Nagios Core vs Nmap comparison

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Nagios Core

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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Nmap and Nagios Core are prominent tools in network management. Nmap appears advantageous for security analysis and network discovery, whereas Nagios Core is preferred for comprehensive network monitoring.

Features: Nmap offers robust port scanning capabilities, OS detection, and flexible scripting options. It is ideal for detailed security audits and network inventory. Nagios Core provides extensive infrastructure monitoring, service availability alerts, and performance data collection.

Room for Improvement: Nmap could enhance its GUI for easier navigation, improve integration with other tools, and expand its reporting capabilities. Nagios Core could benefit from a simplified initial setup process, better user interface customization, and enhanced documentation for ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nmap is straightforward to deploy, requiring minimal configuration, with strong community support, making it ideal for quick assessments. Nagios Core needs a more involved setup due to its extensive capabilities, but supports third-party plugins for flexibility. Both have active community forums for troubleshooting and support.

Pricing and ROI: Nmap, being open-source, incurs no direct costs, providing an excellent ROI for network scans. Nagios Core, also open-source, might involve additional costs related to setup and training time, justified by its comprehensive monitoring abilities.

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To learn more, read our detailed Nagios Core vs. Nmap Report (Updated: September 2025).

Nagios Core vs. Nmap

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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

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th)

Nmap

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 2.5%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nmap is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nmap	0.6%
Nagios Core	2.5%
Other	96.9%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Nishith-Vyas

Tech Lead at STL Digital Limited

Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements

The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

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AntoSebastin

Cyber Security Consultant - APAC at Logon Software

Scans the network and identifies vulnerabilities on each machine

Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices. The tool's most valuable feature is its vulnerability scanning. It allows us to scan a specific range of IP addresses and discover devices within that range. This makes it easy to identify devices and view their details. Port scanning is crucial for network management tasks. It helps us identify vulnerabilities by finding open ports that may be unused or misconfigured. This tool makes it easy to detect such issues. The OS detection feature is great. Unlike other tools, Nmap provides accurate information about asset vulnerabilities, helping us easily detect and address them. Using Nmap provides value to the company, especially during compliance audits. It helps generate reports on assets, updates on workstations, and insights into network activities and potential attacks. Additionally, Nmap detects vulnerabilities and provides port details, allowing us to close unused ports on the client machines.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."

"Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system."

"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."

"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."

"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."

"Monitoring with Nagios Core is helpful because it provides immediate alerts if something goes down, such as a server, or wireless router, or if there's a cable break. This allows us to respond promptly to any issues."

"I would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten."

More Nagios Core pros

"The most important function, according to me, is the capability to use some arguments in the scanning. The solution's capability to go figure and do a deep dive, discovering information on specific aspects."

"It enables us to delve deeper and identify the services and open ports on the system and visualize this information on a dashboard automatically."

"It helps us secure the network infrastructure."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its scripts. These scripts prove beneficial when security features may obscure or block connections. Nmap helps identify vulnerabilities across different systems, including web servers and various server types."

"Nmap has a powerful command line tool and a set of diagnostic features."

"The scanning procedure includes UDP ports which sets it apart from competitors."

"Nmap is easy to use. It's a command-line interface, and the output is quite good."

"Nmap's performance is great, and I've never noticed any issues in this respect. It really doesn't put a heavy load on the machine when using it."

More Nmap pros

Cons

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

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

"I would like to see a sensor that shows the traffic of a user and what they're doing on the network."

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

"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."

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

"The dashboard should be improved."

"The tool needs to improve the integrations."

More Nagios Core cons

"There is room for improvement in the design, the GUI. It looks a bit odd. Maybe Nmap should improve it or add more widgets to make it more attractive, but the basic functionality is good and provides what we need."

"One of the drawbacks of the standard Nmap utility is that it does not come with a graphical user interface, unlike a number of other open-source alternatives such as Zenmap."

"The challenge often lies in finding suitable courses and professional resources."

"The solution should increase the number of features under a free license."

"The tool's license limits the number of scans it can perform. Improving the license model could benefit customers by allowing more scans for compliance and other purposes."

"The solution is not that easy for a beginner to learn."

"Customization is not very user-friendly in Nmap."

"The price is high and could be cheaper."

More Nmap cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."

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

"We are using the free version."

"The product is cheaply priced."

"Most the plugin features are free."

"It's free."

"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"Nmap is an open-source and free product."

"The product's pricing is fine. The licensing options for Nmap include perpetual licenses and volume-based licenses. For perpetual licenses, once you purchase it, there's no need to invest in renewals. And for volume-based licenses, enterprise companies can use it multiple times based on the number of users or devices they need to scan. It's a pay-as-you-go model, similar to how you pay for what you use."

"The solution is open source so it is free."

"It's an open-source solution. Commerically, only the support service is available."

"The solution is free of cost, but there are specific services that we have to buy."

"I am using the free version of Nmap."

"Nmap is an open-source product. You don't need a license to install it."

"It's an open-source product, and I haven't seen any premiums. Options are available for those who purchase, but for my use case, everything I need is available in the community and forums."

More Nmap pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

14%

Retailer

10%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios Core?

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

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.

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.

What do you like most about Nmap?

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nmap?

I am using the free version of Nmap.

What is your primary use case for Nmap?

Nmap is used for network scanning to map the network, identify devices, and assess their status. It helps determine open ports and services running on a particular endpoint or server within an ente...

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Product Reports

Nagios Core

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Overview

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

Nagios

Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network discovery and security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, but works fine against single hosts. Nmap runs on all major computer operating systems, and official binary packages are available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. In addition to the classic command-line Nmap executable, the Nmap suite includes an advanced GUI and results viewer (Zenmap), a flexible data transfer, redirection, and debugging tool (Ncat), a utility for comparing scan results (Ndiff), and a packet generation and response analysis tool (Nping).

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

Lockheed Martin, Eastern Bank Boston, Perspecta, Harris Corporation, Discovery Communication

Nagios Core vs. Nmap