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Nagios Core vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor 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
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (12th)
SolarWinds Network Device M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
31st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.5%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.5%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.9%
Other97.6%
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.
SG
IT Infrastructure Senior Network Technician at Autoliv
Offers some features but needs better customization and analysis tools
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for improvement. The features are not as customizable as we would prefer, but they are workable. If configured properly, you can perform a drill-down analysis. However, I have not used this feature much for our infrastructure on the network side.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reliability Security Flexibility Functionality Availability - controllability anywhere and with different methods"
"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."
"Inspite of this limitation it is a fantastic product to use at zero cost"
"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable, and we primarily use it for user experience monitoring and determining which layer the problem happened to resolve it."
"Nagios doesn't get the respect it deserves; most likely due to the fact that it doesn't have a licensing cost."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."
"The poller is really good, I can easily implement new stuff and it is scalable."
"The solution and its interface are elaborate and fully integrate all monitored items for easy analysis and troubleshooting."
"Overall, I rate SolarWinds Network Device Monitor ten out of ten."
"Link monitoring is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"Overall, it is a good user experience and the dashboards are very usable."
"We are doing more with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor than we were doing in the past with WhatsApp Gold; when we moved to SolarWinds Network Device Monitor, the whole observability part started to grow."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is monitoring."
"There are vital features of auto-plugin core ports"
"The alerting functionality in SolarWinds Network Device Monitor helps us stay informed during off-hours by sending alerts if our main links or devices are impacted, allowing us to quickly address any issues."
 

Cons

"Nagios Core would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."
"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."
"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."
"Application level monitoring is limited."
"I would like to see a much better Nagios Manager GUI that can support all type of configuration items, and advance search options."
"A better UI for graphing would make it better. The present graphs are not very friendly and good to see."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."
"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."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it. It is not simple to customize."
"Although I haven't explored all of the features available, I wouldn't mind if the software were made to be a bit more customizable."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve the features. We don't have the complete model for the database, and the monitoring for the database is up and down. We expect that we could monitor the blocking items on the database but we don't have that feature."
"There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution."
"The initial setup of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could be easier. It took us approximately one month to complete the implementation."
"In terms of price, it could be less expensive."
"The main disadvantage of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is the licensing cost, which is expensive."
"The solution lacks in performance monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
"I rate the product's price as three to three and a half or on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means high price."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

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 SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I am not a positive person regarding SolarWinds Network Device Monitor.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for impro...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I have experience regarding the AD part, but my focus for the last 15 years has been oriented to the network side. My experience with identity tools comes more from a network perspective. We used N...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Network Device Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Air Rarotonga
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.