Centreon vs Packetbeat comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Centreon and Elastic are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Centreon is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.7, while Elastic is ranked #61 with an average rating of 8.0. Centreon holds a 1.2% mindshare in NMS, compared to Elastic’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Centreon users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Elastic users who would recommend it.

Centreon

Read 31 Centreon reviews

9,361 Views
7,395 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Packetbeat

Read 2 Packetbeat reviews

1,449 Views
1,449 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Centreon

Packetbeat

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Centreon and Packetbeat based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Network Monitoring Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Centreon vs. Packetbeat Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Centreon vs. Packetbeat

September 2026

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Helped 915,341 peers since 2012

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

Centreon

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

23rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (26th), Cloud Monitoring Software (20th)

Packetbeat

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

61st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

2.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 1.2%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Packetbeat is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Centreon	1.2%
Packetbeat	0.3%
Other	98.5%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Sulesh PK

Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.

Experience enhanced monitoring with real-time alerts and efficient support

I would like to see automation in the poller features, as currently, the poller is not automated. If we could automate the addition or removal of hosts in the poller, it would improve efficiency. Sometimes, Centreon does not show the status of services as updated, which should be addressed. Additionally, enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks, as Centreon does not currently display issues with HTTP links, requiring manual investigation.

Read full review

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Network analytics have delivered lightweight, integrated visibility for search, observability, and security

Packetbeat analyzes specific protocols and is not suitable for full capture of all network traffic and network flows. I recall that Packetbeat can cover a limited number of protocols including ICMP, but not as deeply as other solutions. It covers NetFlows and these types of flows, but not at the level of a deep packet capture that you can find in the market where it taps every single packet in the network. Packetbeat is more about bringing statistics about the packets, but it doesn't capture these packets. The development intention of Packetbeat appears to be to provide a window for application monitoring and performance analytics, and for that purpose, it is doing sufficiently well. However, if the vendor has another goal to build a similar network monitoring solution that exists in the market, which is outside of Elastic's business nature, Packetbeat is a sensor that needs to be improved to the level of deep packet capture where it loses no packets in the network. That improvement would take Elastic to another level.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"When we started to work with Centreon, there were about 30 people in our company and now there are 90 people, so our company has been growing and growing with Centreon."

"Centreon is one of our core tools and if we didn't have it, we couldn't do our job effectively."

"During the day it probably saves us 50 percent of our time, and during the night it's even more."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that most of its plug-ins are free."

"My advice would be to go ahead with Centreon; don't waste time, go ahead."

"It provides visibility into the network."

"E-mail alert notifications are valuable."

More Centreon pros

"Elastic's scalability, in terms of cluster robustness, is definitely the most valuable feature."

"The beauty of Packetbeat is that it is easy, free, and lightweight, while other solutions are expensive and will accumulate a huge amount of data."

Cons

"The most important issue is the capability to interconnect with other systems."

"I would like to see a better UI, one which is more responsive."

"To get it started is a lot of work, since it comes empty. We had to push information into it to make it work."

"Now that we got it, I haven't had time to work on it since it is a paid solution that is quite expensive."

"I would like them to improve their documentation. When I faced some issues, I was looking for more documentation on the Internet. There is official documentation on Centreon's website, which sometimes is useful. Sometimes it is not very useful, as you cannot find the information or enough examples of configuration. The answer for me was to contact the support, who helped me, but I was not able to find all the information by myself on Centreon's website. A Centreon community or blog would be helpful."

"During the initial setup we faced some issues. Part of it was because we had to become more knowledgeable in the solution. There are some gray areas and if you don't know the product well you may have issues. Another part of it was some bugs that we came across, although that's part of every software solution in IT nowadays. But the initial setup could be easier."

"There is room for improvement in the area of artificial intelligence. The product gives us a lot of information, but it's only information. We want the product to do more auto-remediation."

"They only sell four hour slots for support, so if you have just one question, then you need to pay for four hours."

More Centreon cons

"Packetbeat analyzes specific protocols and is not suitable for full capture of all network traffic and network flows."

"The scalability of the agent itself could be improved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"I would like to see improvement in the licensing model. You can purchase X number of licenses, up to 1,000 devices or 1,000 instances. Your next batch is 2,000. But what if you only need, say, 1,200? The model could be changed a little bit."

"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 solution has a free part and after that threshold, you will need to pay. For example, if you believe you can create an interesting map, most of the time, you will have to pay 10,000 Euros per year for having access to these components."

"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."

"It's quite expensive when you use the Enterprise version, but if you compare it to other providers, it's more like a middle-of-the-line product. It's always good to have a price that is lower, but I would say the price is okay because we get very good support and if we have any other issues we can always contact them. There has never been a time when I didn't get help from them."

"It is perfect and very cheap if you are a little company or startup. After that, it is quite expensive for a big company."

"Their licensing model is really easy. You have one license and you have access to all the features, compared to other tools where you have to purchase add-ons."

More Centreon pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

No data available

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.

See all answers

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 limitation of adding only 50 devices in a single go. Increasing this limit would ...

See all answers

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 devices go down or there are any service alerts, we receive alerts through C...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Packetbeat?

Elastic is pretty cheap for large enterprises but unaffordable for small ones.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Packetbeat?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Packetbeat?

I have dealt with all of them: Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, Beats, Elastic Agent, and Fleet, because I need to use all of them to achieve a solution for customers. These solutions are typically...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Centreon

October 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

September 2026

Download Packetbeat product report

Overview

Centreon offers a robust IT infrastructure monitoring platform, featuring user-friendly dashboards and real-time monitoring. It excels in scalability and integration, making it suitable for monitoring diverse network environments.

Centreon stands out with its unified monitoring capabilities, providing businesses with user-friendly dashboards and extensive plugins for customization. Its scalability ensures companies can expand monitoring tasks without incurring additional costs. Integration capabilities allow seamless interaction with ticketing systems and automation tools. Centreon offers customizable reporting and effectively manages downtimes, providing real-time feedback and proactive maintenance through Business Activity and Anomaly Detection features. Despite its strengths, users find areas for improvement including downtime scheduling, API functionalities, UI enhancements, end-to-end monitoring, and documentation. Businesses are increasingly demanding better automation, network discovery, cloud monitoring, and notification options.

What are Centreon's standout features?

Unified Monitoring: Delivers a comprehensive monitoring platform for IT infrastructure.
User-Friendly Dashboards: Offers intuitive and customizable dashboards for efficient monitoring.
Extensive Plugins: Enables flexibility and customization through numerous plugins.
Scalability: Allows expansion of monitoring duties without additional costs.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with ticketing systems and other tools.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Minimized resolution time through proactive maintenance features.
Ease of Use: Simplifies monitoring with its user-friendly interface.
Proactive Issue Resolution: Real-time monitoring and alerts help prevent service outages.
Customizable Reporting: Adapts reports to meet specific organizational requirements.
Diverse Network Management: Capable of handling diverse IT environments efficiently.

Centreon is implemented across industries to monitor IT infrastructures, including networks, servers, and applications. Companies leverage it to track server performance, manage network devices, and receive timely alerts on device status. Its ability to integrate with ticketing systems and automation tools streamlines operations, enhancing global IT infrastructure monitoring and customer service management with real-time feedback and issue resolution.

Centreon

Packetbeat is an open-source real-time application monitoring tool designed to capture network packets and provide insights into application performance and network congestion.

Packetbeat allows IT professionals to monitor network traffic efficiently by collecting and analyzing packets. It provides valuable insights into network latency and helps identify performance issues. It is part of the Elastic Stack, making it easy to integrate with Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana for sophisticated data analysis and visualization. Its open-source nature adds flexibility for customization, catering to specific monitoring needs.

What are the crucial features of Packetbeat?

Real-time packet capture: Enables immediate analysis and monitoring of network packets.
Protocol analysis: Supports analysis of various protocols like HTTP, DNS, and MySQL.
Seamless integration: Works efficiently with other Elastic Stack components.
Open-source: Offers customization and adaptability for IT requirements.

What benefits or ROI should be expected?

Cost efficiency: Leveraging open-source software reduces license costs.
Enhanced visibility: Provides detailed insights into network operations.
Scalability: Can be scaled to monitor expansive networks as needs grow.

In industries like finance and healthcare, where network uptime and data integrity are crucial, Packetbeat is implemented to monitor network performance and troubleshoot issues promptly. Its ability to analyze traffic in real-time ensures that potential bottlenecks are addressed swiftly, maintaining operational efficiency.

Elastic

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.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Centreon vs. Packetbeat

September 2026

Free Report: Centreon vs. Packetbeat

Find out what your peers are saying about Centreon vs. Packetbeat and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

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