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Icinga 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

Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
41st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
48th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (17th), Cloud Monitoring Software (32nd)
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
19th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.4%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.4%
Icinga1.1%
Other97.5%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201 - PeerSpot reviewer
Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect
It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated. The alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.
HY
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
Monitoring solution provides comprehensive visibility across IT infrastructure
The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything. Everything in the IT domain, you can monitor anything. You can even monitor printers, the ports of printers, Core workstations, and storage. You can monitor the workflow Core and the utilization of computes. If you want to grasp everything of your IT equipment on a single interface, you can use Nagios. It's the best one. It provides dashboards, and you can also configure your emails and alerts with it. If something is critical, you can configure it to notify via emails. It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."
"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."
"If you have a small infrastructure or a small number of devices that you want to monitor, then I think it's a good solution."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"People should know that it is simple and advanced."
"Dashboard provides monitor of total assets."
"I would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
"Other products are good but from the configuration point of view Nagios is really very lightweight. The price is really good in my opinion. Another important thing is that my Nagios engine still works with Dual core 8GB ram for the last 10 years."
"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."
"We can get real time statistics of our servers which improves our monitoring."
"Monitoring with Nagios Core is helpful because it provides immediate alerts if something goes down, such as a server, or wireless router, or if there's a cable break. This allows us to respond promptly to any issues."
"We are using Nagios Core on a VM and it's working very well, even though the specs of the VM are very low because it doesn't require much storage."
 

Cons

"The user interface should be improved."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"It is not really adequate for our current needs. It causes additional issues which we have to work around and takes us time that a better solution would not."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."
"The dashboard should be improved."
"The initial setup was complex, mainly because it was in Linux and had many packages that we're not used to."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."
"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."
"The UI is a little outdated and graphics could be displayed in a better way."
"The configuration and reporting modules need to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The solution is cheap."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is free to use."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"It's free."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"We are using the free version."
"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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.
What is your primary use case for Nagios Core?
I was a senior system administrator. I've been using Nagios Core for more than ten years now. It can be used to monitor hosts, such as machines, and monitor services of any kind. I'm using it to mo...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.