PRTG Network Monitor and Amazon CloudWatch compete in the network monitoring and infrastructure management category. PRTG seems to have an advantage in environments requiring rapid deployment and easy-to-configure out-of-the-box checks, while Amazon CloudWatch offers a compelling option within AWS ecosystems with its native integration and detailed analytics.
Features: PRTG Network Monitor offers rapid deployment, scalability, and integration with various infrastructures, along with many sensors and easy setup for alarms and checks. Amazon CloudWatch provides seamless AWS integration, detailed metrics, data analytics, and event-triggered instant alerts.
Room for Improvement: PRTG could improve in template management, network mapping flexibility, and application monitoring. CloudWatch needs better monitoring outside AWS, dynamic dashboards, and expanded non-AWS integrations.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PRTG offers on-premises setups with straightforward documentation, but with limited remote support availability. CloudWatch excels with AWS integration but poses challenges for newcomers due to its complexity. Both services have responsive customer support, though CloudWatch users often rely on documentation.
Pricing and ROI: PRTG's sensor-based pricing can become costly as monitoring needs grow, but is appreciated for its inclusive package. Amazon CloudWatch's pay-as-you-go model is cost-effective for small operations, but data usage can inflate costs. Both solutions provide ROI by enhancing IT efficiency and reducing downtime.
Amazon CloudWatch offers cost-saving advantages by being an inbuilt solution that requires no separate setup or maintenance for monitoring tasks.
While using their cloud and cloud resources, if you have an issue with CloudWatch, you must pay additional monthly fees to get time from dedicated tech support.
In recent years, due to business expansion, knowledge levels among support engineers seem to vary.
Tutorials are available so I can manage any issue with PRTG Network Monitor easily.
The setup process is well-documented, making it easy to deploy.
Amazon CloudWatch's scalability is managed by AWS.
On a scale of one to ten, scalability is rated as 9.5.
You can install them in each network, even if they are not connected, and it works.
PRTG Network Monitor has the ability to scale and add new devices.
I sometimes notice slowness when Amazon CloudWatch agents are installed on machines with less capacity, causing me to use other monitoring tools.
When using third-party dashboards such as Kibana or Grafana and other visualization tools, there should be a way to feed CloudWatch's data and logging capabilities into these visualization tools.
Amazon CloudWatch charges extra for custom metrics, which is a significant disadvantage.
Maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features.
PRTG Network Monitor can sometimes be too detailed and cluttered at the beginning, making it heavy to use.
They previously had a perpetual model, which meant that you bought a license and if you missed the end of the time, it still worked; you just lost the possibility of some upgrades.
They need to improve application performance monitoring, error tracing mechanisms, and log management.
Overall, the pricing of Amazon CloudWatch is very expensive.
Amazon CloudWatch charges more for custom metrics as well as for changes in the timeline.
It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor.
Pricing is by the number of devices, not by sensor.
Being an inbuilt solution from AWS, it saves time on installation, setup, and maintenance.
The best features of Amazon CloudWatch need to improve visibility into the network because when using hundreds of network resources such as transit gateway, VPNs, routers, route tables, and firewalls, it does not give many details in a structured manner.
I like its filtering capability and its ability to give the cyber engine insights.
PRTG Network Monitor already provided me with 100 free sensors, which is enough for my network monitoring.
PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational.
It is advantageous because it can be deployed on-premises.
Amazon CloudWatch is used for monitoring, tracking logs, and organizing metrics across AWS services. It detects anomalies, sets dynamic alarms, and automates actions to optimize cloud utilization, troubleshoot, and ensure service availability.
Organizations leverage Amazon CloudWatch for collecting and analyzing logs, triggering alerts, and profiling application performance. It's also employed for monitoring bandwidth, virtual machines, Lambda functions, and Kubernetes clusters. Valuable features include seamless integration with AWS, real-time data and alerts, detailed metrics, and a user-friendly interface. It provides robust monitoring capabilities for infrastructure and application performance, log aggregation, and analytics. Users appreciate its scalability, ease of setup, and affordability. Additional key aspects are the ability to create alarms, dashboards, and automated responses, along with detailed insights into system and application health. Room for improvement includes dashboards and UI enhancements for better visualization and customizability, log streaming speed, advanced machine learning and reporting capabilities, pricing, and integration with non-AWS services and databases. Users also seek more real-time monitoring and comprehensive application performance features, and simpler alerts and configuration processes.
What are the most important features?
What benefits and ROI can users expect?
Amazon CloudWatch is implemented across a range of industries, including technology, finance, healthcare, and retail. Technology firms use it to monitor application performance and traffic, while financial organizations leverage it for ensuring compliance and system reliability. Healthcare entities rely on it for maintaining service availability and monitoring data flow, and retail companies utilize it for tracking customer interactions and optimizing server usage.
PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.
To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.
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