We compared Nagios XI and SolarWinds NPM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Nagios XI received positive feedback for its versatility and adaptability. It offers a diverse selection of plugins and scripts for monitoring needs. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.
Room for Improvement: 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. 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: Some Nagios XI customers complained about the lack of chat or phone support options. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: 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. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.
Pricing: Nagios XI’s pricing is considered reasonable and transparent, with no extra charges. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.
ROI: Nagios XI users reported positive outcomes overall, but some said visibility limitations lower the solution’s ROI. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.
Comparison Results: 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. 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.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"It's great for monitoring IT services infrastructure."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"The ability to set up templates and groups of checks, as well as customize the checks themselves."
"You want to monitor a specific metric that nobody else has? You can do it even with the most basic of scripting skills, and you can always share it with the vast community of Nagios Exchange."
"Nagios XI helps us monitor the bandwidth of the internet connection, HTTP, DNS, active directory services, and exchange data availability. We have multiple servers to monitor databases, availability of servers, and ping."
"Since this is an open source technology, if we are capable of writing the plugins in any scripting language, this product allows us to monitor anything we want."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard, where I can have a single screen that provides a summary for hundreds of servers."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"There are a lot of options for customization of the dashboard, alerts, and reports."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one. I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."
"This has helped us to monitor the availability of our routers, switches, servers, and virtual environments."
"The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"The reporting part should be made simpler. While we can obtain all the reports we need, we always have to create work-arounds to get them."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
"There's room for improvement in the visibility, and in the ability to extract information. Stuff like this should be more simple."
"Technical support is an area that needs improvement. It is not available 24/7."
"The way Nagios displays information isn't easy for a new user to understand. It's not intuitive enough. You need to read some tutorials or be trained to understand what it's displaying. Also, I think it needs more features to improve network visibility because there are some things you can't detect."
"The reporting structure could be more streamlined."
"The scalability of Nagios XI is scalable. However, it is not easy to do."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"The product is scalable, but at a cost. Extra modules have to be purchased for each extra server. The initial set up isn't complex, but will require someone who is experienced with the network monitoring system"
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"GUI needs improvement with a more graphical dashboard."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
"They need to work on their automation and automatically discover devices. They are not very good at automatically discovering devices."
"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."
Nagios XI is ranked 10th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 54 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 6th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. Nagios XI is rated 8.2, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Nagios XI writes "Great for monitoring IT services infrastructure with nice tools and helpful notifications". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". Nagios XI is most compared with Zabbix, Nagios Core, PRTG Network Monitor, Wireshark and WhatsUp Gold, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes and NETSCOUT nGeniusONE. See our Nagios XI vs. SolarWinds NPM report.
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