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Icinga vs Nagios XI vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

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 XI is 2.5%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 3.8%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zabbix3.8%
Nagios XI2.5%
Icinga1.1%
Other92.6%
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.
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.
KamranBhatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity
We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"People should know that it is simple and advanced."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"I use it for monitoring infrastructure and it was very good for that issue."
"We monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios XI is customization. We can customize based on our requirements. We can do modifications and implement a lot of scripts. Additionally, it is easy to use."
"It provides an easy and powerful solution to network monitoring so I can pay attention to other concerns."
"Nagios is an open source monitoring tool for monitoring network services, with easy installation, a user-friendly and configurable interface, and the ability to monitor disk space, CPU utilization, memory usage, host availability, NFS availability and many other things, making it widely used in IT markets."
"In my experience with Nagios, I've found that the most valuable features are the scalability and extensibility through using scripts."
"The most valuable features of Nagios XI are you can customize it based on your use case and requirements, it is flexible and easy to integrate with our systems, and you can customize the solution by adding additional features using code."
"Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools."
"It's very easy to install it and manage it with Nagios XI's interface."
"Our infrastructure is now under monitoring proactively and we don't have to wait for complaints from the customers or internal operation team to inform regarding any issue with the service."
"The most valuable feature is service assurance."
"Zabbix is a cost-effective solution. We're a small organization with a few dozen devices to monitor, and it was available for free. We can see what we need. We haven't done an in-depth analysis on it, but we're currently okay with the product."
"Zabbix is good for discovery."
"ZABBIX is an all-in-one monitoring solution and we don't need any other monitoring tool since we use ZABBIX."
"Zabbix is very flexible and scalable."
"The monitoring capabilities of the product are excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the alert and alarm monitoring."
"The basic setup is very easy."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."
"The user interface should be improved."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"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 product's stability could be even better."
"There's no convenient way to manage notes as the only way is to manage them through the database."
"We're still experiencing stability issues with regards to collecting performance graphs."
"Improve the documentation, examples, and best practices, therefore users can understand how to do things."
"Nagios XI isn't really good for scaling, in my experience."
"The way Nagios displays information isn't easy for a new user to understand. It's not intuitive enough. You need to read some tutorials or be trained to understand what it's displaying. Also, I think it needs more features to improve network visibility because there are some things you can't detect."
"Implementation on Windows was painful."
"Business services monitoring is still really basic."
"The Java gateway for monitoring Java applications didn’t work for us."
"Overall, setting up Zabbix is a challenge."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."
"I am having difficulties connecting it to Grafana, as well as some of the other plugins like Kibana."
"Performance is very important to our clients, and this solution doesn't perform very well."
"Correlation of events would be a wonderful addition."
"I really don't like it as it generates a lot of false information."
"The low discovery functionality is still very young so this feature has a lot of room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheap."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is free to use."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"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."
"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."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"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 XI is an expensive solution."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."
"The solution is free. However, many open-sourced tools start out free but eventually start charging."
"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."
"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."
"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
"We use the open-source version of Zabbix."
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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%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise35
 

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 mon...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is...
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I am using only Area Operations, but I don't prefer it. I installed Zabbix for the 3000 devices. Area Operations is n...
What is your primary use case for Zabbix?
I am still working with VMware and Area Operations, but I installed Zabbix now. I think Zabbix is better than VMware ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
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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.
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 Zabbix, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: August 2026.
910,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.