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Icinga vs Nmap comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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
44th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (50th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)
Nmap
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.1%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nmap is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nmap1.0%
Icinga1.1%
Other97.9%
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.
Sai Aditya Panda - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Penetration testing has become efficient as I identify open ports and security risks with confidence
Nmap could potentially become a GUI and provide automatic reports with one-click downloads. For example, the report could show all the open ports for an IP address with a professionally formatted report. This is a far-fetched suggestion and not really required, but it could make the work a little better. On a scale of one to ten, I give Nmap a solid nine. I mean, how can you fix something that is not broken? Nmap is already the best, and I do not think there are any other features that can be added. Its job is reconnaissance, so I do not think there is more to add to it. However, if I get any ideas, I will let them know about this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"People should know that it is simple and advanced."
"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."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"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."
"The most important function, according to me, is the capability to use some arguments in the scanning. The solution's capability to go figure and do a deep dive, discovering information on specific aspects."
"Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices."
"Nmap's performance is great, and I've never noticed any issues in this respect. It really doesn't put a heavy load on the machine when using it."
"Nmap has a powerful command line tool and a set of diagnostic features."
"The real-time reporting feature of Nmap is particularly valuable. It generates detailed reports on the source and destination IP addresses, the protocols used, and the types of traffic."
"It helps us secure the network infrastructure."
"This was my first project, and Nmap was the best tool that I have used to date, and I recommend it to everyone."
"The solution really is not comparable to other products because of its many features."
 

Cons

"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"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 is a complex solution that's hard to learn. It's a powerful product for monitoring, but new users will have a hard time figuring out what to do."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"The solution's initial setup could be better."
"There are concerns with the stability of the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"It takes a bit of time to get familiar with the solution and its options."
"One of the drawbacks of the standard Nmap utility is that it does not come with a graphical user interface, unlike a number of other open-source alternatives such as Zenmap."
"There is no support."
"The tool's license limits the number of scans it can perform. Improving the license model could benefit customers by allowing more scans for compliance and other purposes."
"There could be a specific option to check non-pingable endpoints for the product."
"I would like something more user-friendly to use and export data to various software."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The solution is cheap."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"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 solution is free to use."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The solution is free of cost, but there are specific services that we have to buy."
"Nmap is an open-source product. You don't need a license to install it."
"The solution is free of cost."
"The product's pricing is fine. The licensing options for Nmap include perpetual licenses and volume-based licenses. For perpetual licenses, once you purchase it, there's no need to invest in renewals. And for volume-based licenses, enterprise companies can use it multiple times based on the number of users or devices they need to scan. It's a pay-as-you-go model, similar to how you pay for what you use."
"Nmap is an open-source and free product."
"Nmap is open source software, which suits us well because we are a manufacturing company and not an IT company, for example. If we were an IT company, we would probably need to pay for extra support or instead go for another software solution. But as it is, we don't have any need for high-end troubleshooting tools."
"It's an open-source product, and I haven't seen any premiums. Options are available for those who purchase, but for my use case, everything I need is available in the community and forums."
"It's an open-source solution. Commerically, only the support service is available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
13%
University
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your primary use case for Nmap?
My main use case for Nmap is reconnaissance, so identifying open ports or running services and ultimately finding the security risks or vulnerabilities in a system. OS detection is the most importa...
What advice do you have for others considering Nmap?
I think I should be learning more about the commands and how Nmap works so that it will be better for my career. I will do that. There is nothing else to add to it, except a huge thank you to the p...
What needs improvement with Nmap?
Nmap could potentially become a GUI and provide automatic reports with one-click downloads. For example, the report could show all the open ports for an IP address with a professionally formatted r...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Lockheed Martin, Eastern Bank Boston, Perspecta, Harris Corporation, Discovery Communication
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. Nmap and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.