Centreon alternatives and competitors

We are using SolarWinds NPM to monitor our network. For example, we monitor Cisco Meraki for WAN, and other Cisco routers, and for LAN we monitor Cisco switches and firewalls.

There are a lot of valuable features with SolarWinds NPM. We can receive a lot of detailed data from the monitoring that can use useful for investigations, especially when you are troubleshooting. It is very helpful. Overall it was a very good experience.

SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting.

I have been using SolarWinds NPM for approximately one year.

SolarWinds NPM is stable. We haven't faced any major outages.

The scalability of SolarWinds NPM is good, and it is simple. We have approximately 5,000 nodes.

The support we have received from SolarWinds NPM has been very good. Initially, there were some issues with the solution but the support help us figure it out.

I rate the support of SolarWinds NPM a four out of five.

The knowledge base of the support could improve. However, every organization has its own use cases. Sometimes it's not a common use case and the support has not seen the particular problem. We might have something unique, which other clients never faced.

We have used Centreon previously. We have evaluated it for some time. It was very easy to use but the requirements we had, were not fulfilled. We have engaged with some Centreon providers, and the support was not great. We bought a license for one year for Centreon, and the support from France was not great. That's why we decided that we cannot go with it for a longer time and on a larger scale. Additionally, we have used Alaloop for quite some time, and it was good.

We switched to SolarWinds NPM mainly because we were expanding, and in Alaloop we were mainly using it for WAN only, not for the LAN. Additionally, Alaloop was much more expensive compared to SolarWinds NPM.

The initial setup of SolarWinds NPM was not straightforward. We had some difficulty configuring some of the new features for the devices properly. However, this was because we were new to the solution. We had the documentation which was helpful.

The full implementation took approximately one month.

I rate the initial setup of SolarWinds NPM a three out of five.

We used third-party support for the implementation. The solution requires maintenance but we have not had any issues.

SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors.

I would recommend SolarWinds NPM to others but it depends on how complex the network they have is and how large it is. Based on that information, you need to make a decision if the solution is the best fit. If their infrastructure is quite large, the good thing is they can expand it, even for the server infrastructure, not only for network infrastructure. 

I would recommend the solution for a larger organization.

I rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

I'm using it to have a global map overview of all my machines. We also use it in simple scenarios to check that our applications are up. We haven't really created that many dashboards at this time, but our next mission is to create good dashboards to efficiently track the VM performance.

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.

In terms of user-friendliness, large maps could be more interactive. We should be able to click on some areas and move some objects. It would make it simpler to see things while analyzing some dedicated parameters.

It has been six months.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have 15 to 20 users of this solution. It is used by the IT department. So, the operations teams, which is my team, and the system admin team, which is in charge of the infrastructure and the network, are its users.

I have never contacted them.

We used Centreon previously.

I was not a part of the deployment project, but I didn't hear that the deployment was complicated. The tool is very detailed, and maybe the configuration needed afterward to do the setup everywhere might be heavy.

From a user's perspective, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We use PRTG network monitoring to monitor our server, especially for computing resources. 

What I've found most valuable is the custom sensor, which allows you to write scripts or code to monitor a specific metric in your environment.

PRTG's application monitoring sensor is not strong and could be improved, and I've also had some issues with it crashing during upgrades. In the next release, I would like to see the ability to monitor connections between services.

I've been using this solution for more than a year.

The platform is stable - other than the issues with upgrading, we haven't encountered any problems with it.

I think the platform is relatively scalable - we added two additional probes, and everything has worked fine without any issues.

The technical support team is very responsive.

The initial setup was relatively easy.

Adding extra sensors will incur an additional cost.

I evaluated Centron, which is more flexible and customizable, but I think that PRTG is easier to administer. The initial setup with PRTG is also easier than with other solutions at the same level.

PRTG is very good for basic monitoring of computer resources and usage. However, if you have relatively complex environments, you may need a different product. I would give this solution a rating of six out of ten.