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Nagios Core vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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 Network Monitoring Software
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th)
SolarWinds Network Automati...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
92nd
Average Rating
5.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (16th)
 

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 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
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.6%
SolarWinds Network Automation Manager0.4%
Other98.0%
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.
Giulio Valeri - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very complete and mostly easy to manage."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"You should really try Nagios; it will help a lot and I have found that it is the best buddy for system admins."
"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."
"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."
"We can get real time statistics of our servers which improves our monitoring."
"The installation is easy."
"The solution offers so many great resources, it makes them a powerhouse in the market."
"The solution offers so many great resources, it makes them a powerhouse in the market."
"We are satisfied with the stability of the solution."
 

Cons

"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."
"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."
"Default interface is clunky and slow."
"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."
"Generally, it does what I need it to do, but better error reporting would be great."
"Nagios Core would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"We did not like SolarWinds because it was not able to communicate between UPSA and our accounting system. They should have better integration."
"The price could be a bit lower."
"The price could be a bit lower."
"We now use ConnectWise because while using SolarWinds we were attacked by ransomware. The solution did not protect us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's free."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"We are using the free version."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"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
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
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...
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Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds NAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Maalem Financing Company, School City of Hammond
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.