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SCOM vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
SCOM users experience varied ROI, with advantages in monitoring and management offset by potential licensing costs and latency issues.
Sentiment score
6.9
Zabbix is praised for being cost-effective and scalable, minimizing downtime, and eliminating high licensing fees for enterprises.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft customer service is generally viewed positively, with efficient assistance and experienced staff, despite occasional consistency issues.
Sentiment score
6.8
Zabbix support is well-regarded, with strong community forums, responsive staff, and effective local partners aiding various user needs.
They often treat issues in isolation, not considering how one problem might relate to another.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
When I was working directly with Microsoft at TCS, my first company, the support experience was quite smooth, and we received solutions promptly.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
It is so straightforward that I have never had to use the support.
CTO at Oic
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
SCOM offers scalable management, efficient load balancing, and high availability but faces challenges with non-Microsoft integration and diverse device monitoring.
Sentiment score
6.9
Zabbix offers scalable, flexible monitoring with cost efficiency, though complex scaling and database management may require improvements for large deployments.
The scalability of SCOM, meaning its ability to adapt to our needs, is excellent because we are working with SQL systems and multiple servers.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
CTO at Oic
Zabbix has high scalability.
CTO at Four Nine Agency
Zabbix is good and scalable, but not as fast as SolarWinds.
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
SCOM's stability has improved significantly, especially in newer versions like 2019, with proper configuration and resource allocation.
Sentiment score
7.4
Zabbix is generally stable and reliable, requiring minimal resources, though occasional issues may arise from external factors.
I have not seen many errors or frequent data loss because once we have installed the agent on the system and have the details, not much manual intervention is required.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
SCOM is a bit unstable lately, primarily due to a lack of resources.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
CTO at Oic
I think the stability of Zabbix is around five to six on a scale of ten, where ten is the best and one is the worst.
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Zabbix is quite stable, and we haven't had any problems with Zabbix itself.
CTO at Four Nine Agency
 

Room For Improvement

SCOM needs better dashboards, lower licensing costs, easier integration, improved reporting, enhanced support, and efficient alert management.
Zabbix needs user interface, reporting, and dashboard improvements, plus better configuration, automation, documentation, scalability, and advanced monitoring features.
I would like to see a software-as-a-service version in Azure to eliminate the need for on-premise infrastructure.
ICT System Administrator at College of Europe
SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
It would be beneficial to have a summary on one single dashboard, as there are many more possibilities available.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the best.
CTO at Oic
The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts.
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

SCOM pricing varies with agreements, often part of cost-effective Microsoft packages, though licensing can be complex initially.
Zabbix is praised for being a free, open-source solution with optional low-cost support, attracting enterprise users.
Zabbix is providing everything free of cost.
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
It is literally free.
CTO at Oic
 

Valuable Features

SCOM efficiently monitors Microsoft environments with integration, customizable dashboards, real-time reporting, and automated alerts for proactive management.
Zabbix offers open-source flexibility, scalability, automated monitoring, diverse integrations, and adaptability for complex infrastructures with strong community support.
It assists me in detecting server downtime and delivers basic performance monitoring right out of the box.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
SCOM integrates several systems and offers correlation features, like setting up everything around Active Directory or DNS.
ICT System Administrator at College of Europe
If disk usage surpasses a threshold, say 70%, I receive alerts and can take proactive action.
CTO at Oic
The alerting systems are very good in Zabbix, and it has helped us to reduce time for reaction.
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Zabbix is Linux-based open-source software, and the main use case is to reduce costs.
Network Engineer at Ogma Consulting
 

Categories and Ranking

SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (5th)
Zabbix
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (10th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SCOM is 1.4%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 6.9%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zabbix6.9%
SCOM1.4%
Other91.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.
KamranBhatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity
We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.
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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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
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?
I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is providing everything free of cost. Zabbix is economical, and you can install it...
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts. I think Zabbix needs to improve the customization better. At present, I am satisfied with the functionality ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
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 SCOM vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.