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Nagios Core vs SolarWinds AppOptics 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)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
62nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (56th), Cloud Monitoring Software (44th)
 

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 SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.6%
SolarWinds AppOptics0.8%
Other97.6%
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.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten."
"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."
"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 good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything."
"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."
"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."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"AppNeta provides a range of products, all based around intelligent network testing algorithms."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"SolarWinds AppOptics does far more than what an individual may realize; it is not just a SIEM tool."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"It's a solid application."
 

Cons

"The dashboard should be improved."
"It is a bit slow due to latency."
"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."
"Default interface is clunky and slow."
"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."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
"The initial setup was complex, mainly because it was in Linux and had many packages that we're not used to."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"Does not perform traditional SNMP/CLI/NetFlow/WMI etc monitoring."
"Because of its inability to monitor mobile solutions, I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"I'd like to see the ability to use other internal instrumented applications as filters in the overview/aggregation screen."
"The support is not too bad, but also not very good—it's quite standard."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's free."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"The solution is expensive."
"We are using the free version."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"It's free."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"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."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

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
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.