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Nagios Core vs Riverbed NPM+ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th)
Riverbed NPM+
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
40th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.6%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Riverbed NPM+ 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 Core1.6%
Riverbed NPM+0.5%
Other97.9%
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.
SK
Senior Technical Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Provides deep packet visibility for tracing failed transactions and helps improve enterprise-level monitoring
Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution. Additionally, within Riverbed Portal, there is an Application Map module that could be improved. It can show the application's architecture and connectivity to the network. The applications map feature needs enhancements for better customization since currently, it is quite limited. The enhancements I recommend are not for the entire Riverbed product suite, but specifically for the application map feature within the Portal of Riverbed NPM+. This Portal is one of the dashboard modules and while there is potential for improvement, it must be enhanced significantly to provide better functionality. Currently, you cannot trace by transaction number alone; knowing the source and destination IP is necessary. For instance, if I transfer money and a transaction fails, tracing that transaction ID is not captured in AppResponse. I have raised this concern, and if this feature is implemented, it would greatly benefit banking customers, especially because it is not available with their competitors either.

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."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"Nagios allows IT staff and end-users to see the status of critical services on the network and can alert and notify selected users if critical services fail, reducing the mean time to recover."
"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."
"The poller is really good, I can easily implement new stuff and it is scalable."
"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."
"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."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Alluvio Network Performance Management is good for troubleshooting."
 

Cons

"It is a bit slow due to latency."
"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."
"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"The mapping is a little hard."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"This solution is not scalable at all. If you want to add an AI, or if you wanted to monitor different types of metrics, you won't get the most out of it."
"This is the open source product, so it's a toolkit rather than a complete solution."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution."
"Currently, you cannot trace by transaction number alone; knowing the source and destination IP is necessary."
"Alluvio Network Performance Management is good for troubleshooting."
"Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution."
"Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free version."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"The solution is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is high and I would rate it one out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
9%
Retailer
8%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alluvio Network Performance Management?
The pricing of Riverbed NPM+ is indeed high, particularly as I work with enterprises in the banking sector primarily in India and the Middle East, and I have also interacted with clients in Europe....
What needs improvement with Alluvio Network Performance Management?
Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution. Additionally, within Riverbed Portal, there is an Ap...
What is your primary use case for Alluvio Network Performance Management?
Riverbed NPM+ has many primary use cases, making this NPM solution totally different from other tools like SolarWinds. They have a solution called AppResponse, which is not an agent-based solution ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Alluvio Network Performance Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. Riverbed NPM+ and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.