Nagios Core vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager comparison

Nagios and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Nagios is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7, while SolarWinds is ranked #95. Nagios holds a 1.9% mindshare in NMS, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Nagios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

5,494 Views
4,505 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Network Automati...

Read 2 SolarWinds Network Automation Manager reviews

1,132 Views
657 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

SolarWinds Network Automati...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Nagios Core and SolarWinds Network Automation Manager are solutions in the network monitoring and automation category. SolarWinds holds the upper hand with its superior features, despite potentially higher costs.

Features: Nagios Core offers strong open-source monitoring capabilities, customizable alerts, and an extensive plugin library allowing flexibility. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager provides advanced automation tools, comprehensive reporting, and integration capabilities, delivering a robust enterprise solution.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Core could improve by simplifying its manual configuration process, enhancing community support, and streamlining its deployment for complex environments. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager would benefit from reducing its higher pricing structure, increasing support for non-enterprise settings, and improving scalability for smaller organizations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nagios Core offers a flexible deployment model requiring technical expertise for setups, supported by its community. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager provides a streamlined deployment process with professional assistance, ensuring smoother customer service and thorough onboarding thanks to detailed documentation.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core is a cost-effective solution due to its open-source nature with low initial setup costs, suitable for budget-conscious projects. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager involves higher upfront investments but justifies these with its comprehensive features and the potential for greater ROI in large-scale environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

March 2026

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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 Network Monitoring Software

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th)

SolarWinds Network Automati...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

95th

Average Rating

5.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Automation (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.9%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Nagios Core	1.9%
SolarWinds Network Automation Manager	0.4%
Other	97.7%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Husham Yaqoob

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.

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Giulio Valeri

Owner at SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS SRL

Threat detection failures, poor technical support, and expensive

We use the solution to manage all of our customer's systems. We monitor and decide if everything is okay and if not, we do changes when needed. For example, if there is a need to change the antivirus software we can automate the process and install the new one. There are scripts within the software…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Provides timely notifications."

"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."

"Extensibility is good as this makes it easy to write checks on your own."

"We've got a medium size distributed system with a lot of locally installed machines, and Nagios provides us with a solid and reliable monitoring solution for these machines."

"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 would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten."

"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."

"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."

More Nagios Core pros

"We are satisfied with the stability of the solution."

"The installation is easy."

"The solution offers so many great resources, it makes them a powerhouse in the market."

Cons

"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do."

"A better UI for graphing would make it better. The present graphs are not very friendly and good to see."

"They should simplify the features so it becomes easier to setup out of the box."

"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."

"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."

"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."

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

"The mapping is a little hard."

More Nagios Core cons

"The price could be a bit lower."

"We did not like SolarWinds because it was not able to communicate between UPSA and our accounting system. They should have better integration."

"We now use ConnectWise because while using SolarWinds we were attacked by ransomware. The solution did not protect us."

"The price could be a bit lower."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"It's free."

"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."

"We are using the free version."

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

"Most the plugin features are free."

"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."

"The product is cheaply priced."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"The price of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is fair. However, it is more expensive than ConnectWise."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Performing Arts

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	23

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.

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

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...

See all answers

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Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

Icinga vs Nagios Core

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs Nagios Core

Compared 5% of the time

Centreon vs Nagios Core

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 5% of the time

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NetBrain vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 35% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 9% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco DNA Center vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

March 2026

Download Nagios Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Network Automation

March 2026

SolarWinds Network Automation Manager report

Download SolarWinds Network Automation Manager product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds NAM

Overview

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

Nagios

Scale environments from 1,000 to tens of thousands of nodes with comprehensive performance, traffic, WAN, and switch port monitoring, automated change and configuration management, and IP address management in an integrated network automation software solution.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

Maalem Financing Company, School City of Hammond

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

March 2026

Free Report: Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

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