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ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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

ServiceNow Cloud Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
41st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zabbix
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 2.2%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zabbix2.2%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability0.7%
Other97.1%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Uday-Thentu - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Automation has reduced incident impact and is driving proactive self‑healing across hybrid services
ServiceNow Cloud Observability's valuable features include AI agents that can be integrated and triggered with workflows for evaluating and taking the right action in both process and technical aspects. On the process side, it ensures the right approvals are triggered. From the technical aspect, it allows integration for taking relevant action without human intervention, moving towards self-healing. The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive. By defining and fine-tuning workflows, we were able to implement timely notification and auto-action or auto-remediations. At the same time, if anything involves additional cost or requires intervention, it helps trigger approval notifications, and once approval is received, it timely takes the action. The AI agents help define and fine-tune those workflows further.
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.

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 create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."
"The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive."
"The solution Lightstep/ServiceNow has a couple of pretty advanced functionalities to help us investigate a deviation and help the development teams have better observability in the environment using distributed and complex services."
"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."
"The UI is very intuitive."
"I'm supervising all the IT departments, and Zabbix seems quite good for them. It provides graphics and information in real time. We get alerts about crashes on the system, enabling us to quickly repair issues. We can easily find devices with problems."
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward, we did not face any issues and it was up and running within a day."
"The initial setup was very quick. The first time it was long because I didn't know it yet. I was only using Windows. The first time was very difficult because of the operating system."
"The flexible licensing model is one of the solution's most valuable aspects. It really allows for great flexibility for companies."
"The most valuable feature is service assurance."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the ease with which we can set it up at customer sites with our custom Zabbix proxy and tools."
"Scalability, everything can be monitored."
"Excellent monitoring tool."
 

Cons

"The support team could be better. Because of the different versions of different tactics of integrating reactive code base, the documentation is not very clear if someone has to be onboard. I would rate the documentation of Lightstep a five out of ten. It could need improvement."
"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."
"The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement."
"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."
"In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs."
"As far as I know, there is no model to push statistics, metrics, or events towards Zabbix. This type of API isn't yet there, whereas some other tools provide an API for this."
"The event correlation could be better. From day one, we're using the API to create tickets for our operations, however, the correlation is not good, not there."
"In the next release, I'm hoping for features targeted towards larger users with more customizable options. Despite this, I think pre-canned reports that can be used straight out of the box would be beneficial rather than having to configure each report individually. Additionally, a deeper dive into software configurations on the machines would be useful, although I understand there may be challenges in implementing this due to scripting requirements. More documentation would also be appreciated."
"It is a little complex to config and implement so I'd like for them to make it easier to config, for example, a configuration for SNMPv3 or trap listener on it."
"Cloud monitoring can be a bit easier, and the Zabbix dashboard can be developed a little bit more."
"I would like to see a more flexible mobile client, and better HA out of the box."
"The APM monitoring has room for improvement, although I hear that the new 5.2 version has some improvements in that area, and I'd like to give that a go."
"Multitenancy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."
"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."
"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."
"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."
"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."
"It is freeware. We still use the free version of Zabbix."
"I was using the free, Community Edition."
"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."
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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%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with LightStep?
The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement.
What is your primary use case for LightStep?
ServiceNow Cloud Observability's main use case is end-to-end automation starting from the trigger in the cloud. Currently, it focuses more on self-healing and understanding the complete uptime of e...
What advice do you have for others considering LightStep?
Regarding security, I unfortunately do not have much hands-on experience. My focus has been majorly on self-healing activities, but given what I have observed, it does provide a good opportunity in...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

LightStep
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,
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 ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.