Fortra's Intermapper vs Zabbix comparison

"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."

"Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing, so, in my opinion, it is awesome."

"Put Intermapper in as your base to start from, hands-down."

"The graphical alerting with the ability to obtain a quick overview of a monitored device is my favorite feature."

"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."

"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 solution has a couple of features which are really interesting; it's not a fancy or expensive solution but we wanted to have a cost effective one and it's doing its job pretty well."

"The performance and bandwidth are valuable features."

"It is a great product. The SNMP protocol tracking feature is good. I really like how it tracks SNMP. The alerts are also great."

"Zabbix has a roadmap and they are continuously and frequently adding new features."

"If you’re into the Open Source and freedom principles, don’t mind getting your hands dirty, and have the technical skills, Zabbix is a good choice."

"We are able to monitor our virtual infrastructure, virtual machines, windows servers, databases, and the network using a simple network management protocol. We are able to pull almost all the metrics that we want, receive notifications, and have them integrate with telegrams for certain devices that are critical, such as UPSs."

"If you are a new user it is very simple, you do not need to be highly technical to use it."

"The solution is stable."

"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I have seen instances where Intermapper does not seem to recover from network changes."

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

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

"It's open-source software, and due to that, they really don't have legacy service monitorings like APM, or build-on capabilities, and the pure part of the transaction-related data."

"There are not too much documentation or manuals. We found the tutorials very easy to understand but do not go deep enough in the use of Zabbix. We need more manuals, proper use, documentation, etc."

"Its UI needs to be improved a little bit more so that an end-user is also able to handle it. I can handle it, but others should also be able to handle it in a better way. It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases. A lot of articles are available, but they need to be in proper documentation. For example, when you have thousands of servers that have to be monitored in different regions of the world, there should be some kind of documentation to describe how you can create proxies and add them. Sometimes, when you are using the database, it can get overloaded. When the network is growing, the number of transactions becomes very high, and the database gets overloaded. There should be information about how to reduce the load on the MySQL database, which is what Zabbix is using. The market is growing a lot, and it should be enhanced for a lot more things. We are currently bringing enhancements at our end for different use cases. For example, when dockerization is going on, how can we check the logs inside the Dockers. We should also be able to monitor and check the number of logins and add features such as SSO login and two-factor authentication as a protocol. These are the security features and concerns that we have to deal with. Currently, we are developing modules to add features to Zabbix, but they should also work on these features."

"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."

"When it comes to troubleshooting or technical support, there is usually some time lag."

"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."

"Zabbix isn't very good at automation just yet."

"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."

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

"The tool's licensing is good."

"We pay the subscription for support by year."

"There is no license but we need to pay for support."

"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."

"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."

"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."