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ControlUp vs Nagios Core comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
Nagios Core
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.1%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nagios Core3.1%
ControlUp1.1%
Other95.8%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.
Nishith-Vyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."
"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."
"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is the ability to check the availability of the server for network connectivity. Additionally, the interface is good."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."
"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."
"The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me."
"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."
"Provides timely notifications."
"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."
 

Cons

"There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."
"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."
"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."
"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."
"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"It's free."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.
What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
My use cases include everything, and I don't mean that facetiously. I mean everything. We manage the servers, manage user sessions, manage everything. We monitor monitoring and take actual actions,...
What do you like most about Nagios Core?
What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?
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.
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.