NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs Nagios Core comparison

Nagios and NETSCOUT are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Nagios is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5, while NETSCOUT is ranked #82. Nagios holds a 2.8% mindshare in NMS, compared to NETSCOUT’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Nagios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NETSCOUT users who would recommend it.

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

4,590 Views
4,039 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Read 3 NETSCOUT vSTREAM reviews

453 Views
417 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Nagios Core and NETSCOUT vSTREAM compete in the network monitoring and management category. NETSCOUT vSTREAM appears to have an advantage due to its advanced features that may justify its higher cost.

Features: Nagios Core offers customizable plugin options, extensive alerting capabilities, and an open-source platform for community-driven development. NETSCOUT vSTREAM provides sophisticated data analytics, deep packet inspection, and detailed traffic visibility.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Core could improve by offering professional support, simplifying setup, and enhancing its graphical user interface. NETSCOUT vSTREAM may benefit from more cost-effective solutions, increased flexibility in plugin integrations, and better community engagement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nagios Core's deployment benefits from extensive community resources, suitable for those familiar with open-source environments, with community-based support. NETSCOUT vSTREAM provides professional assistance and a structured deployment model, supported by expert customer service catering to enterprise environments.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core is cost-effective due to its open-source nature, ensuring a faster ROI for those willing to manage configurations and rely on community support. NETSCOUT vSTREAM, requiring a higher initial investment, offers strong ROI through thorough analytics and network performance insights, ideal for enterprises needing robust solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core

July 2025

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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

Nagios Core

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th)

NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

82nd

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 2.8%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT vSTREAM is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Nishith-Vyas

Tech Lead at STL Digital Limited

Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements

The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

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Keval Lodaya

Network Engineer at Inniti Network Solution

A user-friendly solution that is easy to install and improves visibility

I would like to see improvements made to the user guide. From my personal experience, it is helpful to see a list of steps describing what to do next in different situations. An example is what to do and what to back up in the case of certain types of failure. There are also cases where a customer can't understand specific features. Enhancements to the user guide would be helpful for this. More features for network fragmentation would be helpful.

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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

"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities."

"I would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten."

"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."

"Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system."

"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."

"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."

"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."

More Nagios Core pros

"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."

"One of the valuable features is the packet decoding."

Cons

"Nagios Core is limited in terms of distributed setups, and there is no central view for remote data centers."

"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."

"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."

"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."

"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."

"The initial setup process could be easier."

"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."

"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."

More Nagios Core cons

"Room for improvement exists in filtering in the packet decode."

"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."

"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most the plugin features are free."

"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."

"It's free."

"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."

"The solution is expensive."

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"The product is cheaply priced."

"Nagios Core is free to use."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is quite expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

11%

Energy/Utilities Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios Core?

What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?

Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nagios Core?

The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.

See all answers

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Compared 5% of the time

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NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

June 2025

Download Nagios Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

July 2025

Download NETSCOUT vSTREAM product report

Also Known As

No data available

vSTREAM

Overview

This is IT infrastructure monitoring's industry-standard, open-source core. Free without professional support services.

Nagios

The vSTREAM virtual appliance complements existing Adaptive Session Intelligence (ASI)-based instrumentation to provide the same level of visibility within virtualized and cloud infrastructures that is already possible in physical environments. The vSTREAM virtual appliance is ideal for monitoring service-critical traffic running within virtualized or cloud infrastructures, either locally on a host or as an aggregation point for multiple hosts. With complete visibility across physical, virtual and cloud networks, the vSTREAM virtual appliance presents real-time views of end-to-end call trace data and network-wide KPIs, to protect the reliability and availability of networks and application services.

NETSCOUT

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

Metropolitan Police Agency, Banpara, PropertyRoom.com

Buyer's Guide

NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core

July 2025

Free Report: NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core

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