Nagios Core offers a versatile monitoring solution that efficiently manages notifications, reporting, and resource usage. Its open-source architecture provides flexibility and customization options for comprehensive infrastructure health management.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Nagios Core | 1.5% |
| Zabbix | 3.9% |
| SolarWinds NPM | 3.6% |
| Other | 91.0% |
| Type | Title | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Network Monitoring Software | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Product | Reviews, tips, and advice from real users | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | Nagios Core vs Zabbix | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | Nagios Core vs SolarWinds NPM | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | Nagios Core vs Auvik Network Management (ANM) | Jun 23, 2026 | Download |
| Title | Rating | Mindshare | Recommending | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Datadog | 4.3 | 2.3% | 97% | 211 interviewsAdd to research |
| Zabbix | 4.2 | 3.9% | 95% | 109 interviewsAdd to research |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 18 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 10 |
| Large Enterprise | 17 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 230 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 135 |
| Large Enterprise | 271 |
Nagios Core, known for its extensible plugin architecture, proactively enhances infrastructure management with customizable notifications and reliable reporting. Seamlessly integrating various plugins, it offers real-time dashboards and efficient alerting systems for thorough monitoring. Its adaptability and ease of configuration make it popular among users seeking flexible monitoring solutions. However, improvements in the web interface, scalability, performance, and visualization are needed to enhance accessibility. Users seek better alert mechanisms, more robust PDF export features, and simpler setup processes for increased efficiency.
What are the key features of Nagios Core?In many industries, Nagios Core is integral to monitoring infrastructure and services, including cloud servers, applications, and network devices. Users rely on it for issue detection, capacity planning, and maintaining system stability in environments like AWS and on-premise servers. Its capabilities in CPU, memory, and bandwidth monitoring along with alert systems support sectors needing real-time oversight of critical equipment.
| Author info | Rating | Review Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group | 5.0 | I've been a senior system administrator using Nagios Core for over a decade to monitor everything from databases to application servers. Its simplicity and comprehensive features, including configurable alerts and dashboards, make it an effective IT monitoring solution. |
| Tech Lead at STL Digital Limited | 3.5 | I use Nagios Core to monitor over 2,500 services and devices, finding its extensibility valuable, though its UI needs improvement. I recommend better integration and reporting features, considering alternatives like Zabbix and Grafana for superior visualization. |
| Senior Application Performance Monitoring and Alerting Specialist at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees | 4.0 | We use Nagios Core for internal system monitoring, valuing its backend capabilities. However, I prefer Zabbix for its scalability and full solution benefits. Nagios lacks advanced dashboarding, so we integrate its data into tools like Grafana for presentation. |
| Administrator at self-employed | 4.5 | I use Nagios Core to monitor the network and some servers. Its most valuable feature is the alerting capability, which required customization and automation to work effectively. My company also utilizes Elastic, Grafana, and Kibana, seeking integration within one interface. |
| Manager, IT at kas | 4.5 | I use Nagios for network monitoring, receiving alerts for device status via email or SMS. It effectively monitors disk space, processor usage, and temperature. However, the interface could be improved. I haven't considered alternate solutions or cloud providers. |
| Regional Portfolio Manager at First in Business Solutions | 5.0 | I mainly use Nagios Core for monitoring servers and services, both inside and outside our network. Its notifications are valuable, but it could improve in graphics and usability. Previously, I used Centreon, which had a nicer interface. |
| Sr. System Administrator at Guj Info Petro Limited | 5.0 | I use Nagios Core for cost-effective infrastructure monitoring, offering extensive plugin support and strong community backing. Despite needing shell-based configuration, its reliability over many years significantly saves costs compared to paid monitoring solutions. |
| Administrateur reseaux at Orange | 4.5 | I use Nagios Core for network monitoring. It's easy to install, manage, and very stable, providing good performance. I find it valuable for seeing network traffic, though I wish it had user activity tracking. |
| Senior Technical Support Engineer at a cloud solution provider with 11-50 employees | 4.5 | Our company uses Nagios Core to monitor test servers for enterprise clients, with 25 users involved. The valuable alert feature aids in rapid service restoration, though the basic user interface could be improved for better interactivity. |
| Manager, Database & System Administration at Awash International Bank | 4.0 | I primarily use this APM solution for application performance monitoring, finding its features valuable for user experience. It's stable and scalable, but I believe the initial setup process is too complex, especially for application monitoring. |
I was a senior system administrator. I've been using Nagios Core for more than ten years now. It can be used to monitor hosts, such as machines, and monitor services of any kind.
I'm using it to monitor my databases. I'm using the Netgear Core to monitor my web URLs and web servers. I'm using it to monitor my application servers. I'm using it for everything. As I told you, it's a very simple and very effective monitoring solution.
The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything. Everything in the IT domain, you can monitor anything. You can even monitor printers, the ports of printers, Core workstations, and storage. You can monitor the workflow Core and the utilization of computes.
If you want to grasp everything of your IT equipment on a single interface, you can use Nagios. It's the best one. It provides dashboards, and you can also configure your emails and alerts with it. If something is critical, you can configure it to notify via emails.
It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
I've been using it for more than ten years now.
I haven't noticed anything difficult about stability. I've been using it for years now. I tried many other solutions at work, however, in terms of Nagios, I haven't seen any disruption or downtime. It's a very stable solution. It can be deployed with a very small footprint. It only requires a small VM. It's very effective. It doesn't burden your network.
The solution is scalable. You can scale it to any length. You can scale it to any maximum. You can put as much as you want on it.
I chose Nagios many years back. I had many other options. There are many enterprise solutions as well. Many companies provide web services. When I chose it, I chose it for its simplicity, and it's very easy to deploy.
It's not that complex. By the way, it depends on the skill set you have. If somebody is good with installing Linux-based solutions, it's very easy to deploy it.
I saw other options. I even use Nagios Log Server, and I usually visit their website. I tried to explore Nagios XI, their enterprise solution. I tested it and I found it requires more learning. It's not that clear.
I want to see something that is proactive to protect me. On the basis of the data, I would like Nagios to improve. That said, I would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten.
I use Nagios Core for monitoring purposes only. I have added enough extensions to the Nagios Core, and the company does not want to add any new features because whatever I have added is completely worth it. I have created Nagios Core projects to improve its functionality, and we use it to monitor more than 2,500 services, servers, virtual machines, and network devices in a 24/7 environment. We also use it for email alerts and SMS alerts.
We have a lot of integration tools available in Nagios Core, such as the alerting mechanism via WhatsApp, SMS gateway, and email alerts. They work pretty well, allowing us to react promptly to any issues.
The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me. The traditional Nagios Core UI isn't great, but the Core engine and Relay Binding Services are stable and good.
Additional plugins like reporting tools, graphing mechanisms, and GUI tools help make it user-friendly. Specifically, graphical dashboards like PNP for Nagios and NCONS (Nagios Console) allow easy export of bandwidth utilization, CPU, memory, and storage utilization graphs.
The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary.
Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.
I have been using Nagios Core for more than seven years.
The system is completely good and stable.
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
Other tools like Zabbix, Lumina, Grafana, and Prometheus are available in the market. They offer better visualization but we primarily use Nagios Core.
I would recommend it to others. I am an active member of the Nagios Core community and post my updates regularly. I have managed over ten successful integrations with big government projects and private companies using Nagios Core. It works well to manage large environments and provides robust monitoring solutions.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
We primarily use it to offer system-style monitoring for internal customers. We usually use a tactical solution to solve problems in the monitoring space for devices and hardware or for things that need monitoring.
It is a powerful monitoring tool that uses a catalog of different plugins. It's easy to configure, although I prefer Nagios XI because it's configurable through the web interface. With the core product, you need to ensure that all the configuration files are set up correctly.
The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved. While Nagios Core is a solid option, I prefer other solutions that offer more built-in functionality and better dashboarding, even in their free versions. Nagios Core is a free solution not designed to have extensive front-end capabilities. For this reason, we usually use Nagios Core mainly for technical and system solutions in the backend rather than for front-end presentations to business stakeholders. We would probably never show them a Nagios Core dashboard directly. Instead, I would feed the data into another presentation tool like Grafana.
I have been using Nagios Core for ten years.
It is suitable for small to medium businesses.
Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system.
I rate the solution's scalability as seven out of ten.
I prefer Zabbix. I started using Nagios first and was introduced to Zabbix five or six years ago. I much prefer Zabbix because it's a full solution. It's highly scalable, and you can make the latest version highly available. It's very easy to deploy. It's one of my favorite tools.
The initial setup is simple. However, for someone new to Linux, it might be challenging. Nagios Core can seem daunting or complex. Most Linux admins will find it manageable.
We are using the free version.
The functionality in Nagios Core is limited compared to the enterprise version, Nagios XI. If I ever need a free tool that offers similar capabilities to Nagios, I would choose Zabbix because it provides all the features in one tool. While both Nagios and Zabbix have their own strengths, some vendors specifically require Nagios for monitoring. In those cases, Nagios Core fits in quite nicely.
I have previously spun up versions of Nagios Core in the cloud on AWS and Azure to test and explore their capabilities. Additionally, I have been able to automate deployments using Ansible.
Integration with a third party is easy.
I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate it an eight out of ten.
I use the solution to monitor the network and some servers.
The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities. It took some time to get the tool's alerting feature to work as expected, and it could be used after some customization and the automation of the configuration.
Right now, I am only using it and not involved in the development, so I can't speak about what improvements are required from the tool. It is a job for my colleagues to do.
My company also uses Elastic, Grafana, and Kibana, so I would like to see the connection between Nagios Core and the systems we use under one web interface.
I have been using Nagios Core for seven years. I am a user of the tool.
I have no complaints about the tool's stability. Sometimes, there are some stability issues. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
I use the tool in the IT industry.
I have not contacted technical support for the solution.
My company also uses Elastic, Grafana, and Kibana.
It was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration. In our company, we had to develop a lot of scripts to generate a configuration that ran very well.
Now that I have some experience, the product's setup phase is easy. I rate the product's setup phase a seven to eight out of ten.
The solution can be deployed in a few hours to a day.
The product is cheaply priced.
I don't know if any other options were evaluated against Nagios Core in our company.
The tool enhances our teams' responsiveness.
I like the history feature of the server, which I use quite often to find out about the past or how we have developed over time.
I like the feature to review the development of the parameters over time so that I can see the tendencies.
I have heard about the use of AI in the tool, and we are still evaluating how to use AI in our data centers, but we have not decided how to integrate it.
I can recommend others to read the documentation of the product very well. The documentation is good and you can learn a lot from it. I have heard that people try to start with the product without having any knowledge and they fail to use it properly.
I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
We use Nagios for network monitoring of our devices. All devices are listed on Nagios, which alerts us if they are running properly or if there is a shutdown or any issues like a network break. Alerts are generated, and we receive notifications via email or SMS.
Monitoring with Nagios Core is helpful because it provides immediate alerts if something goes down, such as a server, or wireless router, or if there's a cable break. This allows us to respond promptly to any issues.
It effectively monitors our computers, including their disk space, processor usage, and temperature.
The interface could be improved.
I have been using Nagios Core for ten years.
The product is stable.
I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.
300 users are using this solution. If the device is increased, we will increase it.
I rate the solution’s scalability a nine out of ten.
For any problem, we Google it to easily find a solution.
Integrating mobile device notifications with Nagios Core, such as through Core SMS, is challenging.
It takes a while to set it up but once set up, it is very reliable. Deployment takes one to two hours to complete.
I rate the initial setup a six or seven out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.
We receive timely alerts for any breakdown or shutdown. Without them, we wouldn't know about issues until users complain. With Nagios' alert system, we receive notifications before users even notice a problem.
I highly recommend it to system administrators and network administrators. Nagios Core makes life easier with email and SMS alerts, ensuring you stay informed and can address issues promptly
Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
My main use cases include monitoring of servers and services. Some of them are outside our network and some are inside the network.
Nagios Core sends notifications when things are out of sync. However you set it up, t will send a notification. So that's the notification that we're looking for.
The notifications are definitely one of the most valuable features of Nagios Core. We know what to look for and what to expect when things are down.
There is room for improvement in the graphics.
Another are of improvement is the ability to host and service by other web interfaces rather than configuration files.
I have been using this solution for 15 years. I am a system integrator so I recently installed the latest version 4.4.17.
So, I work with the latest version of Nagios Core.
It is very stable. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. In my environment, only I am using the solution. But we definitely plan to increase the usage.
I would rate my experience with the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one being difficult and ten being easy.
It was pretty easy. The deployment is really quick, it took us about an hour to deploy the solution in our organization.
I pretty much followed my own notes from previous experience. So I followed a document and deployed the solution. One person is enough for the deployment and maintenance of the solution.
It's free.
I have used Centreon package about five years ago. It's a pretty old one, I guess there is a newer one now. I found that pretty easy to use as well. It was quite impressive. It had some features that Nagios didn't. It has a much nicer web interface and so on. And integrated nicely into RPE.
I tell people to go for it. It really works well. The community version is free of charge, and it's not that difficult to set up and use.
Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.
The main objective to use Nagios Core 4.x is to save significant costs on Infrastructure Monitoring without compromising the monitoring parameters.
So, deploying Nagios Core 4.x was the only option for me considering the below-listed positive factors.
1) Working on Nagios Core for more than 10+ Years.
2) Good Hands On skills to cover the standard monitoring parameters such as CPU, Memory, Storage & Running Services.
3) By introducing NCPA Agent, further monitoring became very smooth & saves time as NRPE & NCPA Client Side Configuration takes more time. On the other hand, NCPA Installation is very straight & you just need to provide a unique token only.
4) NCPA Agent is available for Windows & Linux like OS environments with most of the current & previous stable kernels.
5) Presently, more than 500+ nodes & 2500+ services are under active monitoring.
The monitored services are as follows.
1) Windows & Linux Nodes
* CPU Utilization (%) & Allotted CPU Cores.
* Memory Utilization (%) & Allotted Memory (MB/GB/TB)
* Total Storage Utilization, Allotted Storage Space & Available Storage Space (MB/GB/TB)
* Running Services, CPU & Memory Utilization (%) by a particular service.
* Start the monitoring service if Nagios finds it SHUT.
2) Cisco Nodes (Switches, WLCs, APs, Routers)
* CPU & Memory Utilization.
* Bandwidth Utilization (Combined & on individual interface as well).
* Cisco WLC: No. of connected APs, CPU & Memory Utilization & Bandwidth Monitoring.
* PING RTA, Jitter & Packet Loss.
* Temperature, Free Interfaces, IOS Version, Switch Stack Status.
3) Services
* DNS/Domain Name Expiry
* SSL Expiry
* Many More...
By integrating below-listed add-ons with Nagios Core, the end-to-end monitoring become more useful.
1) PNP4Nagios
2) NagVis
3) Nagios BPI
4) NagView
5) NagDash
6) check_mk livestatus
I started working with Nagios Core when RHEL 5 was there & since then it is still in functioning mode various types of hosts and services have been configured such as the IBM AIX, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Cisco Routers, WLCs, Switches & certain gateway level firewalls. (Fortigate, Juniper Netscreen, Checkpoint, Radware AppDirector Load Balancer)
As my knowledge gains, I've started deploying additional plug-ins (as stated above) to have a productive monitoring environment.
Please Note: Nagios Exchange is a great source of plug-ins for testing purposes.
Nagios is still functional & doing well after many years despite having 500+ nodes & 2500+ services. Moving further, the Nagios HA pilot project is in progress to have a high availability & business continuity.
In opposite to Nagios XI, Nagios Core needs to be configured through a shell console only. Though open-source GUI Content Management tools are available I'm good @ shell level only.
Using NCPA, We monitor active & passive checks both. However, Active checks mostly work well in my architecture.
The biggest difference between Nagios Core & XI is, everything comes pre-built with Nagios XI, while for Nagios Core, all add-ons need to be configured individually.
So, Nagios Core Engineer/Administrator requires in-depth shell-based knowledge & a clear understanding of Nagios Structure for all kinds of troubleshooting.
Provide a user-friendly GUI to configure various hosts/services using a graphical frontend.
I have been using Nagios Core for 11 years.
Nagios Core Scalability should be a serious concern for IT professionals responsible for overseeing their unique hosting environments.
Presently, my stand-alone Nagios Core engine monitoring 1000+ nodes but from the scalability point of view, I'm going to perform a distributed monitoring environment in HA (High Availability) mode. Single Nagios Core stands of SPOF (Single Points of Failure) having high RTO & RPO.
Nagios Core, being an open source, contains limited measures you can take to increase the scalability of the product. As it said, a free monitoring tool will simply not be able to handle the volumes of a more flexible, robust system.
That's why keeping Nagios Core due to the $0 price tag may seem like a cost-efficient approach, but eventually, it becomes mandatory to scale it without impacting productivity.
Nagios Core, which is an open source product has very limited scalability features. Large Nagios solutions have bigger problems as the Nagios core doesn't provide much scalability until you design a decentralized architecture.
Basically, Nagios uses a group of remote servers & services that are configured to perform various kinds of checks. This design makes Nagios difficult to scale, as large fleets quickly reach the limit of vertical scaling, and Nagios does not easily scale horizontally.
For me, I've configured a total of 7 different Nagios Core Servers to monitor hundreds of nodes. Using this methodology, I can be able to cover different groups of infrastructure & all those Nagios Core Servers transmit real-time data on an independent Nagios dashboard tool named MNTOS (Multi Nagios Tactical Dashboard System).
Here, I just need to monitor the MNTOS Dashboard which shows all statistics & can jump on that Nagios Server directly if MNTOS shows any kind of WARNING/CRITICAL Alerts.
In summary, you need to put too much effort to scale Nagios Core to justify organization's actual requirements.
Positive
I tried using zabbix earlier, however, I was much more confident with Nagios just because of its vast community-based plugins, and active community support, even you can have Nagios Core Paid Support by paying approximately 2200 U$/year.
Some of my known Nagios Community Members have started deploying check mk product but still I stick to Nagios Core.
Setup is straight-forward & well documented.
I'm the only person who manages Nagios Core & relevant services. Once deployed, I provided training to some Linux engineers so that they can manage it during my unavailability.
So, everything is in-house. Also, we have a roll back option to restore the last configuration if something goes wrong. In most cases, junior Linux engineers make a mistake in Nagios host/service configuration files. So, prior to making any changes, they need to make a backup copy under the same directory level.
Saved millions of rupees just because of Nagios Core. Else, a Tier-III Data Center requires a paid tool for end-to-end monitoring. Even, my organization endorses me for Nagios Core with an award.
As Nagios Core is an open source product, you cannot earn money as a product.
However, you can earn for Nagios Installation, Configuration & Ongoing Support. In other words, setup cost for end-client & regular o&m support.
Other side, you can convert Nagios Core into Nagios XI by contacting nagios.com
Nagios is really very good from the configuration point of view. If you have a hefty budget, go with Nagios XI else Nagios Core is equally good. Just you need to put a lot of effort to configure & monitor everything.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Nagios Core a 10 out of 10.
I use this solution to monitor my network. There are 25 agents in my country. This solution sends me notifications if any equipment is down.
It's deployed on-premises. I'm currently using version 4.3.3.
There are five people in my company who use this solution.
This solution is very important in my organization because it lets me see all the traffic passing through my network.
I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring.
I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network.
I have used this solution for five years.
It's stable. The performance is good.
It's very stable, so I haven't needed to contact technical support.
I previously used SolarWinds. I switched to Nagios Core because it's a unique solution, it's easy to install and troubleshoot, and there's a lot of documentation on the internet.
I downloaded the Linux image from the internet, set up my server, and launched the setup. It took 10 minutes to install. During the last installation, I activated automatic system updates.
Deployment was done in-house.
Nagios Core costs less than SolarWinds. There are no additional costs.
I would rate this solution nine out of 10.
Our company is sales based and we offer a test service to our enterprise-level customers. We use the solution to monitor our test servers and have 25 users throughout our company.
Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work.
The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic.
I have been using the solution for two years.
The solution is very stable so stability is rated a nine out of ten.
The solution is scalable with no issues.
We have not needed technical support.
The setup process is very simple.
We implemented the solution in-house.
The solution is expensive so pricing is rated a one out of ten.
I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Our primary use case for this solution is an APM for application performance monitoring. For example, we deployed the solution on-premises so we could observe the solution. We look at the threats at the web containers, the data source, and all these components under this monitoring.
The application performance monitoring feature is valuable. We primarily use it for user experience monitoring and determining which layer the problem happened to resolve it.
The initial setup process could be improved.
We have been using the solution for one year.
The solution is stable.
The solution is scalable but we are still familiarizing ourselves with tool and have not scaled largely yet.
We do not have experience with customer service and support.
The initial setup process could be easier. For example, the setup for infrastructure monitoring is straightforward, but in the case of application monitoring, it is more complicated.
We primarily implement through vendor teams.
I rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good, but the initial setup process could be easier. I recommend the solution to users who want a more diverse environment for monitoring.
