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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
41st
Ranking in Server Monitoring
17th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
48th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
32nd
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
16th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
22nd
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 August 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.4%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.6%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios XI3.6%
Icinga1.4%
Other95.0%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

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.
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 apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly 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."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"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."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"Nagios XI is a simple monitoring tool with performance management and everything a standard monitoring tool provides."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"You want to monitor a specific metric that nobody else has? You can do it even with the most basic of scripting skills, and you can always share it with the vast community of Nagios Exchange."
"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."
"Nagios XI helps us monitor the bandwidth of the internet connection, HTTP, DNS, active directory services, and exchange data availability. We have multiple servers to monitor databases, availability of servers, and ping."
"The alerting system is very effective."
"Nagios XI helped me to draw the network and check for system failures."
"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."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"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."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"The GUI could be improved."
"I feel that the maturity and user interface needs to be improved."
"The product's stability could be even better."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"Nagios XI can improve network and hardware monitoring, these parameters should be simplified to allow usage for monitoring. Additionally, if there was automatic reporting it would be helpful."
"The important separation between Interface and Core to maintain historical plugins and methods generate complexity that makes Nagios unusable for repeat work."
"Reporting items needs more improvement and need to be more flexible based on customer needs."
"Adding new servers and passive checks (which require setting up agents and NRDS) on servers are a little difficult to do properly when employees don't understand the process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheap."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The solution is free to use."
"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."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"It's an open-source solution."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"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 an expensive solution."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"For our country in North Africa, it's expensive and we could purchase another solution for that price. But it's a reasonable price if we're speaking in international terms."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
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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
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing 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 Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.