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IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs Zenoss Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
Ranking in Event Monitoring
3rd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zenoss Cloud
Ranking in Event Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (26th), Network Monitoring Software (75th), Server Monitoring (24th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (51st), Container Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (42nd), AIOps (25th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is 6.5%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 5.0%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus6.5%
Zenoss Cloud5.0%
Other88.5%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

RS
EMEA Senior Sales Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Customization and robust network monitoring enhance operational efficiency
The most useful functions for monitoring purposes with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus are that it can be automated in many ways. Most importantly, it can communicate with many network components without requiring any medium connectors. You can directly integrate it if you have SNMP, which is great. The main benefits that IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus provides are that it's an umbrella tool that can be placed on top of any existing monitoring system. You can monitor the entire network from this tool. The underlying interfaces can be many, but you can keep it as a single tool in IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus and it can manage the load on its own. It negates the need to train the user base with other tools. I can provide this single tool and have hundreds of different tools underlying, but I only need to train one single user base, which is a great advantage.
ClaudiaChen - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect - Senior Technology Architect at Telstra
Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features
As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest plus points for me are the configurability and scalability of the solution, as well as the multi-tenancy of the platform."
"The most useful functions for monitoring purposes with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus are that it can be automated in many ways, and most importantly, it can communicate with many network components without requiring any medium connectors."
"Probes are the best feature because they are well written which rarely requires you to write additional rules. These probes monitor activity within your environment."
"This is an amazing product and you will fall in love with it."
"It also offers us everything we need in terms of features and functionality."
"Very stable tool and good for all types of event integration and automation."
"This solution is highly scalable; we have hundreds of probes running on more than thousands of devices, gathering millions of alarms and creating thousands of tickets, and yet we have never seen any performance issue."
"Offers very good event/alert drill-down and statistical reporting capabilities."
"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."
"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."
"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."
"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."
"It's easy to use."
"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."
"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts, for example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."
"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing."
 

Cons

"The web portal and typical event controls are a little outdated."
"The cost of the product is quite high. They should work to adjust their pricing models."
"IBM support is a bust; Zenoss support is good."
"Its integration could be better. They should provide an easier integration for all the monitoring stuff, and it will make things easier for us. Currently, there is a complexity in integrating it with a vendor application, and we have to use another tool to integrate it with a vendor application. To integrate some applications with NetCool, I need to install an IBM tool on top of it. It would be good if they can provide an API or any kind of interface that we can leverage while developing a new protocol interface or application. We should be able to use an API or interface with NetCool. Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI. Whenever we do anything on the GUI, it takes time. They need to focus on the GUI part, especially the dashboard. They should focus on how users can effectively drill down from one box to another. The visual appeal of the dashboard is as important as the data and functionality."
"The web portal and typical event controls are a little outdated."
"Yes often problems appear after resolving a previous one."
"A lot can be improved in this product considering the performance."
"Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI."
"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."
"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"
"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."
"Technical support is 3/10, poor: Incomplete and poor documentation Undocumented processes Inconsistent solutions to problems depending on source"
"This solution is complex for beginners so it takes some time to learn."
"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times."
"The AI aspect needs to improve."
"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a costly solution."
"Its license cost is a little bit more than other solutions. Our customers expect a standard market price that is comparative to other products. For each and every NetCool OMNIbus component, we have to purchase a separate license. These components are not free with the product."
"You have to have the right level of budget to afford this solution."
"It depends on the customer, what he wants."
"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."
"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."
"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Retailer
5%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Transportation Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
I would rate the pricing for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus as three, where one is a high price and ten is a low price.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, IBM can improve IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus in automation with respect to using AI, as it lacks considerably compared to other tools. The integrat...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
My current use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is for monitoring the networks.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a large-scale company is Zenoss, due to its ability to monitor completely hybrid and a...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consolidated Communications, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Capgemini
2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs. Zenoss Cloud and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.