ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs Zabbix comparison

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Read 109 Zabbix reviews

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9,540 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Zabbix and ServiceNow Cloud Observability are leading tools in IT monitoring and management. Based on user reviews, Zabbix offers better pricing and support, while ServiceNow Cloud Observability stands out for its superior features due to their extensive capabilities.

Features: Zabbix provides comprehensive monitoring, extensive metrics collection, and robust alerting systems. ServiceNow Cloud Observability offers seamless integration with other ServiceNow products, superior analytics, and valuable in-depth insights.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix needs better scalability, a simplified configuration process, and enhanced user interface. ServiceNow Cloud Observability requires better customization options, quicker implementation times, and improved dashboard functionality.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix is easier to deploy but has a steeper learning curve, with mixed reviews on customer service. ServiceNow Cloud Observability provides smooth deployment, comprehensive support, and extensive training.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix offers a free open-source model and reports good ROI. ServiceNow Cloud Observability is more expensive but justifiable due to its extensive capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: September 2026).

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Zabbix

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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

67th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zabbix

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

109

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 2.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Zabbix	2.3%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability	0.7%
Other	97.0%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Uday-Thentu

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.

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KamranBhatti

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The UI is very intuitive."

"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."

"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."

"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."

"Setup was straightforward. Initial deployment took two or three months."

"We use it to monitor and manage our servers."

"It has improved our server performance monitoring overall. We know right away when there are problems. It has built-in statistics, so we can go back and see if there's spiking. We can check what's happening every day around the same time and check the configuration to see if there's something that's running and needs to be fixed."

"It can send messages to our ticketing system."

"Otherwise, it's a great tool, with a nice web interface."

"It not only provides the preconfigured item monitoring feature, but it is also easy to configure custom items."

"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"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."

"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."

"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 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."

"Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need."

"Zabbix isn't a great tool for cloud-specific monitoring - its connection to public clouds needs to be improved. Other areas for improvement would be the lack of dashboards and integrations."

"As far as improvements, sometimes I get a bit frustrated when I move from a previous version to a new one because some configuration has changed—I need to investigate the documentation to deal with some configuration. But it doesn't take much time, so it's okay."

"I wish it had more options for personalizing the product, such as being able to include your company's logo without editing text files."

"If anything could be improved, it would be some of the terminology that is used in the documentation."

"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 does not draw automatic mapping of the network, this is something they should add in the future. There is a lot of effort that is involved in tailoring some of the settings which could be made easier."

"When it comes to Zabbix flow, I would not be comfortable working with Zabbix as there's a bit of a lack on the reporting and automation front."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."

"It is freeware. We still use the free version of Zabbix."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"There is no license but we need to pay for support."

"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."

"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."

"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."

"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."

"The solution is free. However, many open-sourced tools start out free but eventually start charging."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	56
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	35

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 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?

I am using only Area Operations, but I don't prefer it. I installed Zabbix for the 3000 devices. Area Operations is not good.

What is your primary use case for Zabbix?

I am still working with VMware and Area Operations, but I installed Zabbix now. I think Zabbix is better than VMware Area Operations. It's really good. I'm working with both Zabbix and VMware now.

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Product Reports

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Download ServiceNow Cloud Observability product report

Download Zabbix product report

Also Known As

LightStep

No data available

Overview

ServiceNow Cloud Observability offers advanced monitoring and alerting capabilities, leveraging AI-driven automation and seamless integrations to enhance visibility and performance in hybrid environments.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability empowers teams with real-time metrics and tracing capabilities, essential for managing numerous microservices across hybrid environments. It integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Grafana, offering a single-pane view of application health and performance. This solution supports self-healing and AI automation, reducing manual interventions and enhancing reliability. Although powerful, users see room for improvement in SDK integration, documentation clarity, and dashboard design, while performance issues are noted when handling a large volume of traces.

What are the most important features of ServiceNow Cloud Observability?

Stream Creation: Enables dashboards via Grafana, enhancing data visualization.
Intuitive Notebooks: Facilitates sharing insights and collaboration.
AI Automation: Supports proactive workflows for better efficiency.
Performance Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights for decision-making.
Latency Monitoring: Ensures quick detection and response to issues.
Error Rate Monitoring: Identifies and addresses potential problems.
Correlation Detection: Enhances problem-solving through detailed analysis.
Self-Healing: Reduces manual interventions and improves service reliability.

What benefits or ROI should be considered in reviews?

Real-Time Visibility: Empowers comprehensive monitoring across microservices.
Seamless Integrations: Supports various tools like Grafana for enhanced functionality.
AI-Driven Reliability: Offers automation and self-healing for reduced downtime.
Performance Insights: Enhances strategic decision-making through detailed analytics.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability is crucial for industries relying on extensive microservices and hybrid environments. Its real-time metrics and tracing are vital for sectors like finance, technology, and telecommunications, where seamless operations and immediate responsiveness are critical.

ServiceNow

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

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

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Zabbix