Nagios Core vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

Nagios and SolarWinds are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Nagios is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3, while SolarWinds is ranked #58. Nagios holds a 3.1% mindshare in IM, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Nagios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

3,994 Views
3,435 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

1,069 Views
492 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

SolarWinds AppOptics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Nagios Core and SolarWinds AppOptics are two contrasting monitoring solutions in the IT monitoring and management category. Nagios Core holds the upper hand for users who value flexibility, customization options, and cost-effectiveness, especially within technical environments. SolarWinds AppOptics is favored by those who prioritize ease of use, integration capabilities, and extensive feature sets.

Features: Nagios Core provides flexibility with extensive customizability and a vast plugin ecosystem, as well as robust monitoring and alerting features. SolarWinds AppOptics offers application performance management, topology discovery, and real-time reporting on a more user-friendly platform.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Core faces challenges with complex setups, a steep learning curve, and limited reporting capabilities without customization. SolarWinds AppOptics could enhance cloud integration, consolidate its application stack, and better tailor its licensing model.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nagios Core, mainly used in on-premises deployments, relies on community guidance due to its open-source nature and lacks official support. SolarWinds AppOptics provides flexible deployment options with vendor support, suitable for users seeking direct assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core's open-source model allows cost savings, with users investing mostly in setup and maintenance. SolarWinds AppOptics involves licensing fees based on elements, and many users find the investment justified by the comprehensive features and support for larger environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds AppOptics Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

September 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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (12th)

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

58th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (57th), Cloud Monitoring Software (44th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.1%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nagios Core	3.1%
SolarWinds AppOptics	0.5%
Other	96.4%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

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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John Yuko

Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd

Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions

I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"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."

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

"Provides timely notifications."

"We use the product to monitor server applications."

"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."

"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."

"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."

More Nagios Core pros

"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."

"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

"The product has a great dashboard."

Cons

"The initial setup process could be easier."

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

"It is a bit slow due to latency."

"I would like to see more training videos."

"The core version is no match for the XI version."

"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."

"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."

"There is room for improvement in the graphics."

More Nagios Core cons

"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."

"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."

"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."

"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."

"It's free."

"Nagios Core is free to use."

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."

"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."

"The product is cheaply priced."

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"Most the plugin features are free."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."

"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Comms Service Provider

Government

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	22

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

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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Comparisons

Icinga vs Nagios Core

Compared 20% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 14% of the time

Zabbix vs Nagios Core

Compared 12% of the time

Centreon vs Nagios Core

Compared 7% of the time

Checkmk vs Nagios Core

Compared 6% of the time

More Nagios Core Competitors

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 25% of the time

New Relic vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 22% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 11% of the time

DX Performance Management vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Instana Observability vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 8% of the time

More SolarWinds AppOptics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

September 2025

Download Nagios Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

September 2025

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Also Known As

No data available

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

Overview

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

Nagios

AppOptics is a SaaS-based simple, powerful and affordable Infrastructure & Application monitoring for custom on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems.

Your business runs on applications, and when they go down or run slowly, it can impact the business in lost productivity, customers, or revenue. To add to the complexity, your IT environment is changing, and workloads can be spread across data centers, and cloud resources. You need to monitor the availability and performance of applications and infrastructure, regardless of where they are, so you can identify potential issues early and address them before they impact users

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

September 2025

Free Report: Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

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