Icinga Reviews

At this time we use Icinga to just do basic monitoring of our existing infrastructure. We are using SNMP Traps in all devices in addition so that when anything happens on the device it sends an SNMP alert. We can use this solution online or it can send us an email as well.

We started troubleshooting that issue as soon as we saw it. Icinga has a reactive approach. I think the solution is forewarning us but we are looking for some solution which can take a proactive initiative as well. For example, if the CPU is going too high or the net visualization is less than 90%, we should get information about such situations so that we can take actions accordingly to fix the problem.

It is not really adequate for our current needs. It causes additional issues which we have to work around and takes us time that a better solution would not.

I don't know what features are best because I don't like this solution, it seems inadequate, and I only use very basic features. You can get basic information out if it, like the number of devices, iOS, the model, this kind of stuff. But I am not able to find some more detailed information that is important. It may be that we have not deployed all the plugins. At this time we are not doing any research into expanding the deployment because we believe there are better alternatives. My team and I just inherited this solution by default from the previous IT person who deployed it. For now, we're just using it as it is with some workarounds. As it will likely not be deployed much longer, we are not doing any research on it or changing any functionality.

A lot of things could be improved because it has a lack of dashboards, no detailed information for reporting, no information for the audit purposes that we can send, no information about the configuration management, and very little inventory information. It is barely serving a purpose.

From a stability point of view, I think it's quite good. It has a few flaws in gathering information from virtualization and especially for configuration management. We sometimes face issues with the monitoring solution being down or it causes some abnormalities. But that is really functionality and not stability. From a stability point of view, I think it's good.

I saw another site that had different modules that could be integrated with the Icinga product but few things would still be missing if we deployed all of them. An IT or operations team must have these in their monitoring solution like monitoring of detail and monitoring virtualization. Independent of which virtualization solutions our companies use, the solution needs these things. Options like VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox — any DBM type solution that I am familiar with already has these things.

The solution itself seems to be quite stable, as in the last six months we did not have a reason to contact support. So I can't say whether support is good or bad. But even the person who deployed it did not note any knowledgebase article in our internal ticketing system or mention that someone else opened a case. It suggests there were no problems that required support. I have no idea about how the support team responds to queries.

I've worked with many other monitoring solutions and they are pretty good and they can become very user-friendly over a little time. This solution is not comparable. We are just using it as it is but we have planned to upgrade or to have a new solution. We are looking at a solution which can do monitoring, diagnostics, and configuration management — all in one.

As an IT administrator, I'm looking to make customized dashboards based on requirements and create some modular alerts. There may be some sort of utility that we can add to the product to get some more detailed information, but I think they need to improve specifically these two areas: supporting and the dashboard. Other solutions already have them.

I was not here for the initial setup so I cannot comment on that.

The solution is costing us time and money beyond what is paid for the license.

It is relatively inexpensive and may be okay if you are a smaller organization concerned with the price more than the utility.

I was not the one who chose and installed this solution. The product was already deployed when I joined. We are currently evaluating several potential solutions including Logistics I. We would prefer it to be a modular based approach which can help us to achieve multiple tasks from a single console. That suggests dashboards and diagnostic capabilities. We will probably replace this with a higher-priced solution that is capable of more.

If you have a small infrastructure or a small number of devices that you want to monitor, then I think it's a good solution. If you have a lot of devices or an enterprise level installation that you want to monitor, I don't think that this solution can be entertained. 

I've been in IT infrastructure support for the last 15 years and I have not seen such a solution which has this very basic level of monitoring.

I would rate it a four out of ten.

Flexibility.

We monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains.

Object-oriented configuration.

The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web.

To monitor IT infrastructure. To monitor and to see transfers.

It has performed well. I like this product.

• Macros
• Possibility to connect it to Google Maps

Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me.

Very good.

Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga.

I previously used openNMS and Zenoss.

A little bit complex, but I am familiar with it, so it was not problem for me. But I believe it would not so easy for everyone.

It is complex because you have to establish the database. There's nothing in Icinga which has own SNMP trap management, so I had to use something external. It's not so easy.

I use it for monitoring infrastructure and it was very good for that issue. But, I heard many people say that Zabbix is a better solution so I want to compare them both, to form my own point of view on that. I want to compare them, to make a decision to migrate to Zabbix or to stay with Icinga.

When selecting a product, the most important criterion is functionality.

If you have a static environment, you can use Icinga because it's very good. But if your environment is growing fast, think about Icinga but also consider Zabbix.

I think Icinga is a seven out of 10, because it's good and fast. It's not a 10 because of poor support for SNMP traps.

Network Services and Host Monitoring. Quick view of server status.

With Icinga 2's REST API, you can update your configurations on the fly or show live information about current problems on your custom dashboards.

Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful.

Three to five years.

No.

No.

Never used, but I would assume excellent. The open source community is amazing for this product.

Nagios. Just wanted to try something new.

Yes, simple install on Ubuntu Server 12.04, 14.04, or any LTS edition.

Very reasonable.

Not really. I searched for alternatives to Nagios and additional network monitoring software and this one was the best option.

People should know that it is simple and advanced. It is simple to install yet provides advanced monitoring capabilities and features.

Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes. I like the clustering feature and running satellite servers, which check their own zones and report back to the masters. Truly a distributed monitoring solution!

I deploy this solution for customers; therefore, it didn't improve my organisation. Still, customers say that they like the modern design approach and the possibilities one has in terms of automated configuration and automation. Most of them integrate Icinga2 into their automation tools and therefore configure the monitoring solution without much manual efforts.

The modern Web GUI Icingaweb2, a separate product, though, has some issues when displaying data (such as downtimes). There are edge cases where it seems like the displayed data is not consistent.

In addition, in my personal opinion, Icingaweb2 should get a more structured design. Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening.

I used Icinga 2.4 for several months and have been using Icinga 2.6 for four weeks now.

We have not encountered any deployment issues at all. The deployment is very easy; there are even wizards helping you to skip manual configuration tasks. You still can automatize the deployment, though.

Stability is great.

Icinga2 is meant to scale in many directions; thus, no issues should occur here.

I did not contact the customer service. The community is very active and developers usually reply within hours on GitHub.

I did not contact the technical support.

I used Nagios 3.x and tested Check_MK. Both are great solutions. However, Icinga2 comes with the best scalability and flexibility in terms of configuration. Furthermore, the API is great.

The initial setup can be tricky, I highly advise to study the docs before getting started. Many configuration options are set indirectly, depending on how you set up Icinga2 (in terms of infrastructure design).

We are deploying it ourselves.

Icinga2 is free, but you can sign a support contract with the vendor.

Icinga 2 is so flexible that it makes sense to either have some people read the docs and carefully evaluate all configuration possibilities; or, if possible, it makes sense to get someone on board and receive help in designing your monitoring platform.