Icinga vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Icinga and ServiceNow are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Icinga is ranked #50, while ServiceNow is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.1. Icinga holds a 1.3% mindshare in IM, compared to ServiceNow’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Icinga users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of ServiceNow users who would recommend it.

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

7,834 Views
4,857 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...

Read 46 ServiceNow IT Operations Management reviews

9,291 Views
4,367 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Icinga

ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Icinga and ServiceNow IT Operations Management compete in IT operations management. ServiceNow IT Operations Management is often considered superior for comprehensive enterprise solutions, offering more extensive IT service management capabilities.

Features: Icinga offers strong monitoring capabilities, a modular design, and integration with various systems, suitable for customizable monitoring solutions. ServiceNow IT Operations Management provides a holistic IT platform with robust incident management, predictive analytics, and automation tools, ideal for enterprises.

Room for Improvement: Icinga could benefit from easier setup for those with limited technical expertise, enhanced scalability, and more intuitive user interfaces. ServiceNow IT Operations Management may improve by offering more affordable pricing options, simpler customization processes, and faster implementation times.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Icinga's straightforward deployment process is appealing but may require technical expertise for optimal setup. ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers cloud-based deployment and comprehensive training and support, suitable for larger organizations seeking a seamless setup.

Pricing and ROI: Icinga's open-source model provides a low initial investment with significant ROI for monitoring solutions. ServiceNow IT Operations Management involves a higher setup cost but justifies it with enhanced capabilities and integration options, delivering greater long-term value for enterprises needing extensive IT management solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Icinga vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management

September 2026

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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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring

50th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (44th), Server Monitoring (17th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)

ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

15th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Event Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Management (14th), AIOps (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 1.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ServiceNow IT Operations Management	1.1%
Icinga	1.3%
Other	97.6%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201

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.

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reviewer2755671

Solution architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Significant enhancement in operations with powerful discovery and analytics, yet pricing structure poses challenges

ServiceNow IT Operations Management provides out-of-the-box dashboards. Along with the dashboard, it also provides the Operations Workspace, which is very useful for operations teams. There is a functionality called Performance Analytics, which we are also using to develop some dashboards for the senior leadership and operations team where they can perform trend analysis of alerts and events happening across the infrastructure and application landscape. These dashboards are really useful here. ServiceNow IT Operations Management's biggest plus point is that it is a platform. ITOM is just one module that ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers, but they provide seamless integration of ITOM with their other modules such as ITSM, where we can leverage the AIs for discovery, perform impact analysis, which essentially helps to enhance the overall IT operations and reduce the downtime and MTTR.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."

"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."

"We have found the solution to be stable."

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

"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."

"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."

More Icinga pros

"Feature-wise, it is a very good tool, especially when it comes to upgrades; upgrades are seamless—you will not even notice an upgrade is happening, and mostly all these upgrades happen after office hours, making it seamless."

"The most important features of ServiceNow IT Operations Management are the discovery service mapping and orchestration."

"I consider the stability to be very high, rating it ten out of ten."

"I like the tool's CMBD connection with Discovery. The solution is also flexible."

"It has been very useful for tracking. It has evolved a lot over time, and there is a single pane of glass where you can track and see everything."

"The initial setup is very straightforward. A person just needs to join a team to access the network and that's all."

"It is emerging as a holistic solution for enterprise service management."

"It is a very stable solution."

More ServiceNow IT Operations Management pros

Cons

"Icinga’s automation could be improved."

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

"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."

"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."

"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."

"The installation and configuration are very complex."

"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."

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

More Icinga cons

"ServiceNow could be more prescriptive on how customers can leverage some of the benefits."

"The product needs to add a workflow insight tool."

"The tool can be improved by including more detailed information to assist new users."

"There are times the application has some performance issue, but it could be because of our network. There should be something done to resolve this."

"Even though they call it low code there are a lot of customizations needed, especially from an ITOM standpoint."

"There is room for improvement in service mapping within ServiceNow ITOM. When we have more time, we'll look to extend that and apply it to business-critical services like email."

"Regarding ServiceNow, there is room for improvement in terms of customization, particularly in the area of self-customization."

"The CMDB part of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a little bit too complicated, and it is a bit slow at our company."

More ServiceNow IT Operations Management cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It's an open-source solution."

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

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

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

"The solution is free to use."

"The solution is cheap."

"There are additional costs, you have to pay more for everything."

"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."

"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a costly solution. I'd rate the price at ten, on a scale from one to ten with one being the lowest and ten being the highest price. Some clients do have a problem with the price, but most find that the solution is worth the cost."

"It is moderately expensive. The pricing itself and the licensing options are depending on the model and the customization."

"The price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."

"The pricing is high and may be excluding the small to medium-sized enterprise businesses."

"It is expensive. It is around 10 Euros per server per month."

"While not entirely sure, I believe the solution costs at least a million dollars annually."

More ServiceNow IT Operations Management pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

University

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	29

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?

Regarding pricing, while I initially felt the prices were high when we moved, I now see that it is reasonable considering that we are not just using an ITSM tool; we are improving processes and com...

See all answers

What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?

ServiceNow IT Operations Management can be improved by focusing on adoption, as some companies still use other tools, and we had to onboard them initially, addressing challenges such as data migrat...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?

As an implementation expert and former CIO, I handled implementation from an IT best practice perspective for different companies.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Nagios XI vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Icinga

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios Core vs Icinga

Compared 3% of the time

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OpsRamp vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management

Compared 4% of the time

ignio AIOps Platform vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management

Compared 4% of the time

Moogsoft vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management

Compared 3% of the time

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management

Compared 3% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

September 2026

Download Icinga product report

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow IT Operations Management

September 2026

ServiceNow IT Operations Management report

Download ServiceNow IT Operations Management product report

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

ServiceNow ITOM

Overview

Icinga is a robust tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, known for its distributed monitoring capabilities and seamless integration with multiple platforms. It efficiently observes servers, network devices, and environments like Linux and Windows, enabling proactive issue identification and resource management.

With a focus on task delegation and clustering, Icinga offers an intuitive interface through its GUI and Icinga Director, simplifying configuration. The extensive plugin library supports diverse technologies, while the API allows automation with tools like Terraform and Ansible. Despite its strengths, users report challenges with data display in the GUI, a need for improved dashboards, and complex configuration processes. Users benefit from its SNMP alerts, email notifications, and automated incident handling, making it essential for managed service environments and enterprises.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Task Delegation: Streamlines monitoring tasks across distributed systems.
Event Handler: Enables automatic service recovery with minimal intervention.
Plugin Library: Offers extensive support for integrating diverse technologies.
API Accessibility: Facilitates automation with popular tools like Terraform.
Custom Plugins: Allows easy creation and personalization for monitoring needs.

What benefits should you consider in Icinga reviews?

Flexibility: Tailors monitoring to specific requirements with community support.
Scalability: Successfully manages growing infrastructure demands.
Proactivity: Enhances issue identification and resource allocation.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing IT operations platforms.

Icinga is widely adopted in IT environments for monitoring servers, networks, and applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology. Its ability to integrate with various operating systems and automation platforms makes it a versatile choice for industries prioritizing comprehensive surveillance and proactive management of their infrastructure.

Icinga

ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers a scalable platform for managing IT infrastructure with features like discovery, dashboards, and service mapping. Ideal for incident, change, and problem management, it enhances operational efficiency and reduces IT service downtime.

ServiceNow IT Operations Management provides comprehensive solutions for consolidating events, automating workflows, and monitoring IT systems. Users utilize it for managing ticketing systems and conducting impact analysis through service mapping. The platform supports integrations with other modules, boosting efficiency with its intuitive interface. While highly functional, improvements in interface design and pricing are necessary, especially in integration with non-IP devices and cloud providers. Enhanced AI, machine learning, and discovery and monitoring functions are also needed.

What are the most important features?

Discovery: Automatically detects and maps IT infrastructure components.
Dashboard: Offers out-of-the-box reports through a user-friendly interface.
Service Mapping: Aids in assessing the impact of IT changes.
Event Management: Consolidates events for better management.
Orchestration: Streamlines automation processes to optimize workflows.

What benefits or ROI should be expected?

Scalability: Supports dynamic growth in IT operations.
Enhanced Efficiency: Improves workflow automation and event management.
Reduced Downtime: Minimizes service interruptions to maintain productivity.
Cost Reduction: Lowers operational costs by optimizing resources.

IT Operations Management by ServiceNow is widely implemented across industries like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing to optimize IT processes, enhance monitoring, and streamline infrastructure management. It is particularly effective in automating workflows and improving service reliability.

ServiceNow

Sample Customers

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

servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management

September 2026

Free Report: Icinga vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management

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