Infrastructure Manager at a non-profit with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
A good, solid product, which does exactly what we need it to do
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution provides us with needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It gives us really good quality of service when it comes to monitoring of available space and available resources. It allows us to preempt issues before they become a problem for the business."
  • "It is easy to use and intuitive, which is really important. It does what it says on the box by giving you a visual of the state of what is going on at any one time."
  • "The desktop app is the one area where it do with some improvement. From a user's perspective, I would like to be able to get more out of the desktop app as opposed to where we are now with it."

What is our primary use case?

We use PRTG to monitor all of our business critical and distributed systems around the areas that we operate in the UK. This is ensure they have good system uptime and can demonstrate against SLAs.

How has it helped my organization?

The historical data provided by the solution is one of the main reasons why we went with PRTG. It gives you that granular view to be able to go back 24 hours, two days, a month, or year. You can start building powerful data patterns with this technology platform.

One of the things which became apparent was that we didn't know when things were going down out of hours unless somebody sat and was there watching the consoles. Nobody knew when things were going down. Now, one of the things that we've noticed is we are picking up when we are having out of hours outages. The solution is starting to correlate data so we can speak to the relative representatives and make sure the outages stop happening.

The solution provides us with needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It gives us really good quality of service when it comes to monitoring of available space and available resources. It allows us to preempt issues before they become a problem for the business.

What is most valuable?

It is easy to use and intuitive, which is really important. It does what it says on the box by giving you a visual of the state of what is going on at any one time. 

The feature set does what it says on the box. It does the monitoring well. It doesn't try to do anything which it is not supposed to. It does what it does well.

There is a good selection of sensors and probes in it.

What needs improvement?

While the web application side of things is fantastic, the desktop app is the one area where it do with some improvement. From a user's perspective, I would like to be able to get more out of the desktop offering as opposed to where we are now with it. It could be stronger. There are opportunities there that you don't have with the web-based application to do some interesting and innovative stuff.

An important thing is to keep up with the technology which is now coming out. There is obviously a lot of generic stuff in the solution, and there is also a lot of new tech which is coming out that people need to be able to monitor.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have had no issues. It just works and is up 24/7/365. Every update which comes out is rock solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are a fairly large implantation, as we have currently 2500 nodes. We are just about to double that. The solution allows you to keep on doubling and doubling, as much as you need. The only restriction is the platform that you put it on. When you get into those larger areas, from what I understand, the performance on PRTG is just as good as it is on the smaller implementations.

How are customer service and support?

We have contacted their tech support a few times, which is really good. They got back to us very quickly with a good level of technical knowledge.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The previous solution that we had (SolarWinds) was giving us a lot of false positives. We were spending a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on. We had used PRTG before, and it has always been a solid platform. 

We were experiencing network and system downtime before implementing PRTG. This was that a driving factor to switch solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. Within a half an hour, we had it set up and running. The setup is intuitive and the install is very much wizard-driven. There is no real agenda behind it. It is very much just click and go once you have finished your scanning, then it works straightaway.

It took two to three hours from the time that we set up the solution until it provided us with feedback on our IT infrastructure. It was very quick.

What about the implementation team?

We used a reseller (Axis) for the deployment, and our experience with them was really good.

What was our ROI?

The solution has enabled our IT department to be more cost-effective. It cuts down on downtime. This means we are not chasing after things that we don't need to chase. It is bringing to our attention the operational problems that we have, so we can focus our attention on those, instead of running around trying to figure out what the problem is.

It is constantly ensuring our systems are up and running. They are in a solid position. If you look at the costs attributed to downtime, those have been removed.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is about £4,500 for the first year, then about another 15 to 20 percent annually after that. So, we are looking at about £1000 running costs a year. When you think about how much an outage costs per minute, it's negligible.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We just considered PRTG when moving away from SolarWinds.

What other advice do I have?

Look at what it is you want your organization to be able to do and what it is you need to monitor. Then, concentrate on the key elements first. Don't try and overcloud what you're trying to do. Start with your core stuff and work outwards, then you will always get a good solid solution.

It is a really good, solid product, which does exactly what we need it to do.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Senior Technical Support at Etisalat
Real User
Top 20
A stable tool for infrastructure monitoring that needs to have more room for automation and advanced configuration
Pros and Cons
  • "The reporting module is easy to configure."
  • "Along with more room for automation, more room for advanced configuration can be integrated into the solution."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is used for infrastructure monitoring and for some limited automation and SNMP monitoring. If any parameters cross any threat, then it would trigger some healing, like restarting by sending some special commands.

What is most valuable?

The features I found valuable are its reporting modules and the graphs, along with SNMB utilization and the bandwidth utilization for reports.

What needs improvement?

Along with more room for automation, more room for advanced configuration can be integrated into the solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using PRTG Network Monitor for almost ten years. I use it in my business company on my account. I am a customer of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Around 50 people in my company use the solution.


How are customer service and support?

I am very satisfied with PRTG Network Monitor because it's easy. Also, I have been using it for a long time, either for configuration or providing any reports or support needed for PRTG.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

On a scale of one to ten, where one means difficult to implement and ten means easy to implement, I rate it an eight.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises.

What was our ROI?

The ROI is currently looked upon at the management level.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's a cost-efficient tool.

What other advice do I have?

The reporting module is easy to configure. Also, it is easy and nice looking, with a nice presentation triggered for utilization and for monitoring health. Also, you can integrate as much vendor hardware as possible using SNMP, and it has easy configuration and troubleshooting. Along with the solution being cheap, there is also support from the vendor, which is its main point.

There are more powerful software solutions available apart from PRTG Network Monitor.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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IT strategist at Convergent Wireless Communications
Real User
Top 10
You can create a template for a device, then apply it to hundreds of similar devices
Pros and Cons
  • "PRTG is simple to manage. First, you can create a template for a device, then apply it to hundreds of similar devices. That's a great advantage."
  • "There's always room for improvement. The high availability feature is good, but it's an area that PRTG could marginally improve. For example, in PRTG, both servers have a different IP, but it would make things a lot easier if they were bound by a single IP."

What is our primary use case?

It's a globally distributed network. We have multiple data centers or IT setups, and PRTG is deployed at the local data centers. Some of the applications are in the cloud, and PRTG can also monitor those.

What is most valuable?

PRTG is simple to manage. First, you can create a template for a device, then apply it to hundreds of similar devices. That's a great advantage. Secondly, I can use the 80-20 functional rule for any devices I need to monitor. 

For infrastructure monitoring, 80 percent of parameters are monitored every minute or so. I can define all of them at the highest level, and those definitions are inherited at the lowest level. Then you need to customize the setup for the remaining 20 percent. You can deploy them in various groups and do a group-level setup, which will again percolate down to devices. 

The third thing is the concept of tags. PRTG assigns tags to devices and also the parameters you monitor. For example, if you choose to deploy a bandwidth sensor, PRTG automatically tags it with that parameter while giving you the freedom to apply your own tag. 

Let's say my organization has three or even four ISPs. If I'm globally distributed, the ISPs could be different. Now I can monitor all the bandwidth across ISPs based on the tag, or I can see the bandwidth of each ISP individually. I know my uptime and recovery in case of failure. I can also group by choosing a specific ISP tag and getting a report. I now know which of my ISPs is a better performer, which helps me improve the service and decide who to go with.

PRTG is constantly evolving. You have between eight to 12 releases every year, including enhancements to functionality and performance as well as security and bug fixes, so it stays current with our business requirements. It's a well-rounded product.

What needs improvement?

There's always room for improvement. The high availability feature is good, but it's an area that PRTG could marginally improve. For example, in PRTG, both servers have a different IP, but it would make things a lot easier if they were bound by a single IP.  I'm not necessarily trying to say PRTG should imitate other products. 

I'm saying it should be like a typical HA solution should be. It is a fail-safe feature, and the HA component should act like one. In PRTG, it is in an active-active mode, not active-passive. Now, the customers don't need to know the mechanism behind the high availability. They just need to know how many servers are required for deployment. If there is a cluster with a single IP address, it's much easier from the customer's point of view. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been working on various versions of PRTG since 2003. While we are using PRTG, we are also looking at various alternatives, but we haven't seen a reason to switch so far.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

PRTG itself is a highly reliable product because of large installed base.

How was the initial setup?

Overall, PRTG is easy to install and understand. We provide frontline support for our customers, but our more competent customers don't come back to us for any support at all. If they don't have the skills, they can install and do the basic deployment, but they require hand-holding and coaching for some things. Still, I think it's a straightforward product. Once a user gets started with the product, they don't need hand-holding for basic functions.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of PRTG is reasonable. PRTG's competitors like SolarWinds and ManageEngine charge more for the same functionality. They are much more expensive at licensing level. What's more, PRTG comes as one bundle. For example, the database is part of the PRTG release, so Paessler takes total responsibility for all components they deliver. With other products, you need a separate database engine and databases, and these NMS companies don't take responsibility. When they put out new releases, what if it doesn't work with the previous release of a database? Things become a little tricky. You have to deal with two or more entities for NMS but only one with PRTG.

What other advice do I have?

I rate PRTG Network Monitor 9.5 out of 10. If you're planning to implement PRTG, my advice is to first create a master plan. Set a goal for monitoring. Decide what you want to monitor and why. You need to get ready by organizing network management at the technical and policy level. If you start with a clear understanding of your goals and your environment, PRTG will be a cakewalk.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
Pierre-Anderson ELLO - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Cdci
Real User
Comprehensive and effective network monitoring with user-friendly interface, diverse range of sensors, and excellent scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable aspect is the diverse range of features it offers."
  • "I've encountered a challenge in my functions, particularly in adding and printing."

What is our primary use case?

Je l’utilise pour surveiller le système de défense, les différents commutateurs et les connexions entre les différents bureaux de vente. De plus, je l’utilise pour surveiller mes différents environnements virtuels.

How has it helped my organization?

Surveillance et prise de décision proactive

What is most valuable?

L’aspect le plus précieux est la gamme variée de fonctionnalités qu’il offre. Le tableau de bord est exceptionnel, offrant une vue d’ensemble complète.

What needs improvement?


For how long have I used the solution?

J’y travaille depuis deux ans.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Il offre une excellente stabilité.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

L’évolutivité est incroyablement simple et sans effort. Mille cinquante utilisateurs ont été intégrés.

How are customer service and support?

En ce qui concerne les différentes questions que j’ai posées au support technique, le temps de réponse est impressionnant. Je reçois généralement des réponses dans l’heure. Je donnerais une note de neuf sur dix.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

J’ai déjà utilisé Nagios, mais il était dépassé. PRTG, en revanche, est incroyablement facile à gérer, à développer, à promouvoir et à maintenir. Nagios, étant très âgé, est difficile à entretenir.

How was the initial setup?

La configuration initiale était simple.

What about the implementation team?

Le processus de déploiement consiste à prendre de la capacité, à l’installer sur un serveur, à appliquer les licences, puis à lancer une découverte de différentes catégories. Ensuite, il s’agit de surveiller les différents aspects du réseau. Il s’agit d’un processus relativement simple, en particulier pour surveiller les dossiers de défense et de paie sur des réseaux simples. Il a été achevé en deux jours. Le maintien de la configuration actuelle n’est pas du tout difficile.

What was our ROI?

Je vois un retour sur investissement significatif grâce à la simplification de la supervision avec PRTG. Les problèmes sont identifiés et résolus rapidement. Avant PRTG, il était difficile de détecter et de résoudre rapidement les problèmes.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Le prix est raisonnable pour les fonctionnalités fournies.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Difficile de concevoir des tableaux de bord

What other advice do I have?

Dans l’ensemble, je lui donnerais une note de huit sur dix.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Regional Head of IT at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
Good even for beginners, and cost-wise, it isn't that expensive, but its sensors and web GUI need improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "There was only one feature I liked about PRTG Network Monitor a lot, and that was bandwidth monitoring, though, in the newer versions of the tool, that feature is now a bit lacking. Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is also not as expensive. It's a good tool, even for beginners."
  • "A room for improvement in PRTG Network Monitor is its sensors. Its application technology sensor, such as the IAS, .NET, etc., needs some improvement because it doesn't work as expected. For example, the IAS sensor doesn't give immediate information, and the information you get from it isn't of good value. The web GUI of PRTG Network Monitor also needs improvement because errors keep popping up if it's not been updated to the latest version. What I'd like to see in the next release of the tool is end-to-end topology mapping for the business model, and that should be required. There has to be a technical map. Technical mapping and topological creation are missing in PRTG Network Monitor, so I would like to see those in the future."

What is our primary use case?

Our use case for PRTG Network Monitor was end-to-end monitoring, but we couldn't achieve it, particularly the monitoring from the perspective of looking at the complete dashboard of the entire infrastructure, though it's a server virtualization network. For example, monitoring any device, even a swiping machine or a camera, or any device which comes and adopts an IP address should be monitored using PRTG Network Monitor, so that was our use case in the beginning.

Eventually, we then wanted the tool to also monitor our applications, so our current use case for PRTG Network Monitor is to monitor applications residing on our infrastructure, apart from devices that use or adopt IP addresses.

What is most valuable?

There was only one feature I liked about PRTG Network Monitor a lot, and that was bandwidth monitoring, though, in the newer versions of the tool, that feature is now a bit lacking.

Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is also not as expensive.

It's a good tool, even for beginners.

What needs improvement?

A room for improvement in PRTG Network Monitor is its sensors. Its application technology sensor, such as the IAS, .NET, etc., needs some improvement because it doesn't work as expected. For example, the IAS sensor doesn't give immediate information, and the information you get from it isn't of good value.

The web GUI of PRTG Network Monitor also needs improvement because errors keep popping up if it's not been updated to the latest version.

What I'd like to see in the next release of the tool is end-to-end topology mapping for the business model, and that should be required. There has to be a technical map. Technical mapping and topological creation are missing in PRTG Network Monitor, so I would like to see those in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using PRTG Network Monitor effectively for five years now, though I also used it in 2010, but only for very basic monitoring. Nowadays, I'm using the tool more extensively and doing a lot of monitoring on it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of the stability of PRTG Network Monitor, I would rate it a three out of five because this works on the web browser, but it requires too many updates. You have to update it frequently. For example, as soon as it's not running on the latest version, it starts giving you errors on the browsers, so it has a big room for improvement in terms of its web GUI.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

PRTG Network Monitor is a scalable tool, and I'm rating it three out of five in terms of scalability.

How are customer service and support?

We were in discussion with the PRTG Network Monitor technical support team quite intensively, but they weren't able to answer all our questions. We find them okay and up to the mark because they know what the tool can do and cannot do, so they were very, very precise, so at least their knowledge about their product was good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used a different solution before using PRTG Network Monitor, but that wasn't an apple-to-apple comparison. For example, we used an IP monitor from SolarWinds, but that was just a Ping or ICMP utility.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for PRTG Network Monitor was not that complex, but you need to understand how it works, so it's not very difficult, yet it's not very easy. The setup for the tool is on the moderate side. On a scale of one to five, I'd give the setup a rating of three because if you'd like to effectively use PRTG Network Monitor, you need to set it up correctly.

It took almost a week to set the tool up correctly, but the actual installation was done in one day, with the bare minimum configuration and discoveries because it has a good discovery feature.

What about the implementation team?

We deployed PRTG Network Monitor through our in-house team.

What was our ROI?

I've already seen ROI from PRTG Network Monitor.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

PRTG Network Monitor is not that expensive, so I like it cost-wise. There's no additional cost apart from the standard licensing fees. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I would rate the cost of PRTG Network Monitor a two.

What other advice do I have?

I'm using the latest version of PRTG Network Monitor because my company keeps updating the tool.

In my company, teams in Support and IT use PRTG Network Monitor and quite effectively look at the dashboard very often, so around one hundred people use it. Deployment was done in multiple places so seven to eight people in different regions took care of the deployment separately. At the moment, my company has no plans of increasing the usage of PRTG Network Monitor.

My advice to others looking into implementing PRTG Network Monitor is that if you're looking from a holistic infrastructure deployment and monitoring perspective, it's a good tool to use and to start with. PRTG Network Monitor is a good tool for beginners, so if you're a beginner, use it. If you're not a beginner, then you would need a tool with very exclusive end-to-end features.

I'm rating PRTG Network Monitor six out of ten.

My company is a customer of PRTG Network Monitor and has no partnership with the vendor.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
IT Coordinator at ENGIE Renewables Ltd
Real User
Enables me to do cross-domain monitoring while the mobile app allows me to monitor wherever I am
Pros and Cons
  • "The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature."
  • "I have an issue with DFS, distributed file services... there isn't one by default. Taking into account the difference between DFS and DFSR as well would be great."

What is our primary use case?

PRTG has been a network monitoring solution for our company for over five years now. We constantly monitor our servers, switches, broadband. Anything that we can put a sensor on, it monitors. I monitor four domains and I use cross-domain network monitoring as well.

How has it helped my organization?

In terms of the historical data provided by the solution, I look at the network performance and, obviously, if I've got an offsite backup going through, I want to monitor what sort of impact that's had on the network. If it's detrimental, then I can change the times when the backups happen and make sure that there's not a severe impact on my local network.

Previously, other parts of the company have used different products, and PRTG has helped broaden their minds into what a decent piece of monitoring software actually does. I'm pushing it out further afield, which is why it's in four domains.

When it comes to helping our IT department to be more cost-effective, if I've got as-it-happens monitoring, I can deploy the resources to resolve the issues quicker.

What is most valuable?

One of the things I like is the fact that I can use it on my mobile phone. I use the mobile app and it alerts me if there is a problem. Obviously if I'm not in the office or available to get in. I can monitor it externally and am able to deploy resources to sort things out quickly.

The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature as well.

I use the Desktop app all the time, it's constantly on my taskbar so that I can monitor things. If there is a problem, it flashes up red and lets me know there's an issue and I get to deal with it almost immediately.

What needs improvement?

The remote probes are okay. I think that there could be more sensors available, especially with newer technologies coming along. It has been a bit stagnant. Unfortunately, it uses an almost "external workforce" through its forums to create new sensors.

Also, I have an issue with DFS, distributed file services. Currently, although there is a forum post with regards to the issue of PRTG and the DFS monitoring, there isn't one by default. I think it is quite a necessity that they make one, one that's actually easily integratable. Taking into account the difference between DFS and DFSR as well would be great. They need one that pulls up the report, shows you how much is out of sync, if it's out, and how much of a time difference there is between the synchronizations. Anything like that would be a help.

For how long have I used the solution?

Over 5 Years

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's always on. I have a server dedicated to it, that's all it does. I've never had it fall down, ever.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

With the remote probes, the ability to monitor external domains makes this product easy to scale.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've only used the technical support a couple of times. There is a lot of information available on the forums. More than likely, if I have a problem, somebody else has had that same problem. The forums can help in that way to find a resolution.

How was the initial setup?

Setup, is fairly straight-forward, but it can be a laborious task initially, once you have populated the sensors everything just ticks along nicely.

What about the implementation team?

In-House setup but if there's a problem, I know that the support from PRTG is not far away.

What was our ROI?

The solution has definitely saved us time and money. Services need to be constantly monitored, if you don't have a good product to monitor these things you have to wait till something stops working and then use command-line tools to diagnose the issue. This is counter-productive.

Mostly I know if a DC is starting to go down because it stops responding to remote desktop session calls. I don't know why, but that's the first thing that goes down. It flags up that I can't get the user remote desktop and that's the first sign that that server is going to go down very soon.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have actually used other solutions, because I do look after four domains. Previously, they had other packages that were already there, and I still find PRTG to be the best.

What other advice do I have?

PRTG is free for an initial trial of 30 days. Once you've used it, I think you'll find that it is a great product and well worth the investment.

The overall feature set is pretty good. It's not a complete feature set. I'd like to see more, but, as a general rule, I've been using it for over five years. I must be pretty happy with what it does, as it is.

I would rate the product at eight out of ten because there's always room for improvement. Nobody's going to be the best of the best. If a DFSR or DFS sensor were added, I'd give it a nine.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Senior Security Engineer at Fletchers Solicitors Ltd.
Real User
Lightweight probes allow us to proactively avoid disk space or switch overload
Pros and Cons
  • "The sensors and probes are great, nice and lightweight, they don't take up too many resources on the system. We just deploy them out and they start reporting instantly."
  • "When it comes to third-party integration, one of the things we were looking at was putting some sensors onto our firewall, for instance. If there were a little bit more documentation and some step-by-step guides around that, that would be useful for us."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for full network monitoring, to manage our entire estate; that includes things like disk space and network usage. It alerts us of any potential outages so that we can attend to those before they occur.

How has it helped my organization?

The historical data provided by the solution helps us optimize our network performance in that we do quite a lot of analysis on our network traffic. We want our user experience to be the best that it can possibly be. We'll look for trends in things like login times, disk space usage, how much we're burning through. That feature absolutely helps us.

Also, before we used this solution we had issues with the servers running out of disk space. This has completely stopped all that now. We've put in decent thresholds whereby we're not running out of disk space before we know there's an issue. We give ourselves plenty of leeway so that doesn't happen anymore.

When it comes to feedback on our IT infrastructure, again it's the disk space, but also the utilization of our network. If, for instance, a switch is getting overloaded, we can take proactive action to prevent any problems. That's the main kind of driver for us. This doesn't let us get into trouble. We are aware of problems before they occur.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for us is the disk space and CPU usage because we are quite intensive in those fields. PRTG gives us the visibility into those straight away. We've got it set up in a pie-chart with all of our servers down the left-hand side. If everything's green, everything's working. If it's amber, there's a potential issue. If it's red, then we're in trouble, and it's as simple as that. It's a traffic-light system. It works perfectly.

Ease of access is important as well - it's all in the product, it's all in the sensors - and it has been great for us. The sensors and probes are great, nice and lightweight, they don't take up too many resources on the system. We just deploy them out and they start reporting instantly.

The desktop app is great. We've got it set to auto update, and it just ticks away nicely. We also use the mobile app as well. Various members of our infrastructure team have got that app on their mobile devices, so when they're out of the office they can check up on the estate, as well. We can do 24/7 monitoring.

What needs improvement?

The only thing we have been looking at, which is not so much about the solution itself, is some training. I know there are a lot of online training resources, but some classroom-based training is one of the things that we have been looking for. 

Also, when it comes to third-party integration, one of the things we were looking at was putting some sensors onto our firewall, for instance. If there were a little bit more documentation and some step-by-step guides around that, that would be useful for us. That would be about the only thing I would say regarding the product itself.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable. We've never had any kind of outages in terms of the dashboard not being available. Any updates that we've applied haven't caused us any issues. It's a great, reliable product.

We've not found any kind of real performance degradation. There may have been times where some of the sensors may have paused slightly but I think they were just anomalies. It has not been a regular occurrence. Perhaps there have been occasional stability issues, but they have been very few and far between.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable. At the moment we have around 1,000 or 1,200 sensors. We know that it would be very easy if we wanted to expand that. We could simply add in more sensors very easily.

How are customer service and technical support?

I don't think we've ever actually had to engage with technical support because we've never had any issues with it. That speaks for itself.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The main driver behind our decision was that we partnered up with a third-party which did all our monitoring for us but we moved away from that. There was a requirement to do it ourselves and that's why we chose PRTG.

How was the initial setup?

Our setup was very straightforward because we planned out what our estate looks like through network diagrams, decided on what metrics we wanted to capture, and then deployed it across. The product itself made it very easy for us to do that.

From setup to the start of data analysis took three to five days.

What about the implementation team?

We used our preferred reseller, which is CCS Media. But we had already done research into the product ourselves. It was just a case of buying the license through our reseller.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

On a yearly basis, I believe it's between £1,200 and £1,500. It's relatively inexpensive, for what we need.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't really consider anything else because we'd previously used PRTG, before we used our third-party partner. It was very easy for us to come back to it.

What other advice do I have?

You should absolutely look at this solution. It gives us everything that we need: The lightweight aspect of it on the network, the amount of information. It's absolutely worth the money.

In terms of the feature set, the overall impression is very good. We've been using the product for just over 12 months now. We've just recently renewed that license because the product is very good and gives us all the information that we need.

We bought around 1,200 or 1,500 sensors. Our estate supports around 450 users. I think we've almost maxed out on how many sensors we've deployed because we've got quite a large estate. We've got around 150 servers, and then we also have 100 or so switches. With all those, it's very easy to burn through our sensor limit.

I rate PRTG at ten out ten, easily, because of the ease of use, the information provided, and the fact that we've never had to raise any kind of technical support ticket. That in itself should sell the product.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at Amrita
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A user-friendly solution that helps us monitor all our live servers
Pros and Cons
  • "It allows us to directly add individual VMs independently."
  • "The product could be improved by being cross-platform friendly."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for this solution is monitoring all our live servers, their resources and networking equipment like firewalls, routers, switches and network switches. Additionally, we have a bandwidth monitoring map deployed in PRTG Network Monitor to monitor our internet bandwidth continuously. The solution is deployed on-premises.

What is most valuable?

We have found the ESXi feature very valuable. It allows us to directly add individual VMs independently. We can also add the ESXi so each VM is considered a sensor, and each sensor can get all the resource parameters like CPU usage, memory usage and network usage. Everything is combined in one sensor, and we can utilize it. Unlike other competitors, this feature is only available in PRTG Network Monitor. Otherwise, we have to go with multiple sensors and it will be costly.

What needs improvement?

The product could be improved by being cross-platform friendly. A feature we would like to see in the next release is support for bare-metal servers. For virtual machines, we have many options in PRTG Network Monitor, but adding sensors to the bare metal servers is difficult because it does not support all ranges of servers. It has to have a much better database of custom servers and resources. Some of the new servers are not added in PRTG Network Monitor. They don't have the database now and we would be glad if they added more databases of server templates.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for four years and are currently using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. Currently, we have about 15 people using it in our organization. These 15 people are in charge of deployment and maintenance. We intend to expand the usage to 2,500 licenses.

How are customer service and support?

Our experience with customer service and support has been superb.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

Deployment was done in-house and took approximately two hours.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution a ten out of ten. The solution is good but can be improved by supporting bare metal servers and cross-platform friendly. I recommend this solution to all types of users because it doesn't require prior knowledge of other configuration sets. PRTG Network Monitor is user-friendly and takes just one click to install the solution in Windows. Amateurs with no previous knowledge of networking can use it because it is very user-friendly. SNMP configuration is straightforward, and unlike its competitors, it seems to be a user-friendly tool.

Additionally, it has a free version which can be used for 100 sensors. If it is a small-scale business they can use the free version with 100 sensors and utilize that as well. If it is for a big enterprise, they can have 2,500 to 10,000 sensors. They also have custom modes for payments. It is a superb product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free PRTG Network Monitor Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free PRTG Network Monitor Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.