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Nagios XI vs Observer GigaStor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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 XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
Observer GigaStor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
84th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (14th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 2.5%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Observer GigaStor is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios XI2.5%
Observer GigaStor0.5%
Other97.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emmanuel Appiah Boateng - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simplifies setup and requires user interface enhancement
Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried. Typically, setting up a monitoring system on Linux involves cloning files from GitHub, building it, and installing many dependencies, but with Nagios XI, it wasn't like that. Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.
Jeroen-Dubbelman - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Bitrate
Aids significantly in the threat-hunting process and provides a score-based evaluation of user experience
There are many valuable features, but understanding end-user response times stands out. It provides a score-based evaluation of user experience, helping customers quickly pinpoint whether issues originate from the network, server, client, or application. Additionally, it facilitates in-depth analysis of application dependencies. The retrospective network analysis capability of Observer GigaStor has been beneficial. It's a pivotal feature for network performance solutions. However, I prefer to consider the entire solution suite - GigaStor, along with GigaFlow and Apex - for comprehensive network visibility and monitoring. So, I prefer to integrate all three solutions to provide the best visibility. They complement each other well, with Apex aggregating and correlating data from both GigaStor and GigaFlow to enhance environmental understanding and troubleshooting efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's great for monitoring IT services infrastructure."
"The most valuable features of Nagios XI are you can customize it based on your use case and requirements, it is flexible and easy to integrate with our systems, and you can customize the solution by adding additional features using code."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"Since the cost is zero and it can use a fairly cheap server to run on the ROI is nearly immediate."
"Nagios is the best software of its kind if you have time for configure any host and network, and you can do quite everything with a bit of scripting."
"Nagios XI is a simple monitoring tool with performance management and everything a standard monitoring tool provides."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"There are many valuable features, but understanding end-user response times stands out. It provides a score-based evaluation of user experience, helping customers quickly pinpoint whether issues originate from the network, server, client, or application. Additionally, it facilitates in-depth analysis of application dependencies."
"Enables us to go back in time to capture an issue and analyze it for a solution, and this after the fact analysis is key to overcoming the bump in the night issues."
"I have no regrets using this product, I am very satisfied for what I paid for it and for the things I am able to do with the product."
"It can help to write your rules, organize firewalls, your block, and also your protocols and IP address to come in or out of your network."
"If you have the opportunity, I would strongly encourage you to get it, because it makes the IT experience easier and more flexible, by providing the ability to see things in your networks like the directory packet label."
"Go take a look at it. It's a great product and has great capabilities."
"The ability to capture packets. It is not only for monitoring. That is very important for a company that wants to keep an eye on the packets, the transactions, the flows..."
"I also have the ability to see an application's performance, to see what's going on, why a network is slow, why this program for this user is experiencing a delay or some network issue"
 

Cons

"The installation can get very difficult depending on what Linux flavour you are using."
"The reporting part should be made simpler. While we can obtain all the reports we need, we always have to create work-arounds to get them."
"I would like to be able to extend it to all of our data centers, whether they are in the cloud or not. It would be helpful if I could connect everywhere."
"The Configuration Wizard needs improvement, because not all vendors are present."
"Nagios XI can improve network and hardware monitoring, these parameters should be simplified to allow usage for monitoring. Additionally, if there was automatic reporting it would be helpful."
"The pricing has recently risen. I know they've changed what is covered under the license, however, it doesn't change the way we use it and adds nothing to our experience, and yet we now have to pay more."
"We often need to develop custom plugins to get Nagios to work the way we want it to work because the features we need are not always available in Nagios."
"Implementation on Windows was painful."
"Maybe the graphical user interface could be simplified to allow people to use it more easily. It's already good, but they can work more on it to make it even easier."
"The Observer Console UI is consistent and stable, but could use some updating to be more modern."
"The interface is pretty complex, so for the average user, it takes a while to get up to speed with it. I would like it to be more user-friendly."
"Graphics need improvement. Because a lot of the information there you have to input first in some case to have full potential. It could be more automated."
"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."
"I would like to have more than 4TB of storage available in the portable version of this solution."
"GigaStor feeds into Apex. So, the area where there could be improvement would be in artificial intelligence. For example, the incorporation of more advanced machine learning or AI capabilities could enhance its functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"For our country in North Africa, it's expensive and we could purchase another solution for that price. But it's a reasonable price if we're speaking in international terms."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"It depends on the requirements you have. There are three types of license. There's the updates license, the work group license, and the workstation license."
"It's quite expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
What is your primary use case for Nagios XI?
I normally use Nagios XI for our servers. It's not particularly used for network equipment, however, I use it for monitoring our server performance, including CPU, memory, data, and services runnin...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Cisco Systems, Hawaiian Telecom, Renown Health, State of Nevada, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Allstate Insurance, Jack Henry & Associates, United States Airforce, US Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Chicago Board Options Exchange
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios XI vs. Observer GigaStor and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.