Zabbix Reviews

We monitor Zabbix for different clients. In total, there are less than 40 users, using this solution. 

We definitely plan to increase usage and continue using Zabbix.

I have been using this solution for the past few months. 

It hasn't really been that stable, but I think that has a lot to do with the specs. It could be more stable.

Zabbix is scalable.

I would absolutely recommend Zabbix to others. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Zabbix a rating of eight. Once I have more experience with it, maybe I'll give it a higher rating. 

On-premises

This is a network monitoring solution that I was playing around with to see if it would meet my needs.

Zabbix helped me to identify issues on the system, as well as ports that were open.

The most valuable feature is the support for monitoring Cisco switches. It is easy to use because there is a free template for it included.

The main problem with Zabbix is that you have to spend time writing templates for all of the products that you have. It would work great if I had the time to do it, but considering that I have all kinds of different devices, I don't want to spend the time doing it.

If they included more prebuilt templates of devices that are in use today, then it would be very helpful. For example, they have a template for a SonicWall 3600, but they don't have one for a SonicWall Tz300. They do have some base templates but they are not customized for these specific products. For some products, I was able to download one, but not for all of them.

The documentation needs to be improved.

The deployment is complex and should be simpler to complete.

I have been using Zabbix for about a month.

Once the product is started, it is stable.

I didn't really test the scalability. For me, it wasn't scalable because I only used it for the devices for which I had templates. I was the only person who was using it.

I did not contact technical support.

I was using Kaseya Traverse, which I bought because I have a large Kaseya installation. I thought that it would monitor sFlow, but it didn't, so I returned it and then replaced it with LogicMonitor.

Basically, the problem was that in order to support sFlow, I would have to have a virtual machine for each of the network switches that I wanted to monitor. So if I had 50 switches then I would need 50 virtual machines to monitor sFlow. When they told me that it supports sFlow, then technically, they are correct. However, what they didn't tell me was that for each switch, you have to create a separate collector, which didn't make any sense.

With SolarWinds NetFlow, you can have multiple switches with one collector.

After I downloaded Zabbix, it was a pain to set up. I would say that it is complex in terms of the instructions. I was getting errors, and apparently, I was not the only one. I had to look at two or three different websites to get it set up. I found that if you follow the steps that come with it, which were not very detailed, it did not work. I had to search through different forums in order to figure out the error that I was getting. By the time I had finished, it took me three or four hours to figure out why I was getting the errors, and I had to reinstall it four times in the process.

In total, I would say that the deployment took at least 12 hours.

I completed the deployment myself.

I was using the free, Community Edition.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Zabbix is to seek the help of somebody who has actually done it before. Otherwise, it's not worth their time. Also, find somebody who can provide you with the templates that you need, or who's got familiarity with building them. It is a good solution if you have the time to build the templates and figure it all out. This requires knowledge of SNMP, as well as all of the devices. Then, you have to put it into XML and create a template that Zabbix can use. It is not a straightforward solution.

The reason that I stopped using Zabbix and bought LogicMonitor is not that it didn't work well. Rather, I needed a solution that was complete, where I didn't have to do the development.

I would rate this solution a four out of ten.

On-premises

We are using Zabbix just to monitor our small network out here.

The integration with third-party tools and the alerts are most valuable.

We would like to monitor other touchpoints such as ATM machines. It would be great if it can provide monitoring of ATM machines. Compatibility with other products would also be great.

We have been using this solution for two or three years.

It is very stable.

It is scalable. We have two people who are using this solution.

There are a lot of professionals and sites available, so we just get help from them.

We were not using any other solution.

It is reasonable.

Our requirements are basic, and it is fulfilling them. I would rate Zabbix a seven out of 10.

On-premises

Infrastructure monitoring.

Excellent monitoring tool.

Auto-config.

Multitenancy.

Still implementing.

It has various features, I like its versatility the most.

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

The template is another valuable feature, because hosts can be easily added.

My organization can get a proper alarm when some issues occur on a system.

Even though it’s such a powerful monitoring system, it would be more helpful if it had a flexible UI.

I have used this solution for more than three years.

There were no stability issues experienced, it’s so stable.

There were no scalability issues.

I’ve never used technical support because it is free.

I did the setup by referring to its documentation and that was enough.

It’s free of cost.

I checked Nagios, but I didn’t seriously evaluate it.

The documentation has all the information you need.

We use Ubuntu for the distribution of our products and our web application firewall. Previously, I have also used a desktop version of Ubuntu on my laptop. We use this operating system for our Zabbix server as well, for monitoring, testing, and so on. 

We mostly use a server version, so it's only a command console. There's no graphical interface. 

This solution is deployed both on-premise and on cloud. 

Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software. 

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 don't have any requests for additional features. 

I have been using Ubuntu Linux for a little over 10 years. 

Ubuntu is stable. 

This solution is scalable, but the scalability is more appropriate for hardware, not for the operating system. 

In my company, there are only a few users dealing with the desktop version of the Ubuntu operating system. As far as production environments and testing servers, there are maybe a few dozen users. 

We have never contacted technical support. We've never had any problems which demanded support from the Ubuntu teams. 

Before using Ubuntu Linux, I used CentOS, Debian, and Kali Linux. 

The installation is really easy. The timeframe depends on the hardware speed, so it's rather fast. I handled the installation by myself. 

We don't actually have a technical team specific to Ubuntu—they're all IT guys, so we all have good skills for doing things ourselves. 

We implemented this solution through an in-house team. 

I'm surprised that Ubuntu Linux has a paid license, even some supporting stuff included. We don't use the paid version, we only use the common edition. 

I rate Ubuntu Linux a 10 out of 10. It's really great. I recommend Ubuntu Linux to others who are looking into implementing this OS. 

Hybrid Cloud

Before the deployment of Zabbix, we experienced some delays on our internet connection, we decided to deploy it and we registered all our network devices, such as switches. We turned on the firewalls in Zabbix. We linked Zabbix to Grafana to receive a more accurate graph.

From the use of Zabbix, we are now able to see an overview of our bandwidth consumption, a direct view of what links are being used on our backbone switches, and if there is any unusual peak of traffic on our network devices. Before using Zabbix and Grafana, we didn't have any view of the results of our network. We used to connect individually to every single device and collect the data to analyze but now, we have the opportunity to see graphs and charts of all of the network metrics.

I have found that the reporting feature in Zabbix is most valuable. Additionally, the solution has given us bandwidth options, we are able to see where problems are. For example, we noticed a problem that occurred because of a bad interface going in the wireless VLAN.

The user web interface is a little bit too basic, we need to link Zabbix to Grafana to have more options, such as graphs and charts. The interface needs to be improved. Additionally, there could be better integration with Grafana API.

I have been using Zabbix for a couple of months.

Zabbix is very stable. The resource consumptions are okay.

I cannot give too much information about the scalability features because our test environment is not very large. We have a small environment of only some firewalls and switches. We have some servers also, but we did not register them on Zabbix.

We have two users that are using this solution, the CTO and the principal network engineer.

We do not have plans to increase the solution right now but in two years we will.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I only needed to download the application and then deploy it in the VMware Workstation, that was it. Once the virtual appliance is connected to the network, it will automatically receive access via DHCP. Lastly, we use the interface to configure specific ports, the initial deployment is quite simple. 

The time it takes for the deployment takes only a few minutes.

We only require one network engineer for the maintenance of the solution.

We have received a return on investment because the solution is free and any gains we make are profit.

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.

Zabbix is a good and very cost-effective product. It does its job very well. We downloaded it for performance monitoring and it's very effective.

I rate Zabbix an eight out of ten.

On-premises

The e-mail and SMS alerts are two features I have found valuable.

Zabbix sends alerts e.g space on drives etc... which is useful as a prevention of server outage.

I have been using this solution for 3 years.

No issues with deployment.

No issues with stability.

No issues with scalability.

We previously used Spiceworks.

The setup was straightforward, monitoring simple environment.

We implemented in-house.

1 virtual server equals 1000 USD.

Spiceworks.

I recommend this solution.