Centreon vs Icinga comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Centreon and Icinga are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Centreon is ranked #24 with an average rating of 7.7, while Icinga is ranked #49. Centreon holds a 1.1% mindshare in NMS, compared to Icinga’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Centreon users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Icinga users who would recommend it.

Centreon

Read 31 Centreon reviews

9,804 Views
7,745 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

8,249 Views
5,939 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Centreon

Icinga

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Icinga and Centreon compete in network monitoring solutions, each with distinct advantages. Icinga has the upper hand in flexibility and customization due to its modular structure and integration abilities, while Centreon leads in comprehensive features and ease of use.

Features: Icinga provides modular extensions, strong third-party tool integration, and a tailored monitoring environment. Centreon offers intuitive dashboards, automatic discovery, and extensive reporting options.

Room for Improvement: Icinga could improve by adding out-of-the-box features, enhancing user interface ease, and boosting professional support. Centreon might benefit from increased flexibility, more customization options, and open-source accessibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Icinga offers flexible deployment with strong community support beneficial for custom installations. Centreon's straightforward installation with dedicated customer support is advantageous for prompt setup and ongoing assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Icinga, being open-source, features lower initial setup costs and offers high ROI with in-house resources for maintenance. Centreon requires a higher investment, justified by professional support and extensive features, delivering significant ROI through operational efficiency improvements.

To learn more, read our detailed Centreon vs. Icinga Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Centreon vs. Icinga

October 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Centreon

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

24th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

27th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

22nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Icinga

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

49th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

51st

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

35th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (17th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 1.1%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Icinga is 1.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Centreon	1.1%
Icinga	1.1%
Other	97.8%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Sulesh PK

Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.

Experience enhanced monitoring with real-time alerts and efficient support

I would like to see automation in the poller features, as currently, the poller is not automated. If we could automate the addition or removal of hosts in the poller, it would improve efficiency. Sometimes, Centreon does not show the status of services as updated, which should be addressed. Additionally, enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks, as Centreon does not currently display issues with HTTP links, requiring manual investigation.

Read full review

reviewer2292201

Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect

It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated. The alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Centreon is a really capable tool that increases efficiency and gives you more information."

"The most valuable feature is that we can manually configure everything we need. After it comes inside the interface of Centreon, you can display it. Because the interface is quite user-friendly, you can manually configure the configuration very deeply, which is very pleasant and useful because you can monitor and see everything on your service list, dashboard, or MAP. The most useful feature for me is that you can create your own plugin and monitoring query."

"Centreon's real-time monitoring, despite having some manual aspects, supports us in managing our operations effectively."

"The most important feature is that it permits us to receive alarms if there is an incident within the infrastructure. The feature I love the most is the reporting feature, the MBI (Monitoring Business Intelligence) which permits us to send advanced reports to our customers in PDF format or in Doc format. We also deploy Centreon Map which gives our customers intuitive views of their information system."

"The downtimes feature is helpful. If the ISP is doing some maintenance on its network, we have the option to put downtime on the devices or the services, so we won't get any false alarms."

"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of servers and networks, because we have a lot of them and need to maintain control."

"During the day it probably saves us 50 percent of our time, and during the night it's even more."

"Centreon enables us to proactively take action on issues before they even become incidents, which significantly reduces business disruptions resulting from controllable factors."

More Centreon pros

"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."

"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."

"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."

"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."

"The most valuable feature is one that not many are even aware of, as Icinga has a self-healing event handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted, and you can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction."

"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."

"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."

"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."

More Icinga pros

Cons

"The Home view could be improved by adding customization functions that allow users to change the size of the widgets for a more uniform layout."

"Sometimes, when the GUI and some of the search fields are being reset, and I return to the page, then I have to set them again. Therefore, some improvement on the UI and the filtering is needed."

"Where Centreon is weaker is that the initial deployment could be easier."

"Centreon supports officially 10,000 services per poller. That is not much for larger customers, because this limit is reached very quickly. We use it with three times the limit without any problems, but Centreon says, "Okay, we are only supporting it with 10,000 services." We are aware that increasing the limit has different impacts because they need to support it. However, for most customers, it would be be very good if they could increase the limit of services."

"The pricing setup costs and licensing weren't very good in the past."

"I would like to see a better UI, one which is more responsive."

"Centreon is very bad with auto-scanning. It's very monolithic software. It doesn't have microservices and it only has basic clustering. You cannot, for example, have six or seven nodes for Centreon's cloud processes."

"Centreon technical support is only available during Central European business hours. When it comes to critical business solutions, there should be a 24/7 hotline that customers can rely on."

More Centreon cons

"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."

"Icinga is a complex solution that's hard to learn. It's a powerful product for monitoring, but new users will have a hard time figuring out what to do."

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

"Icinga’s automation could be improved."

"The user interface should be improved."

"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."

"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."

"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."

More Icinga cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Centreon is an open source product. Thus, there is no need for licensing."

"The solution is very effective, despite the low price."

"The solution has a free part and after that threshold, you will need to pay. For example, if you believe you can create an interesting map, most of the time, you will have to pay 10,000 Euros per year for having access to these components."

"The tool is cheaply priced."

"Centreon is better than Nagios XI in regards to cost and support response times, when you have a problem. If you have a problem, it costs money to contact the Nagios XI support."

"Their licensing model is really easy. You have one license and you have access to all the features, compared to other tools where you have to purchase add-ons."

"Centreon is always available to develop new plugins when needed. The most important thing is that their maintenance account yearly subscription fee includes the fact that they will maintain the new plugins that you requested them to deliver."

"Open-source solutions like this can be very cost effective for an organization looking for a product that they can quickly implement, as there is no initial cost and there are no license renewal fees. However, it is important to take into consideration some of the related costs that may come along as needed, such as training, support, and product enhancements."

More Centreon pricing and cost advice

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"The solution is cheap."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"The solution is free to use."

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

"It's an open-source solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

14%

University

13%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Centreon?

Centreon's pricing is not very expensive. Initially, I rated it seven, but corrected to five out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Centreon?

I have certain concerns with Centreon, such as being unable to set downtime for multiple devices at once due to the limitation of adding only 50 devices in a single go. Increasing this limit would ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Centreon?

We are using Centreon for monitoring devices, both LAN and WAN devices. There are subsidiaries for my company, so if any devices go down or there are any service alerts, we receive alerts through C...

See all answers

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Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Centreon

October 2026

Download Centreon product report

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

October 2026

Download Icinga product report

Also Known As

No data available

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

Overview

Centreon offers a robust IT infrastructure monitoring platform, featuring user-friendly dashboards and real-time monitoring. It excels in scalability and integration, making it suitable for monitoring diverse network environments.

Centreon stands out with its unified monitoring capabilities, providing businesses with user-friendly dashboards and extensive plugins for customization. Its scalability ensures companies can expand monitoring tasks without incurring additional costs. Integration capabilities allow seamless interaction with ticketing systems and automation tools. Centreon offers customizable reporting and effectively manages downtimes, providing real-time feedback and proactive maintenance through Business Activity and Anomaly Detection features. Despite its strengths, users find areas for improvement including downtime scheduling, API functionalities, UI enhancements, end-to-end monitoring, and documentation. Businesses are increasingly demanding better automation, network discovery, cloud monitoring, and notification options.

What are Centreon's standout features?

Unified Monitoring: Delivers a comprehensive monitoring platform for IT infrastructure.
User-Friendly Dashboards: Offers intuitive and customizable dashboards for efficient monitoring.
Extensive Plugins: Enables flexibility and customization through numerous plugins.
Scalability: Allows expansion of monitoring duties without additional costs.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with ticketing systems and other tools.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Minimized resolution time through proactive maintenance features.
Ease of Use: Simplifies monitoring with its user-friendly interface.
Proactive Issue Resolution: Real-time monitoring and alerts help prevent service outages.
Customizable Reporting: Adapts reports to meet specific organizational requirements.
Diverse Network Management: Capable of handling diverse IT environments efficiently.

Centreon is implemented across industries to monitor IT infrastructures, including networks, servers, and applications. Companies leverage it to track server performance, manage network devices, and receive timely alerts on device status. Its ability to integrate with ticketing systems and automation tools streamlines operations, enhancing global IT infrastructure monitoring and customer service management with real-time feedback and issue resolution.

Centreon

Icinga is a robust tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, known for its distributed monitoring capabilities and seamless integration with multiple platforms. It efficiently observes servers, network devices, and environments like Linux and Windows, enabling proactive issue identification and resource management.

With a focus on task delegation and clustering, Icinga offers an intuitive interface through its GUI and Icinga Director, simplifying configuration. The extensive plugin library supports diverse technologies, while the API allows automation with tools like Terraform and Ansible. Despite its strengths, users report challenges with data display in the GUI, a need for improved dashboards, and complex configuration processes. Users benefit from its SNMP alerts, email notifications, and automated incident handling, making it essential for managed service environments and enterprises.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Task Delegation: Streamlines monitoring tasks across distributed systems.
Event Handler: Enables automatic service recovery with minimal intervention.
Plugin Library: Offers extensive support for integrating diverse technologies.
API Accessibility: Facilitates automation with popular tools like Terraform.
Custom Plugins: Allows easy creation and personalization for monitoring needs.

What benefits should you consider in Icinga reviews?

Flexibility: Tailors monitoring to specific requirements with community support.
Scalability: Successfully manages growing infrastructure demands.
Proactivity: Enhances issue identification and resource allocation.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing IT operations platforms.

Icinga is widely adopted in IT environments for monitoring servers, networks, and applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology. Its ability to integrate with various operating systems and automation platforms makes it a versatile choice for industries prioritizing comprehensive surveillance and proactive management of their infrastructure.

Icinga

Sample Customers

Airbus, Bollore, BT, Canal Plus, Kuehne Nagel, Limagrain, LVMH, Oberthur Technologies, Orange, Darty, Addax Petroleum, Plastic Omnium, Auchan, Valeo, Saint Gobin, Clarins, Hugo Boss, JC Decaux, French Government (Defense, Justice, Environment, Agriculture), OptiComm, Thales, Zeiss.

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

Buyer's Guide

Centreon vs. Icinga

October 2026

Free Report: Centreon vs. Icinga

Find out what your peers are saying about Centreon vs. Icinga and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.

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