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Icinga vs Network Instruments Observer comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
42nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (15th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (49th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)
Network Instruments Observer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
108th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.1%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Network Instruments Observer is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Icinga1.1%
Network Instruments Observer0.3%
Other98.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer197955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data.
Ring capture buffer. Complex filtering The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data. The Observer application is very complex to use and setup, this should be improved. Windows is unstable, a possible Linux version in future will fix this. 4 years The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"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."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data."
 

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."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"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."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"Customer service was below average and the local value added reseller did not know the product very well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free to use."
"The solution is cheap."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
13%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Brno University of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: September 2026.
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