FortiMonitor vs Nagios Core comparison

Fortinet and Nagios are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Fortinet is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0, while Nagios is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7. Fortinet holds a 0.7% mindshare in NMS, compared to Nagios’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Nagios users who would recommend it.

FortiMonitor

Read 15 FortiMonitor reviews

2,256 Views
1,579 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

5,494 Views
4,505 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

FortiMonitor

Nagios Core

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Nagios Core and FortiMonitor are competitors in network monitoring. FortiMonitor seems to have the advantage due to its advanced feature set.

Features: Nagios Core offers open-source versatility, extensive plugin support, and alerting mechanisms. FortiMonitor provides cloud-based monitoring, automated remediation, and flexible scaling options.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Core could improve user interface, automated management, and scaling capabilities. FortiMonitor may focus on enhancing customization, integration options, and reducing dependence on a cloud-only model.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nagios Core requires significant setup time and technical knowledge. FortiMonitor supports a straightforward deployment with comprehensive technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core's low initial costs are offset by infrastructure and maintenance expenses. FortiMonitor uses a subscription model offering higher ROI through reduced downtime.

To learn more, read our detailed FortiMonitor vs. Nagios Core Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

FortiMonitor vs. Nagios Core

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 884,873 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

FortiMonitor

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

22nd

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

24th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Alerting and Incident Management (13th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (8th)

Nagios Core

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

10th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of FortiMonitor is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.9%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Nagios Core	1.9%
FortiMonitor	0.7%
Other	97.4%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

reviewer2677554

Network Engineer III at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Managing diverse networks with detailed alerts enhances device oversight

FortiManager is very helpful in managing our networks. We use it to manage 20 farms and various networks with hundreds of devices. The version we are using provides more detail than the older dashboard. We appreciate the alerting capabilities, which are integrated with SolarWinds to notify our team via SMS.

Read full review

Husham Yaqoob

Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group

Monitoring solution provides comprehensive visibility across IT infrastructure

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.

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

"FortiMonitor has a very intuitive dashboard, which makes it particularly helpful for analyzing traffic, alerts, and other information."

"The solution helps to see client infrastructure. It has many boxes and blinks green or red when the station goes up or down. We have different domains for the device groups that we monitor."

"Fortinet's customer support is very good."

"The most valuable feature of FortiMonitor is user monitoring. We are able to see if the user is following the policy or not from their system. Additionally, the solution integrates well with Fortinet FortiGate and has centralized management."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is what the devices are used for. We have big backups for our Cradlepoint solutions, but FortiMonitor is a great routing device and we love working with them."

"In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic, blocked sites, and the health of our hardware. That last part, about knowing if something's going to fail soon, is super important. It gives us time to sort things out before any big problems happen. As a system engineer, I need to keep tabs on everything – temperature, monitoring systems, and network operations. This data is really handy because it helps me ensure our site runs smoothly, whether it's turning systems on or off. Just last night, there was a system failure, but thanks to real-time monitoring, I quickly identified the problem and got the necessary replacement parts."

"The product's initial setup phase is easy."

"FortiMonitor is 100% stable."

More FortiMonitor pros

"We can get real time statistics of our servers which improves our monitoring."

"Using Nagios, I'm managing more than 1000 services, which involves the following operating nodes: IBM AIX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, HP-Unix, Windows enterprise-grade OS, Cisco router/switches, FortiGate and WatchGuard firewalls, APC UPS systems, and many more."

"Nagios Core is a great solution for monitoring pretty much any size of deployment but you do need to know your way around a Linux system to set it up and run it."

"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."

"Its an awesome product to use."

"This product covers all of our infrastructure health checks, and has triggers for us to alert us to any unusual behaviour of the monitored systems."

"Alert calls occur anytime a service goes down or a matrix is difficult and that helps us to quickly restore service and transfer work."

"We use the product to monitor server applications."

More Nagios Core pros

Cons

"Sometimes, we get corruption when upgrading from firmware to the new generation, causing a lot of issues."

"Additionally, there are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."

"FortiMonitor's monitoring could be much better. It should be like, in Palo Alto."

"There are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."

"The solution's initial setup process is time-consuming."

"FortiMonitor could improve by having compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux."

". Enhancements in the dashboard, such as clearer alerting, maintenance window management, software version tracking, and better visualization, would be beneficial."

"I think the current features are really good for me, nothing else comes to mind right now. Maybe some small improvements could be made in the customization and configuration part of the UI to make it easier or more intuitive. Customizable UI options, like we saw in the demo, could be helpful for everyone. But in our operational environment, having clear health status and system details is crucial for us system engineers. One feature I'd really like to see is a credential management system. It would help us keep track of who's logged in and how many times, which is important due to user restrictions. Sometimes, we need to manage logins more efficiently, like logging off other users to free up credentials. So having a feature like that would be really helpful."

More FortiMonitor cons

"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."

"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."

"Nagios' great customizability is also one of its greatest drawback."

"Don't use it. If you're starting from scratch, there are products that scale better and perform better, and they use the same plugin syntax as they were initially Nagios forks."

"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."

"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."

"The initial setup process could be easier."

"They should simplify the features so it becomes easier to setup out of the box."

More Nagios Core cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FortiMonitor's price is very high."

"On a scale from one to ten, I rate the pricing a nine since it is a good solution that is available at a cheap price."

"The tool's pricing model in Vietnam is a bit high. I rate the product price as an eight out of ten."

"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."

"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."

"In terms of licensing, while it may not be the most expensive option on the market, it's relatively cost-effective. You can obtain licenses at a lower cost, with the calculation being straightforward. For example, if you onboard around 5,000 devices, you'll need approximately 5,000 licenses, as each device typically counts as one license."

"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."

"Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution."

"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."

"It's free."

"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."

"The solution is expensive."

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."

"The product is cheaply priced."

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"Most the plugin features are free."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	23

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

I have a clear bias because I work for Panopta. We aren't a fit for everyone, but I can confirm that Panopta is a lot less work to stand up and maintain. It's also a lot easier to use and onboard n...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiMonitor?

FortiMonitor does save time but not significantly on costs, as there are still expenses related to procurement, installation, and licensing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with FortiMonitor?

There are areas for improvement that FortiManager is addressing. We have not yet upgraded to the latest software versions, being a full revision behind, but we plan to update soon since the current...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nagios Core?

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 mo...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM)

March 2026

Download FortiMonitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

March 2026

Download Nagios Core product report

Also Known As

Panopta

No data available

Overview

FortiMonitor is a comprehensive, SaaS-based digital experience monitoring (DEM) platform that helps organizations modernize their performance-monitoring tools. It provides visibility into endpoint application performance and digital experience—no matter where the user resides or where the application is hosted.

Fortinet

This is IT infrastructure monitoring's industry-standard, open-source core. Free without professional support services.

Nagios

Sample Customers

SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

Buyer's Guide

FortiMonitor vs. Nagios Core

March 2026

Free Report: FortiMonitor vs. Nagios Core

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