Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (14th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (19th), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 6.4%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Amir  Said - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective alerting enhances network monitoring experience with an easy setup
We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful. JPS monitors the modem and performs switching, monitoring the computer, and performing switching. We implement some applications and traffic monitoring. The alerting system is very effective. For instance, if we have an alarm on some RAM storage if the traffic is cut or dropped.
Carlos Camargo - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides user-friendly API features and has straightforward deployment process
One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when adding new modules or additional pollers. Additionally, the granularity of polling times for specific components could be enhanced to better meet individual customers' needs without impacting the entire polling pool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Nagios XI helped me to draw the network and check for system failures."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios XI is customization. We can customize based on our requirements. We can do modifications and implement a lot of scripts. Additionally, it is easy to use."
"The technical support is good."
"Nagios XI helps us monitor the bandwidth of the internet connection, HTTP, DNS, active directory services, and exchange data availability. We have multiple servers to monitor databases, availability of servers, and ping."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"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 is stable."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
 

Cons

"The installation and monitoring need improvement."
"The product does not have SAP monitoring."
"I would like a much easier GUI so that I can delete events and logs, which will free up a lot of space."
"The product uses the backend as Perl and could be modified to a more lightweight solution like what's being offered by other vendors."
"The tool's AI model needs to be fixed."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it."
"The technical support is variable - sometimes I get answers, but most of my tickets go unanswered."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."
"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 could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
"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 solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The price is too high."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios XI?
It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability.
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 needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
 

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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.