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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.
ASM Naushad Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes
We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to set up templates and groups of checks, as well as customize the checks themselves."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its simplicity."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"An excellent solution that is easy and intuitive to implement."
"We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful."
"Nagios XI is stable."
"Nagios allows us to configure any device so that we can send pager alerts when people don't have access to emails. It also allows us to schedule downtime and maintenance."
"Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools."
"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."
"The product is simple to implement."
"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."
"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze. When I need to create an IPS rule, I need to check the traffic deeply to get more insights about the actual traffic, what's the name of certain flags, etc., and I'm able to do all that through Wireshark. The tool is also user-friendly."
"It has good basic features."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."
"It can send messages to our ticketing system."
"We value the auto-host discovery, template import, bulk import/export features. Newer versions also add nice features, such as multi-IP per host."
"It's one of the best products available."
"In terms of customization and integration, we have more flexibility. We can automate configurations, define deletion rules, and customize based on the needs. The client interface allows for further configuration, making it quite comprehensive."
"The most valuable features of Zabbix are flexibility and a single interface for different types of monitoring."
"The initial setup was not complex."
"The level of discovery-based configuration that lets us auto-configure the monitoring for various systems is a valuable feature."
"The solution's design has recently changed and it is visually pleasing with more color, for example, there is blue, black, and white."
 

Cons

"The technical support is variable - sometimes I get answers, but most of my tickets go unanswered."
"The product could be optimized to improve the administrative user experience via the Nagios Core Configuration (NCC) GUI module."
"It is really difficult to integrate Nagios XI with another system to generate logs and alert our management of failures in security infrastructure."
"The scalability of Nagios XI is scalable. However, it is not easy to do."
"Nagios XI can improve its GUI for users with a new look."
"The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic, and maybe having a GraphQL interface would resolve this."
"From an alerting point of view, some graphics and metrics don't work properly with Nagios XI as they do with Checkmk."
"The tool's AI model needs to be fixed."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."
"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."
"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."
"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated."
"I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds."
"Outside of the normal standard monitoring, I would like to extend patching, importing patching, and supporting patching for Windows Servers."
"I have experienced stability issues approximately five or ten times."
"When we have a problem, we have to do a lot of research to solve it."
"Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it."
"Zabbix could improve when it comes to large-scale use cases. Additionally, the inventory could be better when connecting to other solutions, such as ServiceNow. There show to be better integration with other platforms and storage."
"The documentation could be improved."
"The documentation gets a bit messy between versions and is not too detailed, which is a bit painful for first-timers, especially when they run into issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nagios XI is open source."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"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."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"The tool is free."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"Zabbix and Grafana are both open source products, we only needed to go to their website and download the application and we began to use them. The solutions are free."
"There is no license but we need to pay for support."
"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."
"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."
"If you have 20,000 hosts, the support costs around €95,000 for a year."
"I use the tool's free version."
"We are using the free, open-source version."
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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
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 needs improvement with Zabbix?
For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The on...
 

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: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.