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Nagios XI vs PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Nagios XI enhances efficiency and time management but concerns about increased costs affect ROI perception across organizations.
Sentiment score
6.9
PRTG Network Monitor boosts ROI by enhancing time efficiency, reducing staff needs, preventing failures, and offering cost-effective management.
Sentiment score
7.2
SolarWinds NPM enhances infrastructure visibility, delivering cost reductions, faster issue resolution, and significant ROI through optimized resource management.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Nagios XI support is mixed; praised for responsiveness but criticized for high cost, complex licensing, and delayed responses.
Sentiment score
6.9
Users appreciate PRTG's intuitive design, often resolving issues via resources, despite email-only support and mixed service feedback.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM support gets mixed reviews, praised for expertise yet noted for delays and aggressive sales tactics.
The setup process is well-documented, making it easy to deploy.
Tutorials are available so I can manage any issue with PRTG Network Monitor easily.
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
They have good technical support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Nagios XI is scalable for small to medium environments but faces challenges in large infrastructures and cloud adaptability.
Sentiment score
7.3
PRTG Network Monitor is highly scalable, allowing seamless expansion with added sensors or licenses, despite potential hardware limitations.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM is scalable, adapts well to infrastructures, but may face performance and cost issues on virtual platforms.
If the user interface isn’t presenting data well, it becomes difficult to manage when scaling.
On a scale of one to ten, scalability is rated as 9.5.
You can install them in each network, even if they are not connected, and it works.
PRTG Network Monitor has the ability to scale and add new devices.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Nagios XI is stable, but large deployments may experience performance issues, database problems, and minor network dependencies.
Sentiment score
7.9
PRTG Network Monitor is praised for its stability and reliability, with issues often due to user errors or limits.
Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is stable with issues from server limits and bugs, resolved through updates and proper configuration.
It is very stable.
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
 

Room For Improvement

Nagios XI's interface is outdated, lacks scalability, needs better cloud integration, APIs, automation, and improved documentation.
PRTG users seek enhancements in dashboards, cloud integration, application speed, support, reporting, pricing, and sensor expansion.
SolarWinds NPM users report issues with network discovery, UI features, costs, automation, support, and security improvements are needed.
Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic.
PRTG Network Monitor can sometimes be too detailed and cluttered at the beginning, making it heavy to use.
They need to improve application performance monitoring, error tracing mechanisms, and log management.
PRTG Network Monitor should provide syslog monitoring since it is not available at this time.
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Features such as taking backup of the devices or configurations of the devices can be included in further versions of SolarWinds NPM.
 

Setup Cost

Nagios XI provides cost-efficient enterprise-level monitoring with reasonable pricing, appreciated for its features and open-source options.
PRTG Network Monitor provides flexible, cost-effective licensing for enterprises, appealing for intuitive setup and competitive pricing against other solutions.
SolarWinds NPM pricing varies by setup size, with initial costs, tiered licensing, and maintenance fees influencing total expenses.
We are using the free, open-source version.
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions.
It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
Pricing is by the number of devices, not by sensor.
The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor.
PRTG's package offers all features in one bundle, which is cost-effective.
The solution is considered expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Nagios XI provides customizable, flexible, and scalable IT infrastructure monitoring with real-time alerts and extensive plugin support.
PRTG Network Monitor is praised for its scalability, user-friendly interface, real-time monitoring, and seamless integration across various technologies.
SolarWinds NPM offers ease of deployment, real-time monitoring, customizable alerts, and user-friendly design for efficient network management.
Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.
The alerting system is very effective.
PRTG Network Monitor already provided me with 100 free sensors, which is enough for my network monitoring.
PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational.
It is advantageous because it can be deployed on-premises.
It provides a detailed overview of the network, which is valuable.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.1%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Amir  Said - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective alerting enhances network monitoring experience with an easy setup
We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful. JPS monitors the modem and performs switching, monitoring the computer, and performing switching. We implement some applications and traffic monitoring. The alerting system is very effective. For instance, if we have an alarm on some RAM storage if the traffic is cut or dropped.
Noman-Saleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting
We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios XI?
It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it a...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools ar...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalabil...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.