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Nagios Core vs Observer GigaStor 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

Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (12th)
Observer GigaStor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
84th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (14th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.5%, down from 2.8% 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 Core1.5%
Observer GigaStor0.5%
Other98.0%
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

"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 sends alerts to the right people which ensures there is no delay in the correct person or team looking into issues, and it has helped to reduce downtime in the production environment to almost zero so we now spend less time on network or server administration."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"The notifications are definitely one of the most valuable features of Nagios Core. We know what to look for and what to expect when things are down."
"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."
"We have used this product now for quite some time and we are happy with it."
"The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
"Go take a look at it. It's a great product and has great capabilities."
"It's able to capture packets and, after a long time, you can come and use that information; to check, to analyze - everything you would want to do. So it's very good and helpful if you want to protect your data. It is stored in a certain place where you can access it every time you want to analyze it."
"I also have the ability to see an application's performance, to see what's going on, why a network is slow, why this program for this user is experiencing a delay or some network issue"
"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."
"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."
"This solution allows us to see exactly what is going on in the network and we can very quickly solve issues with users."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"I like to have the option to configure Nagios using the web interface."
"It is a bit slow due to latency."
"The dashboard should be improved."
"We use the free version of Nagios, which needs some administrative skills in order to configure correctly."
"The tool needs to improve the integrations."
"I would like to see a much better Nagios Manager GUI that can support all type of configuration items, and advance search options."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"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 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."
"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 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."
"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."
"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"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."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"It's quite expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.