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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
32nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
Nagios Core
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.6%, 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

"Integration with Netscaler and Scoutbees can provide a proper end-to-end analysis of the user's experience and give us a real ROI."
"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"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."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."
"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me."
"The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"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."
"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."
"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."
 

Cons

"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"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."
"There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting."
"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."
"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"The dashboard should be improved."
"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."
"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"The core version is no match for the XI version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"Most the plugin features are free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
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?
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
My use cases include everything, and I don't mean that facetiously. I mean everything. We manage the servers, manage user sessions, manage everything. We monitor monitoring and take actual actions,...
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: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.