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ControlUp vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
33rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
Zabbix
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th), Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 13.2%, up from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.
B Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity
I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."
"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."
"Integration with Netscaler and Scoutbees can provide a proper end-to-end analysis of the user's experience and give us a real ROI."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"The flexible licensing model is one of the solution's most valuable aspects. It really allows for great flexibility for companies."
"It's a very reliable platform and we've never had any issues regarding the scalability or the stability of Zabbix."
"The initial setup was not complex."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides network segregation for server monitoring."
"There is a problems page that shows us every warning or problem that occurs on our VMs globally. The map screen is also really useful because this is something that was missing. I don't know every other tool in the market. So, I don't know if this is a good point of only Zabbix, or other tools are also doing it, but from my point of view, this is the most useful page that I use, along with the problems page that efficiently lists the problem, recovery time, ending hours, starting hours, and so on."
"I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients."
"The features I found most valuable are the user interface and a wide range of network devices that are easy to configure."
"The solution is quite mature and very stable."
 

Cons

"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting."
"There was some lag earlier, and reports pulled from the dashboard would sometimes be half an hour old. But now, the information provides real-time status, which is greatly appreciated. Overall, I've seen improvement in the product."
"The documentation could be improved."
"It would be helpful if they translated the documentation to Cyrillic languages."
"Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need."
"I think the reporting part of Zabbix can be improved in terms of more user-friendly graphics to display the collected data. Many simple users who don't know how to use Zabbix properly might get confused by the reporting, although at the same time it is very versatile for my company."
"Zabbix can use better documentation and support for troubleshooting."
"It could be more stable."
"The solution needs to add remote features."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"The product is an open source and free solution."
"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."
"It’s free of cost."
"My manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything."
"There is no license but we need to pay for support."
"The solution is free to use but they offer support as a paid service. If you can go read the manuals and do the fine-tuning based on your needs, you do not need to pay anything and you will have a full solution."
"I was using the free, Community Edition."
"It is reasonable."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.
What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
My use cases include everything, and I don't mean that facetiously. I mean everything. We manage the servers, manage user sessions, manage everything. We monitor monitoring and take actual actions,...
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.