PRTG Network Monitor:The Best Alternative to Nagios
Why "For Free" is Not Always the BestSolution: PRTG vs. Nagios
Your company needs a network monitoring tool but you are still comparing solutions, especiallyPRTG
Network Monitor vs Nagios? Or you already know Nagios but you are not happy with it andare looking
for Nagios alternatives?Then, you are on the right page. We will guide you throughsome of the main
differences.
PRTG vs. Nagios: Compare it yourself!
We wanted to know how much you actually save with PRTG as an alternative to Nagios. That's why we
set up an example calculation comparing the costs of acquisition and operation of PRTG and Nagios.
We assumed a general set-up that can serve as a blueprint for many companies and compared the
costs through 12 months.
The basis for our calculation was an IT infrastructure with two virtual servers for high availability,
simple storage, corresponding network components including WLAN, and, of course, the established
applications for e-mail, database, inventory management, and website/-shop.
The outcome surprised even us! We really calculated very conservatively in favor of the open source
solution. But still, even within the first 12 months of implementation, you can save more than 5,000
Euros - or 52 hours of work that such a competent Linux expert could invest better within the
company than with implementing and operating software.
If you would like to learn about the details of the calculation or do it for your own IT infrastructure,
please feel free to download the Excel-file here.
Nagios: Free software but limited features
The most common argument you can hear is that Nagios is for free.
Sure, as an open source software the basis version can be used for free.
But it has a limited feature set, has no professional support, is hard to
handle and time consuming. Plus the installation and its handling needs
a more than solid Linux-know how. And as soon as you need more
functionality or even technical support, cost will incur. And as your
network "is a living being" your monitoring will also need constant
adaption. With Nagios that means coding.
In contrast, PRTG has a fair licensing program that grows with your
needs, from the free 30-days-trial up to the highest license that can
support an unlimited number of sensors - including the 30-daysmoney-back-guarantee. Plus you get high quality support at no extra
costs. German IT magazine Funkschau thinks so, too: It finds that in the
long run, PRTG is less expensive than the open source software "Nagios
Core" as "the costs for the Nagios solution are incurred during operation
instead of acquirement."
And this is how to get started: configuration and setup
Nagios can be effective in controlling small networks, and yes, the very basic version "Nagios Core" is
available for free. But it gets complicated when you need to manage larger environments. In order to
set up Nagios correctly, you would need a lot of time and effort before reaching a professional
standard, either by changing the code or by using additional hardware to scale the solution.
Professional technical support is not included and those who do not want to suffer should get
Nagios-XI-Standard right away. In this version, a maximum of 100 hosts and 5 support tickets are
included - for 1,995 USD.
With PRTG you won't waste countless hours reading forums and editing configuration files. After
installing PRTG in just a few seconds, the configuration guru will guide you through the set up and
configure your tool for essential monitoring. You can also use the auto-discovery tool to
automatically create a sophisticated and concise set of sensors for your complete network.
How to add a sensor in PRTG...
All in
With PRTG, everything you need is contained in one simple installer, no additional downloads are
required. Even the database is included - in contrast to almost all other monitoring solutions. If you
are using Nagios and you need to add a new device, you may require installing additional and
external plugins, which is time consuming and may require special skills.
The pleasure of using it
We would not put it as hard as Jonah Kowall does in his blog article: "Got Nagios? Get rid of it." And:
"the level of usability and sophistication of the product (Nagios) is pretty much zero." But we, too,
think that the Web GUI is not really good and not intuitive at all. PRTG, on the other hand, uses a state
of the art AJAX web interface and offers other user interfaces for older browsers and specialized
interfaces for mobile devices.
... and how that looks in Nagios.
What analysts and customers say
Many of our customers migrated from Nagios to PRTG because of the easiness and variability that
PRTG offers. Read how Peak Internet or Netmass employs PRTG Network Monitor. Also read a complete comparative test PRTG Network Monitor vs Nagios inFunkschau (19/2013).
You will find the above mentioned blog article "Got Nagios? Get rid of it." by Jonah Kowall of
Gartner here.
PRTG totally blows away similar and popular server based monitoring software, for example Nagios
and Pandora FMS. Both of these competing applications were difficult to setup and use, and the
interfaces felt poorly designed, hokey and I couldn’t imagine using the interfaces of these products
on a daily basis.”
Clayton Hill, Systems Administrator, ateamonsite.com
Don't take our word for granted. Test it yourself!
You can start monitoring your network today with PRTG. Get your free trial version and after a couple
of days using it you won't want to live without it! If after testing PRTG you find that Nagios works
better for your network requirements, really, no hard feelings.
For a complete overview of all functionalities and technical specifications, please visit PRTG Network
Monitor Feature Overview.
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