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Nagios XI vs Wireshark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Nagios XI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (25th), Server Monitoring (14th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (28th), Cloud Monitoring Software (26th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Nagios XI is designed for IT Infrastructure Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 3.2%, down 3.7% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 13.5% mindshare, up 13.0% since last year.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nagios XI3.2%
Zabbix11.1%
Datadog4.8%
Other80.9%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Wireshark13.5%
LinkRunner12.0%
NetAlly EtherScope nXG9.0%
Other65.5%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Amir  Said - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective alerting enhances network monitoring experience with an easy setup
We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful. JPS monitors the modem and performs switching, monitoring the computer, and performing switching. We implement some applications and traffic monitoring. The alerting system is very effective. For instance, if we have an alarm on some RAM storage if the traffic is cut or dropped.
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues
There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"An excellent solution that is easy and intuitive to implement."
"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."
"Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"The most valuable feature is its support for different types of devices, where it can use all of the equipment that you need."
"It's great for monitoring IT services infrastructure."
"The most valuable features of Nagios XI are you can customize it based on your use case and requirements. It is flexible and easy to integrate with our systems. You can customize the solution by adding additional features using code."
"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."
"Wireshark has a lot of features. It's a powerful tool if you're familiar with it. You can see everything on the network with it."
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"Packet-capture files can be hard to use due to their size. Wireshark has a tool called tshark that can parse the files with out opening them so that you can take large captures, say 2-10GB, and return only relevant information."
"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."
"It has good basic features."
"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"It's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."
 

Cons

"We often need to develop custom plugins to get Nagios to work the way we want it to work because the features we need are not always available in Nagios."
"From an alerting point of view, some graphics and metrics don't work properly with Nagios XI as they do with Checkmk."
"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."
"Nagios XI can improve its GUI for users with a new look."
"The Configuration Wizard needs improvement, because not all vendors are present."
"Improve the documentation, examples, and best practices, therefore users can understand how to do things."
"The scalability of Nagios XI is scalable. However, it is not easy to do."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners. It could be better. Another room for improvement in the tool is for it to provide more details about the traffic load. At the moment, Wireshark is adequate for me, so there isn't anything I'd like added to it in its next version."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."
"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."
"Wireshark is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."
"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nagios XI is open source."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"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."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"It is free."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
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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
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Hospitality Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
What is your primary use case for Nagios XI?
I normally use Nagios XI for our servers. It's not particularly used for network equipment, however, I use it for monitoring our server performance, including CPU, memory, data, and services runnin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due to numerous factors.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Datadog, Auvik and others in IT Infrastructure Monitoring. Updated: October 2025.
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