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ControlUp vs Nagios Core comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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
7.2
Organizations achieve efficiency and cost savings with ControlUp, automating tasks, preventing disasters, and optimizing virtual environments.
Sentiment score
8.8
Nagios Core reduces downtime and costs with quick alerts, providing full ROI and eliminating expensive monitoring tools.
This is having a 24/7 junior admin who's really smart, always there, always doing work, but you have to consume his work.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Basically, what we were targeting is the response time of the virtual environment.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
9.0
ControlUp's responsive, knowledgeable support enhances customer experience, offering integration flexibility and premium benefits for larger organizations.
Sentiment score
5.1
Nagios Core relies on community support, praised for stability and resources, but lacks official help compared to Nagios XI.
I was quite happy to work with ControlUp because the support is excellent.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Basically, if I could take everything that you do, put it in a tool, and hand you that tool so you don't have to repeat your efforts, then you would be able to make good use of it.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
ControlUp's cloud scalability eases expansion, though pricing concerns arise, highlighting the importance of strategic adaptability and monitoring.
Sentiment score
6.7
Nagios Core shows scalability for large networks but may need customizations and integrations for distributed environments.
It scales very well; you just have to tell it what you're doing and size it for what you're asking.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The solution is scalable.
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.9
ControlUp is praised for its stability and effective monitoring, with most users finding it reliable and well-supported.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nagios Core is highly stable and reliable with minimal footprint, supporting extensive monitoring without network burden.
I tried many other solutions at work, however, in terms of Nagios, I haven't seen any disruption or downtime.
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
 

Room For Improvement

ControlUp needs seamless integration, improved monitoring, GUI enhancements, and additional features for better automation and complete insights.
Nagios Core needs a more intuitive interface, better scalability, and features like enhanced reporting and integration with modern tools.
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

ControlUp pricing involves annual agreements with varied costs; thorough evaluation of licensing options is essential for optimal use.
Nagios Core is a free, cost-effective open-source tool, but requires Linux expertise and incurs hosting and maintenance costs.
 

Valuable Features

ControlUp offers efficient ROI, real-time insights, robust automation, and proactive management with AI-enhanced performance monitoring and comprehensive visibility.
Nagios Core provides flexible, low-resource monitoring with customization, automation, efficient alerts, and integration support for reliable IT performance visibility.
Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It's not only monitoring, but it's also detecting, and it could even fix problems with a lot of automation that you can put in place to fix problems automatically before you even detect them.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
 

Categories and Ranking

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (4th)
Nagios Core
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 2.4%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nagios Core2.4%
ControlUp0.9%
Other96.7%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2717526 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Delivers comprehensive and customizable system management with increased efficiency
The best features I have found are that it is very customizable, which would be number one, and very extensible through the use of scripts and triggers. The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening. It may sound facetious, but it really is everything about it. Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place. The benefits I have seen from using it so far include the ability to know in advance and take actions based on the information the tool gives you.
HY
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
Monitoring solution provides comprehensive visibility across IT infrastructure
The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything. Everything in the IT domain, you can monitor anything. You can even monitor printers, the ports of printers, Core workstations, and storage. You can monitor the workflow Core and the utilization of computes. If you want to grasp everything of your IT equipment on a single interface, you can use Nagios. It's the best one. It provides dashboards, and you can also configure your emails and alerts with it. If something is critical, you can configure it to notify via emails. It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
I was taking care of a Citrix infrastructure, and as ControlUp is the best monitoring tool for those environments, I was also using ControlUp to monitor those environments.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
What is your primary use case for Nagios Core?
I was a senior system administrator. I've been using Nagios Core for more than ten years now. It can be used to monitor hosts, such as machines, and monitor services of any kind. I'm using it to mo...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.