NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs Nagios Core comparison

Nagios and NETSCOUT are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Nagios is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7, while NETSCOUT is ranked #84. Nagios holds a 1.9% mindshare in NMS, compared to NETSCOUT’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Nagios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NETSCOUT users who would recommend it.

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

5,072 Views
4,210 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Read 3 NETSCOUT vSTREAM reviews

799 Views
759 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Nagios Core and NETSCOUT vSTREAM compete in the network monitoring and management category. NETSCOUT vSTREAM appears to have an advantage due to its advanced features that may justify its higher cost.

Features: Nagios Core offers customizable plugin options, extensive alerting capabilities, and an open-source platform for community-driven development. NETSCOUT vSTREAM provides sophisticated data analytics, deep packet inspection, and detailed traffic visibility.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Core could improve by offering professional support, simplifying setup, and enhancing its graphical user interface. NETSCOUT vSTREAM may benefit from more cost-effective solutions, increased flexibility in plugin integrations, and better community engagement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nagios Core's deployment benefits from extensive community resources, suitable for those familiar with open-source environments, with community-based support. NETSCOUT vSTREAM provides professional assistance and a structured deployment model, supported by expert customer service catering to enterprise environments.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core is cost-effective due to its open-source nature, ensuring a faster ROI for those willing to manage configurations and rely on community support. NETSCOUT vSTREAM, requiring a higher initial investment, offers strong ROI through thorough analytics and network performance insights, ideal for enterprises needing robust solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core

February 2026

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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

Nagios Core

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th)

NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

84th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.9%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT vSTREAM is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nagios Core	1.9%
NETSCOUT vSTREAM	0.4%
Other	97.7%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

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.

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Keval Lodaya

Network Engineer at Inniti Network Solution

A user-friendly solution that is easy to install and improves visibility

I would like to see improvements made to the user guide. From my personal experience, it is helpful to see a list of steps describing what to do next in different situations. An example is what to do and what to back up in the case of certain types of failure. There are also cases where a customer can't understand specific features. Enhancements to the user guide would be helpful for this. More features for network fragmentation would be helpful.

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

"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."

"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."

"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities."

"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."

"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."

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

"We use the product to monitor server applications."

More Nagios Core pros

"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."

"One of the valuable features is the packet decoding."

Cons

"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."

"The core version is no match for the XI version."

"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."

"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."

"I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future."

"The tool needs to improve the integrations."

"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."

"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."

More Nagios Core cons

"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."

"Room for improvement exists in filtering in the packet decode."

"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's free."

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

"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"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."

"It's free."

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"Nagios Core is free to use."

"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is quite expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Energy/Utilities Company

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	22

No data available

Questions from the Community

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.

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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.

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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...

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Comparisons

Icinga vs Nagios Core

Compared 9% of the time

LibreNMS vs Nagios Core

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs Nagios Core

Compared 6% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 6% of the time

Centreon vs Nagios Core

Compared 5% of the time

More Nagios Core Competitors

NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Compared 25% of the time

vRealize Network Insight vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Compared 17% of the time

Arista Data ANalyZer vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Compared 17% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Compared 15% of the time

NetMon vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM

Compared 14% of the time

More NETSCOUT vSTREAM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

January 2026

Download Nagios Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

February 2026

Download NETSCOUT vSTREAM product report

Also Known As

No data available

vSTREAM

Overview

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

Nagios

The vSTREAM virtual appliance complements existing Adaptive Session Intelligence (ASI)-based instrumentation to provide the same level of visibility within virtualized and cloud infrastructures that is already possible in physical environments. The vSTREAM virtual appliance is ideal for monitoring service-critical traffic running within virtualized or cloud infrastructures, either locally on a host or as an aggregation point for multiple hosts. With complete visibility across physical, virtual and cloud networks, the vSTREAM virtual appliance presents real-time views of end-to-end call trace data and network-wide KPIs, to protect the reliability and availability of networks and application services.

NETSCOUT

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

Metropolitan Police Agency, Banpara, PropertyRoom.com

Buyer's Guide

NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core

February 2026

Free Report: NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. Nagios Core

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