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ControlUp vs Nagios XI 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Organizations achieve efficiency and cost savings with ControlUp, automating tasks, preventing disasters, and optimizing virtual environments.
Sentiment score
6.6
Nagios XI enhances efficiency and time management but concerns about increased costs affect ROI perception across organizations.
This is having a 24/7 junior admin who's really smart, always there, always doing work, but you have to consume his work.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Basically, what we were targeting is the response time of the virtual environment.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
9.0
ControlUp's responsive, knowledgeable support enhances customer experience, offering integration flexibility and premium benefits for larger organizations.
Sentiment score
6.5
Nagios XI support is mixed; praised for responsiveness but criticized for high cost, complex licensing, and delayed responses.
I was quite happy to work with ControlUp because the support is excellent.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Basically, if I could take everything that you do, put it in a tool, and hand you that tool so you don't have to repeat your efforts, then you would be able to make good use of it.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
ControlUp's cloud scalability eases expansion, though pricing concerns arise, highlighting the importance of strategic adaptability and monitoring.
Sentiment score
7.1
Nagios XI is scalable for small to medium environments but faces challenges in large infrastructures and cloud adaptability.
It scales very well; you just have to tell it what you're doing and size it for what you're asking.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If the user interface isn’t presenting data well, it becomes difficult to manage when scaling.
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.9
ControlUp is praised for its stability and effective monitoring, with most users finding it reliable and well-supported.
Sentiment score
7.3
Nagios XI is stable, but large deployments may experience performance issues, database problems, and minor network dependencies.
It is very stable.
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

ControlUp needs seamless integration, improved monitoring, GUI enhancements, and additional features for better automation and complete insights.
Nagios XI's interface is outdated, lacks scalability, needs better cloud integration, APIs, automation, and improved documentation.
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic.
Site Duty Manager at Assw
 

Setup Cost

ControlUp pricing involves annual agreements with varied costs; thorough evaluation of licensing options is essential for optimal use.
Nagios XI provides cost-efficient enterprise-level monitoring with reasonable pricing, appreciated for its features and open-source options.
It is expensive.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
We are using the free, open-source version.
Site Duty Manager at Assw
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions.
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

ControlUp offers efficient ROI, real-time insights, robust automation, and proactive management with AI-enhanced performance monitoring and comprehensive visibility.
Nagios XI provides customizable, flexible, and scalable IT infrastructure monitoring with real-time alerts and extensive plugin support.
Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It's not only monitoring, but it's also detecting, and it could even fix problems with a lot of automation that you can put in place to fix problems automatically before you even detect them.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
The alerting system is very effective.
Site Duty Manager at Assw
 

Categories and Ranking

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
Nagios XI
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (23rd), Server Monitoring (13th), Cloud Monitoring Software (25th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.1%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ControlUp0.8%
Nagios XI3.1%
Other96.1%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2717526 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Delivers comprehensive and customizable system management with increased efficiency
The best features I have found are that it is very customizable, which would be number one, and very extensible through the use of scripts and triggers. The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening. It may sound facetious, but it really is everything about it. Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place. The benefits I have seen from using it so far include the ability to know in advance and take actions based on the information the tool gives you.
Emmanuel Appiah Boateng - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simplifies setup and requires user interface enhancement
Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried. Typically, setting up a monitoring system on Linux involves cloning files from GitHub, building it, and installing many dependencies, but with Nagios XI, it wasn't like that. Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.
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881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
I was taking care of a Citrix infrastructure, and as ControlUp is the best monitoring tool for those environments, I was also using ControlUp to monitor those environments.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
What is your primary use case for Nagios XI?
I normally use Nagios XI for our servers. It's not particularly used for network equipment, however, I use it for monitoring our server performance, including CPU, memory, data, and services runnin...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. Nagios XI and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.