it_user685347 - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux System Administrator at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
The solution allows us to monitor critical parts of our systems, track performance and utilization, and prevent outages.

What is most valuable?

Zabbix is fully open-source - no paid features/versions, so you get everything for free. Great, totally free product:

  • It is very customizable and flexible - you can monitor almost everything.
  • It has many great options - like auto discovery/registration, many types of alerting and templates provided by the vendor.
  • It is easy to implement, easy to use for technical people.
  • It is very stable, flexible and scalable.
  • It has many great features ready to use right after installation.
  • It is a little hard to understand for the non-technical user.

How has it helped my organization?

Zabbix allows us to monitor critical parts of our systems, track performance and utilization, and prevent outages.

It allows us to monitor specific parts of the system as well as control how the whole environment is doing.

With the great alerting system we always know which component might fail and can prevent it.

Adding new hosts/items is easy and quick and the great function for mass updating many components at once is very helpful as well.

What needs improvement?

Zabbix is a great tool and fairly easy for a technical person but it could be more friendly for non-technical staff.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for two years.

Buyer's Guide
Zabbix
April 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with stability. Zabbix is very stable. I can't remember a Zabbix server ever failing.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and support?

I've never contacted Zabbix technical support. I had no need to. The Zabbix forum was enough for my issues.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I switched from Nagios to Zabbix. For me Zabbix is more intuitive, flexible, offering more options out-of-the-box.

How was the initial setup?

I didn't have troubles implementing it. The official documentation is more than enough.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Zabbix is free - no hidden costs, no paid features. Just download, install and enjoy.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I had the option to stay with Nagios or switch to Zabbix. I switched.

What other advice do I have?

Make a plan for components you want to monitor, how these components are related, what groups and templates you want to create.

Also at the beginning don't be afraid to use templates provided by Zabbix - it will help you start. After that you can slowly tweak them or add new ones.

Make the database backup - that should be obvious.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user2652 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Popular
Highly recommended open source monitoring software for servers and network monitoring

Zabbix provides flexible functionality over Nagios and other open source monitoring softwares like opennms, zenoss etc. It is widely used in market these days due to its easy administration and configuration.

Pros:-  1. Zabbix provides a user friendly GUI interface for administration and configuration for monitoring servers and network. 

2. Zabbix is open source software, so no licenses needs to be purchased. 

3. Zabbix clients can be configued easily by installing Zabbix client software on client machines on the network. Zabbix client machines can be of either windows, linux or any unix machine. 

4. User parameters can be configured for customized scripts. 

5. Configuration/administration documentations are available on official web site of Zabbix and videos/additional documentations are also available on other popular websites like youtube etc.

Cons:- 1. Installation is little complex, tedious, time consuming and prone to user errors. However, once installed, it provides user friendly interface for all administrative tasks. 

2. Some scripting knowledge is required in order to make changes to configuration files. 

3. Adding custom services requires reloading the config or restarting the service.

Alternate Vendors:- Nagios, Zenoss, Cacti !!


Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user2652 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user2652Project Manager at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
PopularVendor

I have not used Anturis, but I have heard that this is very good monitoring tool for cloud servers.

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Zabbix
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zabbix. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,334 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

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 has a web interface that helps users check network health from anywhere
  • Creates reports on trends, availability, alerts, notifications — via the web interface
  • Monitors network redundancies and failure rates

Cons:

  • Web GUI is not good
  • Steep learning curve is required for managing config files to run devices and tests

Zabbix

Pros:

  • Zabbix is fully configurable from its web front end and so it is easier to use Zabbix
    than the popular Nagios — whose configuration requires several text files
  • Further, Zabbix combines both monitoring and trending functionality, while Nagios
    focuses exclusively on monitoring
  • The Web monitoring function of Zabbix allows users to monitor the availability and
    performance of web-based services over time. Moreover, this functionality allows
    Zabbix to log into a web application periodically and run through a series of typical
    steps being performed by a customer
  • It’s open-source and has a well-designed Web GUI and overall concept
  • Zabbix offers good alerts, dedicated agents and an active user community

Cons:

  • Zabbix is not suitable for large networks with 1,000+ nodes, due to PHP performance
    and Web GUI limitations
  • A lack of real-time tests, as well as complicated templates and alerting rules

Solarwinds

Pros:

  • SolarWinds’s ConnectNow Topology Mapping allows users’ environment to be mapped
    in real time automatically. This provides graphical visibility into users’ networks,
    requiring no additional work or tools
  • SolarWinds’s Integrated Wireless Poller monitors wireless devices for security and other issues and reduces the difficulty in managing these items, allowing more widespread use of wireless technologies
  • Excellent UI design
  • Customizable, automated network mapping
  • Great community support provided by Thwack
  • Mobile access
  • Native VMware support

Cons:

  • Unable to configure alerts from the web-console
  • Clumsy “Group Dependency” configuration
  • Reporting module needs better ad-hoc reports
  • No native support for Microsoft Hyper-V.  Features SNMP only

PRTG Network Monitor

Paessler has completely redesigned its Web interface to make it simpler to use. In addition, the company has added support for a mini-HTML interface for mobile devices, including iPhones, BlackBerrys, Androids and Windows Mobile devices. What’s more, with the iPhone app — available through the iTunes App Store — IT managers can not only receive alerts about network status, they can also take action.

Pros:

  • Google Maps integrated with the Web interface, allowing monitoring software to display
    geographical maps
  • Functions of advanced maps for creating custom network views
  • Real-time availability of up to a year of actual historic data, not aggregated data
  • Integrated native Linux monitoring functions
  • Monitoring of virtual environments, including VMware, HyperV, Xen and Amazon Cloud Watch
  • Installation of reliable alarm system enabling alerts via e-mail, SMS, instant
    messenger, pager message, HTTP request, syslog, etc.
  • A variety of new sensors and remote probes to monitor distributed systems, including
    xFlow sensors for monitoring via NetFlow or sFlow.
  • Very easy setup, 
  • broad  range of sensors,
  • self-contained design

**I did not find any cons!

Spiceworks

Spiceworks is a network management and monitoring, Help Desk, PC inventory and software reporting solution for handling IT in small and medium-sized businesses.

Pros

● Fast installation
● Main dashboard completely configurable
● Easy to use monitoring console
● Active user community, with forums, ratings and reviews, how-tos and whitepapers
● Free
● Easy to install and configure for Windows environments
● “All in one” solution for Inventory, Monitoring, and Help Desk
● Great starting point for IT management

Cons

● On larger networks, performance can be slow
● Limited scalability
● Does not facilitate managing control of monitored devices
● Some initial device configuration is required to be recognized by Spiceworks
● VMWare and Unix systems not discovered nearly as easily as Windows
● Does not provide the same depth of monitoring and control as enterprise-level
   products

Software Faster Config Process Good web interface Compatible to leading OS Better Graphics and Navigation Cost Effective Free? Mobile Access Integrated Maps
Nagios No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No
Zabbix Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Solarwinds Orion Network Performance Monitor No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Yes

Paessler NetworkMonitor Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
Spiceworks Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No

Inputs

If you want to try out an open-source software, which is absolutely free, you should opt for Zabbix. You can also try out the PRTG Network monitor as it is free for up to 30 sensors. Considering the fact that currently we do not have a lot of servers, you can opt for the PRTG monitor as it is much simpler than Zabbix with almost all the same features and actually much better GUI. Like Zabbix it also has excellent community support and once you feel that you need to add more sensors you can opt to pay for those using the PRTG Network monitor or go for Zabbix. The problem with softwares like Zabbix and Nagios is that they require a very steep learning curve and unless you devote a person for that purpose it would be really time (that implies money) consuming. So basically its just the same. I would suggest to give the PRTG Network Monitoring System a try.

Important links

PRTG Network Monitor download link : http://www.paessler.com/prtg/download
Zabbix Download link : http://www.zabbix.com/download.php

PRTG System Requirements : http://www.paessler.com/prtg/detailedrequirements
Zabbix Systems Requirements : http://www.zabbix.com/requirements.php

PRTG Support : http://www.paessler.com/support/manuals
Zabbix Support : http://www.zabbix.com/documentation.php

PRTG Community and Blog : http://www.paessler.com/blog
Zabbix Community and Blog : http://www.zabbix.com/community.php

Extended Feature Comparison of the Network Analyzer tools

Name IP SLA Reports Logical
Groupings
Trending Trend Prediction Auto-Discovery Agentless SNMP SysLog Plug-Ins
Zabbix Yes Yes Yes No Yes Supported Yes Yes Yes
Solarwinds Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Supported Yes Yes Yes
PRTG Network Monitor Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Supported Yes Yes Yes
Nagios via Pliug-in Yes Yes No via Pliug-in Supported via Pliug-in via Pliug-in Yes
Name Triggers/ Alerts WebApp Distributed Monitoring Inventory Platform Data Storage Method License Maps
Zabbix Yes Full Control Yes Yes C, PHP Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, IBM DB2, SQLite GPL Yes
Solarwinds Yes Full Control Yes Yes .NET SQL Commercial Yes
PRTG Network Monitor Yes Full Control Yes Yes Unknown Proprietary Freeware and Commercial Yes
Nagios Yes Yes Yes via Pliug-in C, PHP Flat file,SQL GPL Yes

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user613302 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user613302Works at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant

Meanwhile Zabbix offers trend prediction as well:
www.zabbix.com

See all 19 comments
Tchidat Linda - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer of Telecommunication at Gold Telecom
Real User
Top 5
Simple to use with a quick setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup was very quick. The first time it was long because I didn't know it yet. I was only using Windows. The first time was very difficult because of the operating system."
  • "My company wanted to do an exercise command to access IT from Cameroon. They wanted to access an FSS to a second host with second equipment that was on another coast but it is not possible on Zabbix to do it. They want to directly access from the front-end of Zabbix to access a prompt in Zabbix to an access terminal. In the front-end, there is no way to do that. That would be an important improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We needed a tool to know what the space inside of the infrastructure is like. My work was to use Zabbix to get information about the IT infrastructure in the village or in the towns that are very far from the headquarters. I had to use Zabbix to provide information with maps that the IT was working and so that the headquarters can see in real-time what the healyh of the IT infrastructure we had deployed in the electrical network is.

After this experience, I tried Zabbix in african organization based in my country and it was used to monitor the IT infrastructures in three countries, cameroon, benin and ivory coast. For the moment, Zabbix is not yet very popular here but I really appreciate it and really want to make people know that it's very simple to use. 

How has it helped my organization?

Zabbix has improved the daily monitoring tasks by making them easier and faster.

What is most valuable?

The feature that I find most valuable is the stateful map. In fact, the Zabbix map designing tools permit to make monitoring stateful maps with topologies similar to the reals IT network maps.

What needs improvement?

My company wanted to do an exercise command to access IT from Cameroon. They wanted to access an FSS to a second host with second equipment that was on another coast but it is not possible on Zabbix to do it. They want to directly access from the front-end of Zabbix to access a prompt in Zabbix to an access terminal. In the front-end, there is no way to do that. That would be an important improvement. 

For how long have I used the solution?

II have been using this product for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very scalable because I tried version 5. I used 5 from 0 and I see that they have improved many things, but there is not yet this option to have an access terminal where you have many functionalities. 

The scalability works fine because the community is very active. When a new version comes out, we can see that they have tried to add.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is very quick. When I have a problem and I post it in the community, they answer me very quickly. For now, i don't need any technical support. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

In fact, even if I have looked at Nagios first, before Zabbix I did not really use it or any other monitoring solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very quick. The first time it was long because I didn't know it yet. I was only using Windows. The first time was very difficult because of the operating system. 

What about the implementation team?

I implement Zabbix in-house with as outsourcing offficials webs tutorials

What was our ROI?

Zabbix exploitation has dispensed with financing frequent visits to the technical area through alerts, notifications, and stateful maps. Thus, the return on investment is more than 100%.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Zabbix is an effective cheaper network monitoring solution because it doesn't need any ongoing cost due to licensing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing Zabbix, we evaluated Nagios but we were not comfortable with notifications messages syntax and configurations.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Zabbix to people who want to monitor a simple network.

I have found that the literature on the website is not very easy for some people. They want to be in those to read more about Zabbix, how to install it, and what the normal problems are.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Director at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Straightforward interface and no issues with stability, but the discovery process is not fully automated
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is service assurance."
  • "Zabbix claims that there is an auto-discovery process but my team member was facing difficulty and was told that it's not really automatic, and there are some manual steps."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Zabbix as our network monitoring solution. We are now trying to understand how to use the service assurance functionality, as we would like to leverage Zabbix for this task.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is service assurance.

The interface is pretty straightforward. As long as the agent is running on another instance and Zabbix is able to connect to the agent, we haven't seen any issues.

What needs improvement?

Zabbix claims that there is an auto-discovery process but my team member was facing difficulty and was told that it's not really automatic, and there are some manual steps. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with Zabbix for the past month. We are conducting a proof of concept with it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We are not yet using Zabbix very much. We have spawned the Zabbix server and only a couple of AWS instances are running, which it is monitoring. This is to make sure there are no billing problems in AWS. At the end of the day, we stop the Zabbix monitoring. The next day when we come in, we start it again.

At this point, with our limited usage, we have not seen any issues with stability. Perhaps, once it has been running full-time for a week or longer, we may hit those types of issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

During our PoC, we only have two technical people working with it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This is the first monitoring product that we have worked with. Prior to this, we were dealing with NMS and CMS products.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We did not face any issues and it was up and running within a day.

What about the implementation team?

Our in-house technician completed the deployment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge.

What other advice do I have?

At this point, it is too early for me to recommend Zabbix one way or the other, as we have just scratched the surface of its capabilities.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Project Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Straightforward to set up, and works well for monitoring our internal network
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup was not complex."
  • "The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly."

What is our primary use case?

Primarily we are using an on-premise installation, and just now we are exploring the cloud installation. It's basically the same one. It's a pre-production and production environment. We use the on-premises for testing, and we have the one with the cloud installation also.

We are using this solution for monitoring our internal network and infrastructure in the company, and also for monitoring a couple of our customers' installations. Not only their network but also their services, and to reduce consumption.

What needs improvement?

The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly.

I would like to recommend the possibility of being integrated for the monitoring of the Micro Strategy System environment and clusters of machine Micro Services.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zabbix for perhaps six months

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable product. We have 20 users in our organization who are using it.

How are customer service and technical support?

We don't have any experience with technical support. We haven't had any reason to contact them because we have been able to address any issues on our side.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not complex. It took two hours to install.

What about the implementation team?

My colleague, along with one other internal team member deployed this solution. We did not use anyone externally.

What other advice do I have?

We have only just started using this solution a couple of months ago, but we plan to continue using it in the future.

I can recommend this product to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sudip Karmacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Specialist at CAS Trading House
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A good network monitoring tool that is user-friendly, but lacks automatic push functionality and could benefit from improved stability
Pros and Cons
  • "We like the user-interface for this solution, which makes it an easy to use tool."
  • "We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution to monitor, install and configure our networks, servers, virtual machines, and cloud services.

What is most valuable?

We like the user-interface for this solution, which makes it an easy to use tool.

This product is also easy to configure to our exact requirements.

What needs improvement?

We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored.

We would also like inventory management functionality to be added to this solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for three months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have occasionally experienced issues with the stability of this solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable solution, but requires a lot of resources to be engaged in order for it to be scaled.

How was the initial setup?

The setup process for this solution could be easier, as it requires a lot of configuration prior to deployment.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented this solution in-house.

What other advice do I have?

We would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Revenue Officer at paramaah it services
Real User
Stable, open-source solution; can be challenging to secure client trust
Pros and Cons
  • "Zabbix is quite stable once it is set up. We haven't had any post-setup issues."
  • "Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it."

What is our primary use case?

We are implementing this solution for our clients. 

What is most valuable?

What we find the most valuable about Zabbix is that it is open source and there are no licensing costs.

What needs improvement?

While there are a number of benefits to Zabbix being open source, getting that trust from the customer is a little bit on the challenging side. Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it.

It can also be difficult for us to formulate a price for clients that need a solution for which there is no template. If we can implement a solution with the help of a template, we know how much time and effort it will take so it is easy to estimate a price for the customer. Without templates, estimation is a little bit challenging. 

In addition to the above, although there are templates available for Cisco switches, they do not work for all families of Cisco switches.

These are the challenges we are facing at our company. Overall, setting up Zabbix is a challenge. However once it is setup, managing it is comparatively easy.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Zabbix for a year, I suppose. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zabbix is quite stable once it is set up. We haven't had any post-setup issues. 

How are customer service and technical support?

We are regularly in touch with Zabbix's technical support. Generally, there is little bit of challenge because of the time zones. Nonetheless, their tech support is not bad. It's good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use a different solution. Zabbix was the first solution we worked on. However, right now we are in the process of exploring other solutions.

We are evaluating Motadata. This is a solution based out of India. We are in touch with them, but we are in the very initial stages. We also don't know how it will work out.

How was the initial setup?

Whether or not setup is straightforward or not will depend on the client's use case. From our end, the issue is estimating the effort it will take for us to implement the solution for our clients. We run into issues when it comes to giving the clients a quote for our work ahead of time. 

What other advice do I have?

Because Zabbix is an open source solution, a lot of customization is required. In turn, a lot of information has to be provided by the client about exactly what they want, which parameters they want to monitor, and what the thresholds are. Proprietary solutions would already have those thresholds in place. Once this process is done, it's really very good for your organization. But it does take a lot of work.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: reseller
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zabbix Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zabbix Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.