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Grafana vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zabbix
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

AbhishekGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 8, 2022
Beneficial operational excellence, reliable, and scalable
We are using Grafana for observability dashboards Grafana has helped our organization with observability and operational excellence. Operational excellence is a key part of any organization from a data platform perspective and setting the alerts and monitoring policies on Grafana was easy. The…
ASM Naushad Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 16, 2022
Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes
Our company is a financial organization and we use the solution to check connectivity, CPU utilization, and hard disk utilization for all of our servers. We monitor networks to learn traffic conditions. We use threshold features to compare servers or routers and find each server's size before it…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Collaboration: Shares data and dashboards across teams."
"The dashboards are very easy to work with."
"The installation process is easy. We have deployed it on the cloud. I have around 20 to 30 people using the solution in my company."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the UI dashboard because we need to create a dashboard on Grafana to monitor our data."
"Visualisation: It is easy to create beautiful, understanding graphs, snapshots to share the graphs with people who do not have access to Grafana, and templating to create powerful graphs."
"The most important feature of Grafana is its alarm formatting capability."
"The most valuable aspect is customization. There are many customizations possible, so I like that."
"Almost any kind of visualization is possible with Grafana and all dashboards are configurable."
"We have found that Zabbix is more easy to use than other applications."
"We are able to do problem determination on runaway processes."
"I like being able to use proxy servers for different locations. The agents are pretty cool. They're easy to roll out. The standard out-of-the-box templates are also pretty easy to use. The integration with other learning products is also good. I have, in the past, used Slack, but we've integrated it with Microsoft Teams. We also use it for SMS with a service called Redcoat. It is very flexible. It does what I need it to do, and my manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything. We are nearing 4,000 hosts inside Zabbix, and we've got another 6,000 access points to add to it. We've thrown everything at it, and it has managed to keep going. I am very impressed with the tool, and I'd shake their hand very hard if I got to say the compliments to the Zabbix team. They keep improving it and doing refreshes, which is one good thing about it. There is also online information as well as books that you can purchase if you're willing to read enough. There is a lot to pick up, but it is a pretty complete solution."
"Setup was straightforward. Initial deployment took two or three months."
"I'm supervising all the IT departments, and Zabbix seems quite good for them. It provides graphics and information in real time. We get alerts about crashes on the system, enabling us to quickly repair issues. We can easily find devices with problems."
"There is a problems page that shows us every warning or problem that occurs on our VMs globally. The map screen is also really useful because this is something that was missing. I don't know every other tool in the market. So, I don't know if this is a good point of only Zabbix, or other tools are also doing it, but from my point of view, this is the most useful page that I use, along with the problems page that efficiently lists the problem, recovery time, ending hours, starting hours, and so on."
"Simple network monitoring that is easy to install and manage."
"The most valuable features in Zabbix are those that help us overcome bottlenecks in CPU usage, as well as reduce memory delay. I know that we have only reached the tip of the iceberg of what Zabbix's features can do for us, and we have not used all of them yet."
 

Cons

"Its UI features to create charts can also be improved. Some features could have a link to the documentation."
"The look and feel of the charting and graph capabilities in Grafana could improve. If they provided a storyboard type of feature as they have in other solutions, such as PowerBI. The multi-tenanted and stitch metrics features could improve."
"Its interface could be more accessible."
"Grafana doesn't provide anything for reporting."
"I had issues with the solution's configuration part."
"The main drawback is the necessity for endpoint monitoring."
"Lacks event management which affects our DevOps people."
"Writing queries can be a bit difficult because the syntax must be maintained."
"Even though it’s such a powerful monitoring system, it would be more helpful if it had a flexible UI."
"The server monitoring could be better."
"I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly."
"I think the reporting part of Zabbix can be improved in terms of more user-friendly graphics to display the collected data. Many simple users who don't know how to use Zabbix properly might get confused by the reporting, although at the same time it is very versatile for my company."
"Sometimes, the documentation is a little bit written in Estonia – a country in Europe. The language barrier and translation to English can sometimes make it difficult to understand what they're trying to get at. It's just a language thing."
"I am having difficulties connecting it to Grafana, as well as some of the other plugins like Kibana."
"Implementing Zabbix is difficult. I've deployed many solutions over the years, and Zabbix is the hardest to implement. You have to do some development to get it to work with IBM, Micro Focus, or HP products."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using an open-source version"
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"We are using the open-source license."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"The product is an open source and free solution."
"My manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything."
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
"There is no license but we need to pay for support."
"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."
"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."
"For pricing, it's free. We don't pay anything for it. They open-source the code, and people pay for support."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution. I don't know if there are different paid versions of the product.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
Grafana could improve by having its own query language. Currently, it uses languages like Prometheus or InfluxDB, which not everyone knows. Their query language should be easier.
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds.
 

Comparisons

 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
813,418 professionals have used our research since 2012.