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

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:
 

Categories and Ranking

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
37th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
Nagios Core
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, 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 3.7%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.
Nishith-Vyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements
The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."
"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."
"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."
"When using ControlUp, the core feature that we have found valuable is its UI. It is a valuable tool to view the analysis reactions of a base core Level 2 or Level 1 team so that they can complete the necessary troubleshooting."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"Dashboard provides monitor of total assets."
"The solution is quite efficient."
"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."
"Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
 

Cons

"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"There was some lag earlier, and reports pulled from the dashboard would sometimes be half an hour old. But now, the information provides real-time status, which is greatly appreciated. Overall, I've seen improvement in the product."
"Solve is a quick and intuitive tool for quickly mapping data together, however, once you have the view of the data that you like, it is difficult to share this with colleagues."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."
"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."
"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"The dashboard should be improved."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."
"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."
"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."
"It would be nice if the company offered a sales or contract manager that was dedicated to our company so that we would have some sort of link to Nagios, and if we had issues or questions, we'd be able to contact them directly."
"The core version is no match for the XI version."
"The UI is a little outdated and graphics could be displayed in a better way."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We are using the free version."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.
What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 20000...
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
We use the tool to monitor approximately 2,00,000 devices for a client. We check how the devices are doing in terms of hardware and software. We also check their health and alerts every day. If som...
What do you like most about Nagios Core?
What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.
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.
 

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: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.