Cisco Intersight vs Icinga comparison

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Cisco Intersight

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Icinga and Cisco Intersight are IT infrastructure management tools. Icinga is favored for its cost-effectiveness and customization, while Cisco Intersight is preferred for advanced features catering to tech-focused businesses.

Features: Icinga provides open-source capabilities, extensive monitoring, and flexible integrations, suitable for varied network environments. Cisco Intersight offers cloud-based management, strong automation, and comprehensive system analytics, delivering detailed insights.

Room for Improvement: Icinga could enhance its setup process for easier deployment and expand its professional support offerings. Increasing documentation and connection with commercial tools would also improve its usability. Cisco Intersight might benefit from more competitive pricing options for smaller enterprises, enhancements in user interface intuitiveness, and faster feature updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Icinga requires a complex setup due to its open-source framework but benefits from active community support. Cisco Intersight offers streamlined cloud-based deployment, minimizing setup time with professional support services, appealing to businesses needing dedicated assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Icinga is budget-friendly with low initial setup costs, providing high ROI through customization. Cisco Intersight demands higher upfront costs for its advanced capabilities, resulting in potential long-term ROI from efficient management that suits tech-driven organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Intersight vs. Icinga Report (Updated: September 2026).

Cisco Intersight vs. Icinga

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Helped 913,924 peers since 2012

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

Cisco Intersight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (14th)

Icinga

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

49th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (42nd), Server Monitoring (15th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Icinga is 1.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Intersight	1.5%
Icinga	1.3%
Other	97.2%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

AbhinavSingh

Technical Marketing Engineer Hybrid Cloud Infrastructures at NetApp

Centralized policies have simplified hybrid operations and now support automated workflows

The challenge could be if there are any bugs. Most of the time, you may feel that the TCAM resources are getting full on the Nexus just because of some bug or the configuration is not supported. Or sometimes, if there are any vulnerabilities happening on the current running firmware, those are challenges we have. And if you talk about from the compute side, there were initial bugs such as a CPU throttle issue. Because of that, the chassis was not running in an optimum way. You may see performance issues during that time. For that, Cisco released a patch, and it got fixed. I think Cisco Intersight should allow more automation capabilities. It should be more open, and it should provide more automation capabilities. I think there is also a scope of making it a little bit simpler because a lot of policy and config sometimes becomes confusing for the user because it has a lot of config. Maybe they can do a little bit of simplification with Cisco Intersight.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like most about Cisco Intersight is its manageability."

"Cisco Intersight has positively impacted my organization by providing more automation and less manual work, as everything can be automatic after registration to Cisco Intersight and offering more visibility as well."

"Scalable portfolio of services for remote device management, with good cloud integration. It's also easy to set up."

"I rate it a ten out of ten. I don't have any issues with it."

"Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management."

"Overall, I rate Cisco Intersight a ten out of ten."

"Our organization uses Cisco Intersight since it helps manage our physical infrastructure."

"The tool helps to manage Cisco servers."

More Cisco Intersight pros

"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."

"If you have a small infrastructure or a small number of devices that you want to monitor, then I think it's a good solution."

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

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

"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 best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."

"I would recommend Icinga; it's an open-source solution, it's quite easy and simple to use, and checks can be run with Python code and Shell Script code."

"People should know that it is simple and advanced."

More Icinga pros

Cons

"Cisco Intersight is a stable product, but it needs some improvement."

"Cisco Intersight should allow for more automation capabilities and be more open."

"Regarding improvements for Cisco Intersight, I would say more third-party integration is needed."

"There is a significant issue regarding migration from UCS Manager into Intersight without formatting the Fabric Interconnects (FI), which is problematic in a production environment."

"Technical support from Cisco has been mixed. For complex issues, it's challenging to get the right engineer quickly unless you have a specific contract like CX."

"The usability must be better."

"Cisco Intersight's license cost is very high compared to AWS and Azure solutions, which have lower initiation costs. The high initial cost is a significant concern."

"When new features are added, the service becomes full of bugs and does not work."

More Cisco Intersight cons

"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."

"Icinga’s automation could be improved."

"The installation and configuration are very complex."

"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."

"It is not really adequate for our current needs. It causes additional issues which we have to work around and takes us time that a better solution would not."

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

"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."

"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."

More Icinga cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You can get a free license for monitoring but need to purchase a license if you need extra control."

"The product is cost-effective."

"Cisco Intersight has competitive pricing. On a scale of one to five, my rating for its pricing is four."

"Cisco Intersight is not cheap, but it's not the most expensive product either."

"It's just the standard licensing cost. There are no additional fees."

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

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

"It's an open-source solution."

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

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

"The solution is cheap."

"The solution is free to use."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

University

11%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	10

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?

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What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?

The first use case is to build a hybrid cloud. The first thing is to configure the server. The server could be located either on an edge location or on the data center, or it could be a remote offi...

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What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Intersight?

I work as a partner. For optimizing, Cisco has various tools. If you talk from a network point of view, they have recently launched Nexus One. That gives enterprise an opportunity to configure a he...

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Comparisons

Cisco UCS Manager vs Cisco Intersight

Compared 38% of the time

HPE OneView vs Cisco Intersight

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco UCS Director vs Cisco Intersight

Compared 3% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco Intersight

Compared 3% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Intersight

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco Intersight Competitors

Zabbix vs Icinga

Compared 8% of the time

Checkmk vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Icinga

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios Core vs Icinga

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Cisco Intersight

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Download Icinga product report

Also Known As

Intersight

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

Overview

Cisco Intersight delivers advanced data center management with cloud integration, remote server scaling, and predictive analytics, promoting efficient infrastructure management. It supports hybrid environments and is suitable for scaling across enterprises.

Cisco Intersight offers a comprehensive view of data centers with seamless cloud platform integration, enhancing manageability across environments. It is known for workflow automation, inventory management, and predictive analysis, allowing users to optimize workloads. Users leverage its scalability and ease of use, with features that aid in remote management and integration with both Cisco and non-Cisco products. However, improvements are needed in usability, automation, and third-party tool integration, especially for on-premises and hybrid cloud management. Users often face challenges with firmware management and transitioning from UCS Manager. Desired enhancements include better software compatibility, third-party integrations, expanded microservices support, enhanced AI features, and more automation capabilities, addressing setup complexity, support, and high maintenance costs.

What are the main features of Cisco Intersight?

Data Center Management: Provides insights into data centers with comprehensive monitoring.
Cloud Integration: Enables integration with cloud platforms for enhanced workflows.
Remote Management: Facilitates remote management of data center environments.
Predictive Analytics: Offers analysis tools for workload optimization and planning.
Scalability: Capable of scaling with enterprise infrastructure needs.

What are the expected benefits of using Cisco Intersight?

Improved Infrastructure Management: Offers tools for efficient management across environments.
Enhanced Workflow Automation: Reduces manual tasks with automation capabilities.
Cost-Effective Operations: Promotes efficiency and reduces maintenance costs.
Comprehensive Integration: Supports seamless integration with diverse platforms and technologies.
Performance Optimization: Utilizes predictive analytics for optimizing system performance.

In industries where data center management and integration are critical, such as finance, healthcare, and telecommunications, Cisco Intersight is used to monitor and manage infrastructure across multiple sites. Its capability to combine platforms like HyperFlex and VMware allows organizations to maintain hardware status effectively, supporting both on-premises and cloud environments for efficient service delivery.

Cisco

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.

Sample Customers

EXMAR, RapidScale

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

Cisco Intersight vs. Icinga