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Nagios Core vs Observer GigaStor 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

Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th)
Observer GigaStor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
88th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (15th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Observer GigaStor is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.3%
Observer GigaStor0.5%
Other98.2%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

HY
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
Monitoring solution provides comprehensive visibility across IT infrastructure
The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything. Everything in the IT domain, you can monitor anything. You can even monitor printers, the ports of printers, Core workstations, and storage. You can monitor the workflow Core and the utilization of computes. If you want to grasp everything of your IT equipment on a single interface, you can use Nagios. It's the best one. It provides dashboards, and you can also configure your emails and alerts with it. If something is critical, you can configure it to notify via emails. It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.
Jeroen-Dubbelman - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Bitrate
Aids significantly in the threat-hunting process and provides a score-based evaluation of user experience
There are many valuable features, but understanding end-user response times stands out. It provides a score-based evaluation of user experience, helping customers quickly pinpoint whether issues originate from the network, server, client, or application. Additionally, it facilitates in-depth analysis of application dependencies. The retrospective network analysis capability of Observer GigaStor has been beneficial. It's a pivotal feature for network performance solutions. However, I prefer to consider the entire solution suite - GigaStor, along with GigaFlow and Apex - for comprehensive network visibility and monitoring. So, I prefer to integrate all three solutions to provide the best visibility. They complement each other well, with Apex aggregating and correlating data from both GigaStor and GigaFlow to enhance environmental understanding and troubleshooting efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is probably the greatest advantage of Nagios - it can be customized to a degree to suit your monitoring needs."
"The solution is quite efficient."
"Nagios Core is a great tool for monitoring the infrastructure including MSM queues, and when we use the agent, we can add other things as well."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"Other products are good but from the configuration point of view Nagios is really very lightweight. The price is really good in my opinion. Another important thing is that my Nagios engine still works with Dual core 8GB ram for the last 10 years."
"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"The features of Nagios Core that we find most valuable are the plugins we use, we can check the uptime and see how many servers and routers and create groups accordingly."
"Enables us to go back in time to capture an issue and analyze it for a solution, and this after the fact analysis is key to overcoming the bump in the night issues."
"I have no regrets using this product, I am very satisfied for what I paid for it and for the things I am able to do with the product."
"Industry-leading line rates, packet-capture technology and data-mining capabilities are the most valuable features."
"If you have the opportunity, I would strongly encourage you to get it, because it makes the IT experience easier and more flexible, by providing the ability to see things in your networks like the directory packet label."
"There are many valuable features, but understanding end-user response times stands out. It provides a score-based evaluation of user experience, helping customers quickly pinpoint whether issues originate from the network, server, client, or application. Additionally, it facilitates in-depth analysis of application dependencies."
"This solution allows us to see exactly what is going on in the network and we can very quickly solve issues with users."
"Go take a look at it. It's a great product and has great capabilities."
"It can help to write your rules, organize firewalls, your block, and also your protocols and IP address to come in or out of your network."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"The configuration and reporting modules need to be improved."
"Application level monitoring is limited."
"Nagios' great customizability is also one of its greatest drawback."
"Setup is bit complicated due to the large set of libraries it needs, but this may be because it's open source."
"I like to have the option to configure Nagios using the web interface."
"The tool needs to improve the integrations."
"It would be nice if it was hosted in cloud. Also, they need to improve the graphs."
"GigaStor feeds into Apex. So, the area where there could be improvement would be in artificial intelligence. For example, the incorporation of more advanced machine learning or AI capabilities could enhance its functionality."
"The interface is pretty complex, so for the average user, it takes a while to get up to speed with it. I would like it to be more user-friendly."
"Graphics need improvement. Because a lot of the information there you have to input first in some case to have full potential. It could be more automated."
"The Observer Console UI is consistent and stable, but could use some updating to be more modern."
"I would like to have more than 4TB of storage available in the portable version of this solution."
"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."
"Maybe the graphical user interface could be simplified to allow people to use it more easily. It's already good, but they can work more on it to make it even easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's free."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"It's free."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"It depends on the requirements you have. There are three types of license. There's the updates license, the work group license, and the workstation license."
"It's quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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.
What is your primary use case for Nagios Core?
I was a senior system administrator. I've been using Nagios Core for more than ten years now. It can be used to monitor hosts, such as machines, and monitor services of any kind. I'm using it to mo...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Cisco Systems, Hawaiian Telecom, Renown Health, State of Nevada, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Allstate Insurance, Jack Henry & Associates, United States Airforce, US Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Chicago Board Options Exchange
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. Observer GigaStor and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.