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Icinga vs Network Instruments Observer 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (12th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (26th)
Network Instruments Observer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
111th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Network Instruments Observer is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Icinga1.3%
Network Instruments Observer0.2%
Other98.5%
Network Monitoring Software
 

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.
reviewer197955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data.
Ring capture buffer. Complex filtering The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data. The Observer application is very complex to use and setup, this should be improved. Windows is unstable, a possible Linux version in future will fix this. 4 years The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"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."
"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."
"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 value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"People should know that it is simple and advanced."
"I use it for monitoring infrastructure and it was very good for that issue."
"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."
"The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data."
 

Cons

"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"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."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"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."
"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."
"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."
"Customer service was below average and the local value added reseller did not know the product very well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"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."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is free to use."
"The solution is cheap."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
No data available
 

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...
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Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Brno University of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.