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Nagios XI vs Wireshark vs Zabbix 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Network Troubleshooting
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.
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues
There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.
B Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity
I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Nagios XI is stable."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"The most valuable feature is its support for different types of devices, where it can use all of the equipment that you need."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard, where I can have a single screen that provides a summary for hundreds of servers."
"An excellent solution that is easy and intuitive to implement."
"Though I downplayed the administrative NCC GUI, this is by far the strongest aspect of the Nagios XI product."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of processes."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."
"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers."
"It has good basic features."
"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."
"The solution allows for good integration with other products."
"I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients."
"The most valuable feature is the support for monitoring Cisco switches."
"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."
"Zabbix helps to save time."
"Health and communication links availability."
"The pricing of the product is reasonable."
"The solution is quite mature and very stable."
 

Cons

"The Configuration Wizard needs improvement, because not all vendors are present."
"The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic, and maybe having a GraphQL interface would resolve this."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
"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. But in the end, you learn to live with it."
"The scalability of Nagios XI is scalable. However, it is not easy to do."
"From an alerting point of view, some graphics and metrics don't work properly with Nagios XI as they do with Checkmk."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"The technical support is variable - sometimes I get answers, but most of my tickets go unanswered."
"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."
"The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."
"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."
"I would like to see Wireshark improve the ease of application of the command. The command is very powerful, but not easy to apply."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds."
"I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly."
"We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."
"The solution needs to add remote features."
"The product delivers false positives during reporting because of flapping. Other reasonably priced alternatives may have better performance."
"In terms of user-friendliness, large maps could be more interactive. We should be able to click on some areas and move some objects. It would make it simpler to see things while analyzing some dedicated parameters."
"The GUI could be more intuitive. Also, we'd like streaming telemetry. Zabbix might have this feature, but I haven't seen it yet. It took us a long time to get started because the documentation isn't very descriptive. We had to go through various sources like YouTube and forums to get this solution working."
"One of the things we don't like is that Zabbix has a license structure with a price that is high compared to the competition. It's very high, for example, compared to something like Microsoft Teams."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"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."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"I've never personally had to pay for it, making it a highly valuable internet resource that's accessible for use. While they offer some paid versions, our firm has utilized the free version for the past three years."
"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."
"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."
"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."
"The product is an open source and free solution."
"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."
"There are no licenses."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
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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%
University
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might ...
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due...
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Datadog, Auvik and others in IT Infrastructure Monitoring. Updated: July 2025.
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