most of it's around optimizing utilization, their cloud utilization. They're making sure that they're getting the most out of their in-cloud environments and their instances. Making sure that there's no strange behavior in the environment.""The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is reliability.""The solution offers very detailed metrics for their services.""Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap and easy-to-use solution.""What I found most valuable in Amazon CloudWatch is that it gives you detailed information, which I found helpful because it can even provide you with data for the past one minute, which is quite granular. That was what helped me most in terms of finding the root causes. Task automation is another valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch.""You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you.""The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues.""It's a very simple logging system."

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"I can monitor a software made in-house to software of bigger companies.""This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company.""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.""The solution has a lot of plugins and scripts integrated with it.""The most valuable feature is the monitoring of processes.""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.""An excellent solution that is easy and intuitive to implement.""Nagios XI is stable."

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Cons
"What would make Amazon CloudWatch better is if it includes more on-site checks, particularly status checks on the CPU, network input/output, etc. It would also be helpful if there's built-in swap space, disk, and memory monitoring in Amazon CloudWatch because, at the moment, my team has to configure it manually through a shell script.""The solution's integration could be easier for laypersons.""The technical support must be improved.""Amazon CloudWatch needs improvement. The main thing is we have noticed missing logs.""The configuration capabilities could be better.""Better reporting is always something needed. That could be an answer to just about anything. But you always want better reporting, better dashboards, things that are just more dynamic and more accessible.""The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future.""The solution's pricing is a bit higher."

More Amazon CloudWatch Cons →

"Technical support is an area that needs improvement. It is not available 24/7.""The product could be optimized to improve the administrative user experience via the Nagios Core Configuration (NCC) GUI module.""I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it.""Improve the documentation, examples, and best practices, therefore users can understand how to do things.""The product uses the backend as Perl and could be modified to a more lightweight solution like what's being offered by other vendors.""The pricing has recently risen. I know they've changed what is covered under the license, however, it doesn't change the way we use it and adds nothing to our experience, and yet we now have to pay more.""I would like to be able to extend it to all of our data centers, whether they are in the cloud or not. It would be helpful if I could connect everywhere.""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."

More Nagios XI Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
  • "Its pricing is reasonable. It is sometimes tricky, but it is reasonable as compared to others."
  • "What's were using is the free service of Amazon CloudWatch, so they're not charging us. As for hidden fees, we're not aware of them because we're using what our clients provided us."
  • "The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
  • "Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."
  • "The solution is expensive."
  • "The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
  • "The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable. When the rate of data collection is done the price will increase. The price is less than other solutions."
  • More Amazon CloudWatch Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
  • "You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
  • "For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
  • "We are using the free version of this solution."
  • "This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
  • "The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
  • "The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
  • "Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
  • More Nagios XI Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want using these, but they require quite some expertise before you can use them. Then there are the ones that are not open source, the enterprise softwares and cost you some money, but on the other hand, they are extremely easy to set-up and learn. You can have them up and running in a matter of minutes. And then there are those which are completely cloud based. They can be free of cost or charge some money depending on the software. The good thing about these is that you don’t have to install any extra software, and it can be managed completely online but then again these have limited features and you cannot exploit them to the full extent as you can do with the open-source and to some extent the enterprise software, so I won’t suggest you to use these, because these are generally not the complete solutions and require other support software to achieve the same. Below I have listed the outstanding pros and cons of the various Network analyzers that you can look into Nagios Pros: Nagios offers an extensive set of collector plug-ins that allows users to gather performance and availability data from a broad range of operating systems, including  Windows and Netware Nagios… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The monitoring features are valuable.
    Top Answer:CloudWatch doesn’t monitor disk throughput by default. It is part of EC2. If EC2 forwards the logs, then we can do it.
    Top Answer:It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability.
    Top Answer:I don't deal with the licensing aspect of the product.
    Top Answer:The product's stability could be even better.
    Ranking
    Views
    4,580
    Comparisons
    3,689
    Reviews
    34
    Average Words per Review
    433
    Rating
    8.2
    10th
    Views
    7,152
    Comparisons
    5,443
    Reviews
    9
    Average Words per Review
    343
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Overview

    Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It allows users to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, and set alarms. With CloudWatch, users can gain insights into their applications, infrastructure, and services, enabling them to make informed decisions and take necessary actions. 

    It provides a unified view of AWS resources and applications, making it easier to troubleshoot issues and optimize performance. CloudWatch offers a range of features including customizable dashboards, automated actions, and integration with other AWS services. 

    The product is a scalable and reliable solution that helps businesses ensure the availability and performance of their applications and infrastructure.

    Nagios XI provides monitoring of all mission-critical infrastructure components, including applications, services, operating systems, network protocols, systems metrics, and network infrastructure. Third-party add-ons provide tools for monitoring virtually all in-house and external applications, services, and systems.

    Nagios XI uses a powerful Core 4 monitoring engine that provides users with the highest levels of server monitoring performance. This high degree of performance enables nearly limitless scalability and monitoring powers.

    With Nagios XI, stakeholders can check up on their infrastructure status using the role-based web interface. Sophisticated dashboards enable access to monitoring information and third-party data. Administrators can easily set up permissions so users can only access the infrastructure they are authorized to view.

    Nagios XI Benefits and Features

    Some of the benefits and top features of using Nagios XI include:

    • Extensive IT infrastructure monitoring: Comprehensively monitor all of your organization’s infrastructure’s components. Hundreds of third-party add-ons let you monitor virtually any internal application, service, or system.

    • Proactivity: With built-in, automated trend analysis and capacity planning charts, organizations can plan infrastructure upgrades before legacy systems encounter unexpected issues. IT staff, business stakeholders, and end users are notified via email or SMS with details of the outage so they can begin handling the issue immediately.

    • Multiple integration options: Numerous available APIs allow seamless integration with in-house and third-party applications. Thousands of community-developed add-ons that extend monitoring and native alerting capabilities as well as custom interfaces are available, allowing you to customize Nagios XI to your company's needs.

    • Complete visibility: Get a single view of your entire IT operations network and business processes. The Nagios XI dashboards provide at-a-glance access to monitoring information and third-party data. Views give users quick access to the most useful information.

    • User-friendly interface: Customize the layout, design, and settings for each user’s GUI, providing clients and team members with the flexibility they need. Administrators can easily delegate control over monitoring configuration management, system settings, and more to end users and team members using the built-in web-based configuration interface. A configuration wizard guides users through the process of monitoring new devices, services, and applications without understanding complex monitoring concepts.

    • Configuration snapshots: Snapshots allow you to save and archive your most recent configurations. Later on, you can revert back to them whenever you like.

    • Advanced user management: Ensure a secure infrastructure environment by easily setting up and managing user accounts and assigning custom roles with just a few mouse clicks.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Nagios XI stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its integration options and monitoring abilities, as well as its alerting features.

    David P., a senior DevOps engineer at EML Payments Ltd, writes, “We use Nagios as a network discovery tool. We use Nagios to maintain our uptime statistics and to monitor our services. It has allowed us to be much more sophisticated in our monitoring and alerting.”

    An IT-OSS manager at a comms service provider notes, “Nagios XI has a custom API feature, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature.”

    Sample Customers
    AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
    Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm31%
    Healthcare Company13%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider32%
    Manufacturing Company24%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Retailer8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization48%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm5%
    Government5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business35%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise49%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise64%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business39%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise54%
    Large Enterprise34%
    Buyer's Guide
    Amazon CloudWatch vs. Nagios XI
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Nagios XI and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Amazon CloudWatch is ranked 9th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 40 reviews while Nagios XI is ranked 10th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 54 reviews. Amazon CloudWatch is rated 8.0, while Nagios XI is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Amazon CloudWatch writes "Instantaneous response when monitoring logs and KPIs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nagios XI writes "Great for monitoring IT services infrastructure with nice tools and helpful notifications". Amazon CloudWatch is most compared with Zabbix, Datadog, Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver), SolarWinds NPM and Instana Infrastructure Monitoring, whereas Nagios XI is most compared with Zabbix, Nagios Core, PRTG Network Monitor, Icinga and Wireshark. See our Amazon CloudWatch vs. Nagios XI report.

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    We monitor all Cloud 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.