No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Nagios XI vs Observer GigaStor comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
Observer GigaStor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
85th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (15th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 2.4%, down from 3.1% 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 XI2.4%
Observer GigaStor0.5%
Other97.1%
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

"Nagios is my favourite open source monitoring system."
"The solution has a lot of plugins and scripts integrated with it."
"This solution has improved our ability to determine the source of a connection failure in our network, and now we are able to monitor the service provider's router and make that determination."
"Simplicity of configuration; I can set up configuration of 100 devices with about 10 services in one to two days."
"The alerting system is very effective."
"It's a monitoring agent. It's designed to do one thing. Its most valuable feature is its monitoring."
"BPI: It allows defining peripherals to map business criticality for efficient monitoring, as required."
"The installation is no problem. I've installed Nagios several times."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It's able to capture packets and, after a long time, you can come and use that information; to check, to analyze - everything you would want to do. So it's very good and helpful if you want to protect your data. It is stored in a certain place where you can access it every time you want to analyze it."
"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 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."
"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."
"This solution allows us to see exactly what is going on in the network and we can very quickly solve issues with users."
 

Cons

"As it is open-source, it is not user-friendly. Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"We are implementing our hybrid cloud strategy, and it will most likely not be suitable for monitoring our public cloud assets."
"Technical support is very good but is very expensive. It is becoming more and more expensive just like the upgrade."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"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."
"While this solution works, I think that it can be improved in terms of maintenance, support, and price."
"Nagios needs to improve their incident manager. Currently, it isn't good for ITIL in my opinion."
"The important separation between Interface and Core to maintain historical plugins and methods generate complexity that makes Nagios unusable for repeat work."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to have more than 4TB of storage available in the portable version of this solution."
"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."
"The Observer Console UI is consistent and stable, but could use some updating to be more modern."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"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."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"It's quite expensive."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.