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Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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 Server Monitoring
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (23rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Active Directory Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 5.8%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.3%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.3%
Nagios XI5.8%
Other90.9%
Server Monitoring
 

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.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility
From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Nagios allows us to configure any device so that we can send pager alerts when people don't have access to emails. It also allows us to schedule downtime and maintenance."
"Nagios XI helped me to draw the network and check for system failures."
"The most valuable feature is its support for different types of devices, where it can use all of the equipment that you need."
"Overall, it's a powerful system."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of processes."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"The product allows comprehensive monitoring of your environment, from basic monitoring of your servers health to more complex tasks like AD, database, and, to some extent, application-level monitoring."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its simplicity."
"Monitoring of processes and services is the most valuable feature. It is not necessarily just the server alone in terms of the CPU or the memory. We can go in-depth into services and processes."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"SolarWinds is one of the best products on the market and if they eventually support the IBM Mainframe then it will be perfect."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"This feature from Solarwinds SAM helped us to monitor and alert whenever the SSL cert is going to expire on the server to avoid any downtime of the services running on the server specially on ADFS platform where we have Video conference, Webex, Office 365 and single sign-on services."
 

Cons

"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."
"Nagios needs to improve their incident manager. Currently, it isn't good for ITIL in my opinion."
"The technical support is variable - sometimes I get answers, but most of my tickets go unanswered."
"Initially, we encountered problems during the setup as some errors were noted due to a few prerequisites not being fulfilled and having some configuration files to edit and plugins to add."
"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."
"The product's stability could be even better."
"The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate."
"The technical support is variable - sometimes I get answers, but most of my tickets go unanswered."
"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is not stable. We have to maintain the platform and it goes down frequently."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex. They should have drag-and-drop functionality instead. It would make it easier to use."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment, but with the help of SolarWinds support, I was able to get back to a stable platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."
"The price is too high."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
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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
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

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...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios XI vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.