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Centreon vs Icinga 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Centreon is 2.9%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Icinga is 4.1%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.7%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Caulson Chua - PeerSpot reviewer
With fewer staff resources, we can identify and address issues before the system goes down
Centreon's most valuable features are preventative maintenance and cost-efficiency. Everything is monitored, and we get a log before the system fails. We have an opportunity to fix the issue and avoid downtime. The dashboard is user-friendly, and the solution provides good reporting and visibility. The layout is straightforward. You can click on the drop-down list to select the server you want. The anomaly detection feature helped us reduce our average resolution time by 30 minutes to an hour.
Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What we like about it is that, whereas with Nagios, by design, if you have five or six data centers, you have to open five or six web pages to see what's going on, In Centreon, this is all included in one page, a single site, one dashboard. You don't have to jump from one specific dashboard to the other."
"The downtimes feature is helpful. If the ISP is doing some maintenance on its network, we have the option to put downtime on the devices or the services, so we won't get any false alarms."
"The dashboards are valuable because they ease troubleshooting and viewing. It becomes easier to locate the source of a problem... The dashboards make it easier to communicate with our clients. They don't want to see the alert console, they want to see a beautiful dashboard representing their network and their business and to watch it in case something is wrong in their environment."
"The single-pane view provides us a view of all of our network infrastructure, and it is one of the most important tools that we use to see the status of our customers' networks."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of servers and networks, because we have a lot of them and need to maintain control."
"The customizable reports and dashboards are really flexible. We started this partnership with Centreon, when we were looking for a solution, because of the flexibility of the reporting. That's what we found to be most attractive in the solution. You can display the data as you want."
"For servers and for applications, it was very, very efficient."
"Another feature we use is Business Activity, which provides us with an end-user perspective when a service is down or isn't working correctly. This is helpful when monitoring the KPIs. When we see a device or server that isn't working, we find the root cause."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated."
"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard, where I can have a single screen that provides a summary for hundreds of servers."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"It's great for monitoring IT services infrastructure."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"The installation is no problem. I've installed Nagios several times."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried."
 

Cons

"This solution lacks service monitoring in the cloud."
"Centreon supports officially 10,000 services per poller. That is not much for larger customers, because this limit is reached very quickly. We use it with three times the limit without any problems, but Centreon says, "Okay, we are only supporting it with 10,000 services." We are aware that increasing the limit has different impacts because they need to support it. However, for most customers, it would be be very good if they could increase the limit of services."
"Centreon introduced network discovery in the most recent update. However, it doesn't work well. Our previous monitoring tool could discover networking equipment on the network and identify the relationships between the devices."
"Sometimes, when the GUI and some of the search fields are being reset, and I return to the page, then I have to set them again. Therefore, some improvement on the UI and the filtering is needed."
"The Home view could be improved by adding customization functions that allow users to change the size of the widgets for a more uniform layout."
"The reporting has room for improvement."
"Sometimes, Centreon does not show the status of services as updated, which should be addressed."
"Release management and quality of testing need improvement, because with each major upgrade we have many issues coming in. Then, it takes several minor upgrades to get rid of them."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"The user interface should be improved."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."
"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"Icinga is a complex solution that's hard to learn. It's a powerful product for monitoring, but new users will have a hard time figuring out what to do."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it."
"I would like a much easier GUI so that I can delete events and logs, which will free up a lot of space."
"The installation and monitoring need improvement."
"The PNP4Nagios plugin not working easily with XI is an issue for me, because some open source monitoring plugins do not work out of the box. But in the end, you learn to live with it."
"The product could be optimized to improve the administrative user experience via the Nagios Core Configuration (NCC) GUI module."
"I would like to be able to extend it to all of our data centers, whether they are in the cloud or not. It would be helpful if I could connect everywhere."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cheaply priced."
"For more complex tasks, we use prepaid support days and ask Centreon to come onsite."
"They only sell four hour slots for support, so if you have just one question, then you need to pay for four hours. Or, you need to wait until you have enough questions to fill those four hours. They are not flexible in this."
"Centreon is better than Nagios XI in regards to cost and support response times, when you have a problem. If you have a problem, it costs money to contact the Nagios XI support."
"The pricing starts at around 5000 euro. However, this depends on: Your environment, the size of your host, how many hosts you have, how many remote pollers you have, and if you want to use the Monitoring Business Intelligence or Centreon MAP functionalities."
"The pricing is acceptable."
"You purchase a package. You have a support contract (there is also a platinum support contract) and it is per module. That means you have to pay, e.g., for the MBI module or the BAM module. Or, if you want to save a lot of money, you can pay for IMP, which is the complete package."
"Centreon is an open source product. Thus, there is no need for licensing."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The solution is free to use."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The solution is cheap."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"For our country in North Africa, it's expensive and we could purchase another solution for that price. But it's a reasonable price if we're speaking in international terms."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"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."
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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
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
47%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Centreon?
Centreon's most valuable features are preventative maintenance and cost-efficiency. Everything is monitored, and we g...
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 do you like most about Icinga?
The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should b...
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

 

Also Known As

No data available
Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

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.
Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
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: April 2025.
852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.