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Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

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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
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (15th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 6.3%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.0%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.0%
Nagios XI6.3%
Other90.7%
Server Monitoring
 

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.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility
From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The overall performance of the product is superb."
"Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried."
"Our infrastructure is now under monitoring proactively and we don't have to wait for complaints from the customers or internal operation team to inform regarding any issue with the service."
"It has a wide variety of plugins in existence, but when there's no plugin available it is quite simple to integrate one's own programs and scripts."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"All of them, but mainly: Highly-efficient server performance monitoring engine Configuration wizards Infrastructure management Configuration snapshot."
"I would recommend this solution because it's so powerful with no limitation, especially when using the XI version."
"The Script Module in Nagios is really easy to use and is really cost efficient."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"The OOTB (Out of the Box) implementation does have very good node specific pages and can provide a wealth of information."
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"The recommendations are a life saver."
 

Cons

"WebUI should be improved (visual aspect) and should incorporate non-relational databases."
"It is really difficult to integrate Nagios XI with another system to generate logs and alert our management of failures in security infrastructure."
"The important separation between Interface and Core to maintain historical plugins and methods generate complexity that makes Nagios unusable for repeat work."
"There's room for improvement in the visibility, and in the ability to extract information. Stuff like this should be more simple."
"Reporting items needs more improvement and need to be more flexible based on customer needs."
"I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it."
"We are implementing our hybrid cloud strategy, and it will most likely not be suitable for monitoring our public cloud assets."
"The product's stability could be even better."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"PerfStack can be made more effective."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"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."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"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."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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."
"The price is too high."
"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
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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
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing 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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

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 needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
 

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 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.