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Nagios Core vs Power Admin PA Server Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (19th)
Power Admin PA Server Monitor
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
73rd
Average Rating
6.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (32nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Power Admin PA Server Monitor is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.6%
Power Admin PA Server Monitor0.5%
Other97.9%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

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.
it_user225771 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Network Engineer at a engineering company with 51-200 employees
The setup is straightforward, but t​he satellite service installation file could be separated from the server one.
* The status overview page provides a state of computers monitored and provides quickly what users need to focus on * The satellite service installed on remote computers is an easy way to add clients, plus it's easy to deploy and to configure * The licence is perpetual and not linked to one computer, so it's possible to remove a licence from one computer and use it on another with no extra cost

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"Inspite of this limitation it is a fantastic product to use at zero cost"
"The scalability of Nagios Core is very good, we can add as many hosts as we like, and we can work with the concept master and client, making it very scalable and easy to use."
"We are using Nagios Core on a VM and it's working very well, even though the specs of the VM are very low because it doesn't require much storage."
"You should really try Nagios; it will help a lot and I have found that it is the best buddy for system admins."
"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."
"The solution is very complete and mostly easy to manage."
"The satellite service installed on remote computers is an easy way to add clients, plus it's easy to deploy and to configure the licence is perpetual and not linked to one computer, so it's possible to remove a licence from one computer and use it on another with no extra cost"
"The possibility to develop your own VB scripts."
 

Cons

"Generally, it does what I need it to do, but better error reporting would be great."
"This is the open source product, so it's a toolkit rather than a complete solution."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"We use the free version of Nagios, which needs some administrative skills in order to configure correctly."
"The core version is no match for the XI version."
"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."
"The satellite service installation file could be separated from the server one. It would reduce the size of the file, and reduce the time to deploy on weak connections."
"Basic monitoring on Unix was working really well but it didn't really help under machines in Windows Domain Controller."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free version."
"It's 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."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"It's free."
"Most the plugin features are free."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise24
No data available
 

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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Also Known As

No data available
PA Server Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Sauder Woodworking, Symantec, Microsoft, Skull Candy, NASA, Xerox, Chevron
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. Power Admin PA Server Monitor and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.