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Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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 Server Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (23rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 6.4%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.7%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nagios XI6.4%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.7%
Other90.9%
Server Monitoring
 

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.
VIVEK PATHAK - PeerSpot reviewer
Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring
My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

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 feature is the monitoring of processes."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"The features I've found the most useful are the plug-ins, the fact that you can connect almost everything to it. That's very useful."
"You want to monitor a specific metric that nobody else has? You can do it even with the most basic of scripting skills, and you can always share it with the vast community of Nagios Exchange."
"The solution has a lot of plugins and scripts integrated with it."
"Nagios is stable and it's easy to use the monitoring software, which is why we chose this product."
"It's great for monitoring IT services infrastructure."
"I can monitor a phone on a desk to very big servers of any company."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
 

Cons

"From an alerting point of view, some graphics and metrics don't work properly with Nagios XI as they do with Checkmk."
"I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"The GUI could be improved."
"Nagios XI can improve its GUI for users with a new look."
"The tool's AI model needs to be fixed."
"I would like a much easier GUI so that I can delete events and logs, which will free up a lot of space."
"We often need to develop custom plugins to get Nagios to work the way we want it to work because the features we need are not always available in Nagios."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"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."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"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."
"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
"The product is expensive."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The price is too high."
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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
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise20
 

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 needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios XI vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.