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Icinga vs Nagios XI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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
26th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
14th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
30th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
24th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Ranking in Server Monitoring
12th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
20th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.9%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios XI3.3%
Icinga1.9%
Other94.8%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Net Consulting
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.
Emmanuel Appiah Boateng - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simplifies setup and requires user interface enhancement
Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried. Typically, setting up a monitoring system on Linux involves cloning files from GitHub, building it, and installing many dependencies, but with Nagios XI, it wasn't like that. Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."
"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."
"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"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."
"I use it for monitoring infrastructure and it was very good for that issue."
"I would recommend Icinga; it's an open-source solution, it's quite easy and simple to use, and checks can be run with Python code and Shell Script code."
"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."
"Nagios allows us to configure any device so that we can send pager alerts when people don't have access to emails, and it also allows us to schedule downtime and maintenance."
"The ability to set up templates and groups of checks, as well as customize the checks themselves."
"Nagios has good scalability."
"I would recommend this solution because it's so powerful with no limitation, especially when using the XI version."
"It has a wide variety of plugins in existence, but when there's no plugin available it is quite simple to integrate one's own programs and scripts."
"Nagios is the best software of its kind if you have time for configure any host and network, and you can do quite everything with a bit of scripting."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"The features I've found the most useful are the plug-ins, the fact that you can connect almost everything to it."
 

Cons

"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"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."
"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."
"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."
"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"It's in need of more standard plug-ins."
"Improve the documentation, examples, and best practices, therefore users can understand how to do things."
"There's room for improvement in the visibility, and in the ability to extract information. Stuff like this should be more simple."
"I would like a much easier GUI so that I can delete events and logs, which will free up a lot of space."
"I think that the community needs to concentrate development to get a standard GUI (Adagios is a side project) and gives the user a better notification system."
"There are stability issues if you have a large number of hosts and services."
"The reporting part should be made simpler. While we can obtain all the reports we need, we always have to create work-arounds to get them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheap."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is free to use."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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
Educational Organization
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement 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. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
What is your primary use case for Icinga?
We use Icinga as a monitoring solution to monitor customers' infrastructures. We work as a managed service provider, so we offer monitoring and many other services to our customers. So we use it in...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
What is your primary use case for Nagios XI?
I normally use Nagios XI for our servers. It's not particularly used for network equipment, however, I use it for monitoring our server performance, including CPU, memory, data, and services runnin...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. Nagios XI and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.