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Icinga vs Nmap comparison

 

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
41st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (48th), Cloud Monitoring Software (32nd)
Nmap
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
24th
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 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 Nmap is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nmap1.1%
Icinga1.1%
Other97.8%
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

"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."
"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is one that not many are even aware of, as Icinga has a self-healing event handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted, and you can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"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."
"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."
"I use it for monitoring infrastructure and it was very good for that issue."
"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"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."
"The initial setup was simple."
"The solution detects the operating systems, which makes testing the software much easier before making the payload."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"It enables us to delve deeper and identify the services and open ports on the system and visualize this information on a dashboard automatically."
"It’s an excellent tool and allows its users a multitude of solutions to scan a network."
"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."
"From a functionality standpoint, it's robust and straightforward to comprehend."
 

Cons

"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"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."
"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"The user interface should be improved."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"Nmap needs to improve its scanning speed."
"The challenge often lies in finding suitable courses and professional resources."
"There are concerns with the stability of the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
"I would like something more user-friendly to use and export data to various software."
"Since I started using Nmap, it has been completely based on the command prompt and I think it would help other users if they implemented a decent GUI as well."
"The price is high and could be cheaper."
"It takes a bit of time to get familiar with the solution and its options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"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 product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"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."
"I am using the free version of Nmap."
"Nmap is an open-source and free product."
"I am using the standard free version of Nmap."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"Nmap is an open-source product. You don't need a license to install it."
"The solution is free of cost."
"The solution is free of cost, but there are specific services that we have to buy."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
University
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

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
Earn 20 points
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: August 2026.
910,005 professionals have used our research since 2012.