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Nagios XI 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 XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (12th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd)
SolarWinds Network Device M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
27th
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 March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 2.4%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios XI2.4%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor1.0%
Other96.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emmanuel Appiah Boateng - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simplifies setup and requires user interface enhancement
Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried. Typically, setting up a monitoring system on Linux involves cloning files from GitHub, building it, and installing many dependencies, but with Nagios XI, it wasn't like that. Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.
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

"The most valuable features of Nagios XI are you can customize it based on your use case and requirements. It is flexible and easy to integrate with our systems. You can customize the solution by adding additional features using code."
"The ability to set up templates and groups of checks, as well as customize the checks themselves."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"Nagios XI is a simple monitoring tool with performance management and everything a standard monitoring tool provides."
"It's great for monitoring IT services infrastructure."
"I can monitor a software made in-house to software of bigger companies."
"Nagios XI helps us monitor the bandwidth of the internet connection, HTTP, DNS, active directory services, and exchange data availability. We have multiple servers to monitor databases, availability of servers, and ping."
"The solution has a lot of plugins and scripts integrated with it."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it shows you the utilization of devices to allow you to take proactive action before something goes down or reaches the saturation point. You can take proactive action to fix the problem before it occurs."
"The alerts we are getting when we start losing connection access have been helpful."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it can alert you when a device is not working."
"SolarWinds is flexible and works with multiple vendor devices."
"This product proactively tells us about issues before the users notice."
"You can create an attractive dashboard and create a hierarchy."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is the best solution for closely monitoring how the link is performing when compared to ManageEngine OpManager."
"The product is useful for switches and IP phones."
 

Cons

"The NCC does have issues where it locks up or an admin cannot be sure if the system configuration was exact."
"The reporting part should be made simpler. While we can obtain all the reports we need, we always have to create work-arounds to get them."
"The PNP4Nagios plugin not working easily with XI is an issue for me, because some open source monitoring plugins do not work out of the box."
"It's in need of more standard plug-ins."
"Nagios provides most of the features by default, however to add more services to it, it requires additional plugins which require little effort on administrative end."
"There are stability issues if you have a large number of hosts and services."
"If you are monitoring network devices, often it's not scaled for large corporations. Definitely, a minus in that area."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"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."
"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."
"The initial setup of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could be easier. It took us approximately one month to complete the implementation."
"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."
"Integration with different tools, such as ServiceNow and Excel, can be improved."
"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."
"Technical support needs to respond to its customers faster. We are not 100% satisfied with the level of support we get."
"The solution should have AI-powered issue-resolving capabilities"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"For our country in North Africa, it's expensive and we could purchase another solution for that price. But it's a reasonable price if we're speaking in international terms."
"For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"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."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

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 your primary use case for Nagios XI?
I normally use Nagios XI for our servers. It's not particularly used for network equipment, however, I use it for monitoring our server performance, including CPU, memory, data, and services runnin...
What do you like most about SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I rate the product's initial setup process a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a difficult phase and ten is an easy process.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Network Device Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Air Rarotonga
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios XI vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.