OP5 Monitor vs Observer GigaStor comparison

Viavi Solutions and ITRS are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Viavi Solutions is ranked #86, while ITRS is ranked #39 with an average rating of 9.0. Viavi Solutions holds a 0.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to ITRS’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Viavi Solutions users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ITRS users who would recommend it.

Observer GigaStor

Read 7 Observer GigaStor reviews

1,238 Views
780 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

OP5 Monitor

Read 7 OP5 Monitor reviews

1,753 Views
1,367 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Observer GigaStor

OP5 Monitor

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Observer GigaStor and OP5 Monitor are competitive solutions in network management. OP5 Monitor appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive integration with various IT environments.

Features: Observer GigaStor offers deep packet inspection, intricate network activity details, and strong network visibility with performance insights. OP5 Monitor provides extensive IT infrastructure monitoring, seamless system integration, and detailed performance metrics, offering a wider range of insights for diverse IT environments.

Room for Improvement: Observer GigaStor may enhance user-friendliness, expand its integration capabilities with non-network systems, and reduce setup complexity. OP5 Monitor could improve by providing more specialized network analysis features, enhancing real-time monitoring capabilities, and offering additional customization for diverse network environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Observer GigaStor's deployment requires specialized knowledge, leading to a potentially extended setup time, with strong technical support for its advanced features. OP5 Monitor offers straightforward deployment with its flexible system, easing integration with existing IT frameworks, and customer support that guides comprehensive monitoring configuration.

Pricing and ROI: Observer GigaStor involves significant setup costs due to its specialized nature, delivering value in environments requiring detailed network traffic analysis. OP5 Monitor is a cost-effective solution, balancing initial investment with its comprehensive feature set, offering a significant ROI by adapting to various infrastructures.

To learn more, read our detailed OP5 Monitor vs. Observer GigaStor Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

OP5 Monitor vs. Observer GigaStor

March 2026

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Helped 885,376 peers since 2012

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

Observer GigaStor

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

86th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (14th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (9th)

OP5 Monitor

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

39th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (38th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Observer GigaStor is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OP5 Monitor is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
OP5 Monitor	0.6%
Observer GigaStor	0.4%
Other	99.0%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Jeroen-Dubbelman

Director at Bitrate

Aids significantly in the threat-hunting process and provides a score-based evaluation of user experience

There are many valuable features, but understanding end-user response times stands out. It provides a score-based evaluation of user experience, helping customers quickly pinpoint whether issues originate from the network, server, client, or application. Additionally, it facilitates in-depth analysis of application dependencies. The retrospective network analysis capability of Observer GigaStor has been beneficial. It's a pivotal feature for network performance solutions. However, I prefer to consider the entire solution suite - GigaStor, along with GigaFlow and Apex - for comprehensive network visibility and monitoring. So, I prefer to integrate all three solutions to provide the best visibility. They complement each other well, with Apex aggregating and correlating data from both GigaStor and GigaFlow to enhance environmental understanding and troubleshooting efficiency.

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Sumanth Arshanapally

Senior Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Monitoring ease and cost-saving benefits enhance operational efficiency

The monitoring in OP5 Monitor is very easy because we can directly use custom plugins. We can write custom scripts and use those scripts directly. It's very low cost, open, and the dashboards are easy to see. We can extract the reports easily, and this is very easy to compare. Real-time monitoring in OP5 Monitor provides data every one minute or every five minutes, enabling us to get live data from the last one minute or last five minutes. OP5 Monitor gave us proper server availability, so we can always check whether a server goes down or the server CPU and memory decreases. Before reaching a particular bottleneck situation, we identified and fixed the issue, which helped us from a cost-saving business perspective. It helped us avoid application downtime.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It can help to write your rules, organize firewalls, your block, and also your protocols and IP address to come in or out of your network."

"Go take a look at it. It's a great product and has great capabilities."

"If you have the opportunity, I would strongly encourage you to get it, because it makes the IT experience easier and more flexible, by providing the ability to see things in your networks like the directory packet label."

"This solution allows us to see exactly what is going on in the network and we can very quickly solve issues with users."

"Enables us to go back in time to capture an issue and analyze it for a solution, and this after the fact analysis is key to overcoming the bump in the night issues."

"It's able to capture packets and, after a long time, you can come and use that information; to check, to analyze - everything you would want to do. So it's very good and helpful if you want to protect your data. It is stored in a certain place where you can access it every time you want to analyze it."

"I have no regrets using this product, I am very satisfied for what I paid for it and for the things I am able to do with the product."

"This solution allows us to see exactly what is going on in the network and we can very quickly solve issues with users."

More Observer GigaStor pros

"The best feature is that it is very relatable, stable, and scalable. The logger is a part of the software, but it's not the most important point of it."

"OP5 Monitor is a great choice due to its being built on an open-source monitoring tool and provides ample opportunity for customization based on specific support requirements. It is also user-friendly and easy to manage with a wide range of plugins available for use. In comparison to other enterprise tools, such as Micro Focus, OP5 Monitor stands out for its features and cost-effectiveness, making it the best tool in the market. Customization is one of the key strengths of the tool and provides a lot of capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to find support and plugins for the tool through online resources."

"It monitors and continuously tests everything that is of importance to you and your users. It could be everything from monitoring disk space to CPU usage to memory. It could include determining if the response time in your e-commerce platform is quick enough, or whether you have too many bounces from some of the pages on your website. You want to monitor anything that could cost you money or time or resources. You can do that with this system. It's very flexible."

"With limited hardware or a virtual machine, you can address a huge network, hundreds of thousands of elements that need to be monitored. Other commercial software is not on that level."

"The best feature is that it is very relatable, stable, and scalable."

"The monitoring in OP5 Monitor is very easy because we can directly use custom plugins; we can write custom scripts and use those scripts directly, it's very low cost, open, and the dashboards are easy to see."

"The API makes it pretty easy to integrate with any system."

"We can also observe whatever we want, and there are no limitations."

More OP5 Monitor pros

Cons

"Graphics need improvement. Because a lot of the information there you have to input first in some case to have full potential. It could be more automated."

"I would like to have more than 4TB of storage available in the portable version of this solution."

"The interface is pretty complex, so for the average user, it takes a while to get up to speed with it. I would like it to be more user-friendly."

"Maybe the graphical user interface could be simplified to allow people to use it more easily."

"The Observer Console UI is consistent and stable, but could use some updating to be more modern."

"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."

"GigaStor feeds into Apex. So, the area where there could be improvement would be in artificial intelligence. For example, the incorporation of more advanced machine learning or AI capabilities could enhance its functionality."

"Maybe the graphical user interface could be simplified to allow people to use it more easily. It's already good, but they can work more on it to make it even easier."

More Observer GigaStor cons

"OP5 lacks some visualization, a feature that makes some other products nice. Op5 is built for purpose, which is fine, but if you compare it with some new products, the visualization is not so appealing, especially for management... If you don't need fancy visualizations, OP5 is fine."

"We do not get performance reports properly."

"The user interface is not what we are used to these days, and should be improved."

"We do not get performance reports properly, which needs improvement."

"OP5 Monitor could include application monitoring in addition to infrastructure monitoring. If application business transactions were monitored, it would be helpful."

"They need to improve the dashboard interface."

"The solution is useful for tweaking. However, there have been some negative experiences, such as limited report capabilities. The only report available is in PDF format, making it difficult for teams managing multiple servers to extract data in Excel format. The speaker recommends that the team improve the report capabilities to better serve users."

More OP5 Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's quite expensive."

"It depends on the requirements you have. There are three types of license. There's the updates license, the work group license, and the workstation license."

"It was not expensive. And because it's less demanding in terms of hardware, you don't have to pay for another SQL or other database license, and you can have a huge installation on one machine..."

"OP5 has a very low price as a solution, compared to many other solutions out there."

"The cost of the license and support are separate. If you want platinum call support, it will cost more than a regular call. I did not opt for it, as it is an additional cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Wholesaler/Distributor

Computer Software Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Observer GigaStor?

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Observer GigaStor?

I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten. It's quite expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Observer GigaStor?

GigaStor feeds into Apex. So, the area where there could be improvement would be in artificial intelligence. For example, the incorporation of more advanced machine learning or AI capabilities coul...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OP5 Monitor?

The price for OP5 Monitor is fine, but we don't know the exact price because it was managed by us; the customer themselves bought it and gave it to us to monitor.

See all answers

What needs improvement with OP5 Monitor?

OP5 Monitor could include application monitoring in addition to infrastructure monitoring. If application business transactions were monitored, it would be helpful. For application-related issues, ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for OP5 Monitor?

Our previous use case for OP5 Monitor was server monitoring.

See all answers

Comparisons

Wireshark vs Observer GigaStor

Compared 14% of the time

Viavi Observer Platform vs Observer GigaStor

Compared 8% of the time

Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline vs Observer GigaStor

Compared 8% of the time

IxChariot vs Observer GigaStor

Compared 7% of the time

NetBeez vs Observer GigaStor

Compared 6% of the time

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Nagios Core vs OP5 Monitor

Compared 12% of the time

Zabbix vs OP5 Monitor

Compared 10% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs OP5 Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Opsview vs OP5 Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs OP5 Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Observer GigaStor

March 2026

Download Observer GigaStor product report

Buyer's Guide

OP5 Monitor

March 2026

Download OP5 Monitor product report

Overview

Observer GigaStor is a network analysis tool that comes in a variety of form factors, including rack mount, portable, and virtual. Capable of storing up to a petabyte of traffic for later analysis, GigaStor helps ensure optimal network and application performance.

Viavi Solutions

OP5 Monitor - The Complete Monitoring Solution

OP5 Monitor is a flexible and highly scalable monitoring solution for all sizes of environments. Use just one product to monitor your IT environment regardless of location, whether on-premise, in dynamic environments, public cloud or a hybrid of these.

Digital transformation adds extra layers and complexity to the IT estate by creating a hybrid IT environment of both static and dynamic environments, that can be difficult to monitor efficiently. ITRS OP5 Monitor gives enterprises full visibility over their entire IT estate through a single pane of glass, allowing them to consolidate monitoring tools and cut down costs.

ITRS

Sample Customers

Cisco Systems, Hawaiian Telecom, Renown Health, State of Nevada, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Allstate Insurance, Jack Henry & Associates, United States Airforce, US Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Chicago Board Options Exchange

Svenska Spel, Carus, VGL, Tele2, Viking Line, Clas Ohlson, Vanderlande, Försäkringskassan

Buyer's Guide

OP5 Monitor vs. Observer GigaStor

March 2026

Free Report: OP5 Monitor vs. Observer GigaStor

Find out what your peers are saying about OP5 Monitor vs. Observer GigaStor and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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