Icinga vs PRTG Network Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

Icinga and Paessler GmbH are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Icinga is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.7, while Paessler GmbH is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.7. Icinga holds a 3.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to Paessler GmbH’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Icinga users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Paessler GmbH users who would recommend it.

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

3,477 Views
3,086 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

Read 102 PRTG Network Monitor reviews

6,904 Views
4,836 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Zabbix

Read 106 Zabbix reviews

16,533 Views
12,812 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Icinga

PRTG Network Monitor

Zabbix

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Icinga, PRTG Network Monitor, and Zabbix based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Monitoring Software Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 851,471 peers since 2012

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 May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 3.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.3%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 13.0%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley

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.

Read full review

Tochukwu Uzomba

Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited

Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set

PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

Read full review

ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

Read full review

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."

"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."

"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."

"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."

"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."

"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."

"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."

More Icinga pros

"It's very easy to manage when you've got time to do some work on it: things like adding devices, adding groups, adding sensor clusters, and being able to clone and move stuff around."

"The solution provides us with needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It gives us really good quality of service when it comes to monitoring of available space and available resources. It allows us to preempt issues before they become a problem for the business."

"Speed of deployment is one of the most valuable features."

"We can see which fiber links have been used heavily and, if they are used heavily, we can introduce more links to particular buildings or particular areas."

"The solution is scalable."

"The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts."

"Ease of set-up – it is quick and easy to add a probe and start collecting data from a device."

"The installation is not that complex."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

"The features I found most valuable are the user interface and a wide range of network devices that are easy to configure."

"The resource usage, CPU utilization, disk usage, network monitoring, network performance, and alerting features are invaluable."

"The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration."

"Zabbix has a roadmap and they are continuously and frequently adding new features."

"We use it to monitor and manage our servers."

"The implementation process is very straightforward."

"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."

"We like the user-interface for this solution, which makes it an easy to use tool."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"The installation and configuration are very complex."

"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."

"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."

"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."

"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."

"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."

More Icinga cons

"When using PRTG Network Monitor it is beneficial if you have prior experience with it, the user interface could improve."

"The solution has to evolve as an end-to-end monitoring solution. It has to do better at understanding the application at the deepest level."

"They just released a newer version of the desktop app, a beta version, that I have been trialing out. I prefer the older version, only because of how the layout is designed"

"I am not sure the solution is giving me all the needed feedback that we need. When something goes off on our IT infrastructure, it does tell me. However, it would be nice if it gave more intuitive information, e.g., the hard drive has gone up by 60 percent in an hour."

"Integration into service management ticketing systems could be better. They should simplify the integration into big service management platforms like ServiceNow, Remedy, and Cherwell. They're really into monitoring, but they don't do any self-resolution. It would be better if the company moved more into the AIOps space so that you could actually kick off some remedies. I know that you can execute some commands from the tool, but you need to develop those all yourself. It would be really handy if they had some auto-remedy scripts that they could develop on top."

"The user interface could be more modern as it is quite dated. PRTG Network Monitor can sometimes be too detailed and cluttered at the beginning, making it heavy to use."

"PRTG Network Monitor needs to enhance network performance monitoring."

"In our organization, we encounter performance issues with our PRTG probe service. I saw documentation from the vendor or Paessler mentioning that there are limitations for WMI sensors. Other than that, we are okay with PRTG."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

"The GUI could be more intuitive. Also, we'd like streaming telemetry. Zabbix might have this feature, but I haven't seen it yet. It took us a long time to get started because the documentation isn't very descriptive. We had to go through various sources like YouTube and forums to get this solution working."

"The initial setup could be complex if you don't have templates. If creating templates from scratch, it's quite difficult, but if you are using already pre-created templates and setups for your needs, it looks very good."

"When we have a problem, we have to do a lot of research to solve it."

"The user interface could be better."

"The System Center Operations Manager can be improved."

"An area for improvement would be the ease of doing aggregation from the value or different devices."

"The stability could be better."

"The networking monitor is not too easy to work with."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It's an open-source solution."

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"The solution is cheap."

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"The pricing is not too bad. It's not massively expensive, and the ability to upscale or even downscale licenses every year is brilliant for us."

"We are satisfied with the price."

"We have an unlimited license for this solution."

"In my company now, we are using the free version."

"One thing I like is that when you buy sensors, it's a perpetual license, so once you buy 2,000 sensors, you've got 2,000 sensors; it's not a recurring cost."

"PRTG Network Monitor's price is a little high."

"Licenses are very expensive, so I would like to see cheaper licensing."

"The price of PRTG Network Monitor is reasonable for the features that the solution provides. They charge you per monitoring, not per node, it is per port that you need for a device."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."

"For pricing, it's free. We don't pay anything for it. They open-source the code, and people pay for support."

"We use the open-source version of Zabbix."

"My manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything."

"The tool's licensing is good."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"I was using the free, Community Edition."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

851,471 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

46%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

31%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Icinga?

The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution ...

See all answers

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 i...

See all answers

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 b...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it a...

See all answers

What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.

See all answers

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.

See all answers

Comparisons

Nagios Core vs Icinga

Compared 21% of the time

Checkmk vs Icinga

Compared 10% of the time

Nagios XI vs Icinga

Compared 3% of the time

Centreon vs Icinga

Compared 3% of the time

Netdata vs Icinga

Compared 1% of the time

More Icinga Competitors

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Nagios XI vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More PRTG Network Monitor Competitors

Checkmk vs Zabbix

Compared 10% of the time

LibreNMS vs Zabbix

Compared 10% of the time

NetXMS vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Centreon vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Netdata vs Zabbix

Compared 2% of the time

More Zabbix Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

May 2025

Download Icinga product report

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor

May 2025

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Zabbix

April 2025

Download Zabbix product report

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

No data available

Overview

Icinga monitors systems, network devices, infrastructure, and services, helping manage and analyze server resources. It automates ticket incidents and alerting, providing oversight of client Windows and Linux systems.

Icinga offers comprehensive monitoring of servers including CPU utilization and RAM space, facilitating automated incident management and alerting. Frequently deployed on-premises, this monitoring tool is key for managed services providers and organizations to oversee and ensure optimal performance of various environments, including applications like databases and web servers. It provides extensive features for creating custom plugins, stabilization, scalability, and high customization capabilities suitable for different infrastructure needs.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Event Handler: Facilitates automatic self-healing of systems.
Extensive Plugin Library: Offers a wide range of plugins for monitoring.
Ease of Use: Simplifies user experience with an intuitive interface and Icinga Director for easy configurations.
Open-Source Nature: Free to use, modify, and distribute.
Automation Capabilities: Integrates with APIs and Ansible Collections for automation.
Custom Plugins: Users can create and integrate their own plugins.
Stability and Scalability: Provides reliable performance across different scale infrastructures.

What are the benefits or ROI to look for when evaluating Icinga?

Critical Issue Highlighting: Effectively identifies and notifies about critical problems.
High Customization: Offers flexibility for diverse monitoring needs.
Automated Alerting: Reduces manual effort and improves response times.
Extensive Integration: Works seamlessly with other tools and platforms.

Icinga implementations span multiple industries, providing essential monitoring for IT infrastructure in healthcare, finance, and education. Managed services providers utilize Icinga to maintain and monitor client systems across various environments while ensuring optimal performance and compliance. It is highly valued in these sectors for its ability to customize monitoring, improving operational efficiency and reducing downtime.

Icinga

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

Paessler GmbH

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Zabbix

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank

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

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

April 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

851,471 professionals have used our research since 2012.