Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Centreon vs Datadog vs Nagios XI 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.1
Centreon enhances ROI through efficient monitoring, quick issue resolution, cost savings, and minimal impact during outages.
Sentiment score
7.0
Datadog enhances visibility, reduces downtime, saves costs, and optimizes workflows by integrating features and improving operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
6.6
Nagios XI enhances efficiency and time management but concerns about increased costs affect ROI perception across organizations.
It significantly saves time by automating monitoring tasks and reduces costs as it requires fewer resources.
Centreon provides timesaving and costsaving benefits as it lets us manage multiple devices on a single platform.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Centreon's customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, though availability limitations and support level improvements are needed.
Sentiment score
7.1
Datadog's customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, though some users report delays with complex queries and phone support.
Sentiment score
6.5
Nagios XI support is mixed; praised for responsiveness but criticized for high cost, complex licensing, and delayed responses.
We do not have direct access to Centreon's technical support.
If issues arise, like services appearing as down in Centreon, technical support helps check the polar-server communication.
Technical support from Centreon responds within 24 hours and resolves issues quickly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Centreon is valued for flexibility and scalability, though improvements in data management and alert scaling are recommended.
Sentiment score
7.6
Datadog efficiently scales with cloud services, offering seamless expansion, though users highlight the importance of monitoring pricing.
Sentiment score
7.1
Nagios XI is scalable for small to medium environments but faces challenges in large infrastructures and cloud adaptability.
Occasionally, for several hours, we do not receive any alerts, causing a business impact.
We use other tools for adding and deploying configured devices, but direct access from Centreon would be beneficial.
If the user interface isn’t presenting data well, it becomes difficult to manage when scaling.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Centreon is stable and reliable, though stability may vary; support resolves issues swiftly, especially with the latest versions.
Sentiment score
8.0
Datadog offers reliable and stable performance with minimal downtime, impressive uptime, and efficient monitoring, even during peak periods.
Sentiment score
7.3
Nagios XI is stable, but large deployments may experience performance issues, database problems, and minor network dependencies.
Centreon is a much more straightforward and stable tool compared to Icinga.
Sometimes we do not receive alerts, causing business impact, and users ask why no alerts were received.
It is very stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Centreon users seek improved customization, monitoring, UI, documentation, integration, mobile features, auto-remediation, multilingual support, and notifications.
Datadog needs improved performance, interface simplification, clearer billing, better integration, customization, analytics, documentation, security, and mobile app integration.
Nagios XI's interface is outdated, lacks scalability, needs better cloud integration, APIs, automation, and improved documentation.
Enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks.
Reliability is sometimes an issue. Centreon has a developer mode and production mode, but sometimes alerts don't come through in production mode.
While Centreon excels at server-level monitoring, it lacks the ability to track web app availability and latency, unlike Dynatrace, which is efficient in this area.
In future updates, I would like to see AI features included in Datadog for monitoring AI spend and usage to make the product more versatile and appealing for the customer.
The documentation is adequate, but team members coming into a project could benefit from more guided, interactive tutorials, ideally leveraging real-world data.
There should be a clearer view of the expenses.
Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic.
 

Setup Cost

Centreon provides an open-source solution for SMEs but has a complex pricing model for enterprises needing premium features.
Datadog offers flexible pricing based on usage and organization size, with potential for high costs if not monitored closely.
Nagios XI provides cost-efficient enterprise-level monitoring with reasonable pricing, appreciated for its features and open-source options.
Centreon's pricing is not very expensive.
The setup cost for Datadog is more than $100.
We are using the free, open-source version.
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Centreon offers unlimited monitoring, enhanced visualization, and customizable features for efficient oversight with extensive device compatibility and anomaly detection.
Datadog offers intuitive, comprehensive monitoring and integrations, enhancing infrastructure and application management with real-time insights and efficient operations.
Nagios XI provides customizable, flexible, and scalable IT infrastructure monitoring with real-time alerts and extensive plugin support.
Monitoring is a fundamental pillar of technical support, and Centreon streamlines this process, reducing the need for extensive manual checks.
Centreon's real-time monitoring, despite having some manual aspects, supports us in managing our operations effectively.
Centreon allows us to monitor all of our devices on one platform.
Our architecture is written in several languages, and one area where Datadog particularly shines is in providing first-class support for a multitude of programming languages.
The technology itself is generally very useful.
Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.
The alerting system is very effective.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Centreon is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Datadog is 5.2%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.5%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Datadog5.2%
Centreon2.6%
Nagios XI3.5%
Other88.7%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Simon KONAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Plug-ins are free but it has limitations in sending out information to users
The issue my company has with the tool stems from the fact that it didn't give an on-time response to us. The product collects the information, but it fails to send them via SMS, WhatsApp or Telegram. The solution can be used if you want to get email notifications, which is not good for our company because if someone is not in front of their desktop, you can't receive information about an equipment or LAN that is down.
reviewer820579 - PeerSpot reviewer
Single pane of glass, easy to share dashboards, and good for monitoring
We've had some issues where we had Datadog automatically turned on in AWS regions that we weren't using, which incurred a small but steady cost that amounted to tens of thousands of dollars spent over a few weeks. I wish there was a global setting that lets an admin restrict which regions DD is turned on in as a default setup step. Sometimes, the APM service dashboard link isn't sharable. I click something in the service catalog, and on that service's APM default view, I try to share a link to that with a teammate, and they reach a blank or error screen. I wish there was more organization and detail in the suggestions when I use the query editor. I'm never quite sure when the autofill dropdown shows up if I'm seeing some custom tag or some default property, so I have to know exactly what I'm looking for in order to build a chart. It's hard to navigate and explore using the query autofill suggestions without knowing exactly what tag to look for. It's been a bit hard to understand how data gets sampled or how many data points a particular dashboard value is using. We've had questions over the RUM metrics that we see and we had to ask for help with how values are calculated, bin sizes, etc to get confidence in our data.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
868,275 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
18%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
5%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business78
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise82
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Centreon?
Centreon's pricing is not very expensive. Initially, I rated it seven, but corrected to five out of ten.
What needs improvement with Centreon?
I have certain concerns with Centreon, such as being unable to set downtime for multiple devices at once due to the l...
What is your primary use case for Centreon?
We are using Centreon for monitoring devices, both LAN and WAN devices. There are subsidiaries for my company, so if ...
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems,...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several time...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was t...
What do you like most about Nagios XI?
It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus, Bollore, BT, Canal Plus, Kuehne Nagel, Limagrain, LVMH, Oberthur Technologies, Orange, Darty, Addax Petroleum, Plastic Omnium, Auchan, Valeo, Saint Gobin, Clarins, Hugo Boss, JC Decaux, French Government (Defense, Justice, Environment, Agriculture), OptiComm, Thales, Zeiss.
Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Datadog, Auvik and others in IT Infrastructure Monitoring. Updated: September 2025.
868,275 professionals have used our research since 2012.