Fortra's Intermapper vs Zabbix comparison

"What is really cool about HelpSystems InterMapper is that because of its SNMP base, you can integrate all different makes and models on the same map. You, of course, can have more than one map, but you have an option to have visibility into the entire network from one centralized system. You can monitor IPs, routers, radios, DC power plants, and UPS. You can do it all from one network management and monitoring solution. That's what really makes HelpSystems Intermapper great. Another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper is that you can really bundle different probes under one device. You can have a bundled device. You can monitor the physical status of a host based on the IP availability. You can also monitor services and actually see if anything happens. You can quickly determine whether it is the application layer, host layer, or network layer. HelpSystems Intermapper gives such a unique representation of a network. Ever since we started using HelpSystems InterMapper, we don't have to document everything in a detailed format and store it somewhere. Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing. So, in my opinion, it is awesome. When you have your SNMP topology defined, you don't require a dedicated NMS engineer to manage your system, which is another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper. I see how our operators get so excited by having the ability to map a device or interface and connect interfaces together. HelpSystems InterMapper is also very operator friendly; not just user friendly, but also operator friendly. This is a unique feature, and it works really great."

"The most valuable features are its: log history, real-time monitoring capabilities, accuracy - the number of false positives is very low, and the mapping features."

"It's a nice graphical interface, a nice map, that relates Layer 1 to Layer 3, virtually instantly, to the Helpdesk support staff. It provides a default place to get critical information so we can deploy our staff."

"It's all today portal-based which is a good feature for us."

"They've already added extra features, such as noise-canceling and facial recognition, which is great."

"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system.​"

"The best thing about Zabbix is the integration and the APIs that are included are very fast"

"The most valuable feature is the alert and alarm monitoring."

"We use it to monitor and manage our servers."

"We are able to do problem determination on runaway processes."

"It's one of the best products available."

"The solution allows for good integration with other products."

"They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit."

"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"

"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it. If we were able to run scripts to bounce ports on switches, that would be great. It's asking a lot, but it's actually very doable because I do it through scripting into other products. If we could incorporate that directly into Intermapper, that would be fantastic."

"I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds."

"The reporting is lacking because this is an open-source tool, and nowadays, management's expectation is that the reports should be of high quality and every information should be presented in a concise manner."

"The reporting features need improvement, especially detailed inventory reporting. Since it's freeware, reporting may not be a major focus."

"The GUI could be more intuitive. Also, we'd like streaming telemetry. Zabbix might have this feature, but I haven't seen it yet. It took us a long time to get started because the documentation isn't very descriptive. We had to go through various sources like YouTube and forums to get this solution working."

"We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."

"The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts."

"They should open an SSH session from the web interface."

"The initial setup could be complex if you don't have templates. If creating templates from scratch, it's quite difficult, but if you are using already pre-created templates and setups for your needs, it looks very good."

"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."

"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"This solution is open-source and free to use."

"We pay the subscription for support by year."

"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."