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Nagios XI vs Wireshark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (17th), Server Monitoring (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (17th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Nagios XI is designed for IT Infrastructure Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 3.7%, down 4.0% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 13.9% mindshare, up 11.9% since last year.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Network Troubleshooting
 

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.
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues
There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The alerting system is very effective."
"The features I've found the most useful are the plug-ins, the fact that you can connect almost everything to it. That's very useful."
"It's a monitoring agent. It's designed to do one thing. Its most valuable feature is its monitoring."
"The Script Module in Nagios is really easy to use and is really cost efficient."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"BPI: It allows defining peripherals to map business criticality for efficient monitoring, as required."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"Setup is very easy. It's also possible to change source code and compile if you want to change something in the code, because it's free."
"The session-level filtering features are valuable."
"Wireshark has a lot of features. It's a powerful tool if you're familiar with it. You can see everything on the network with it."
"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."
"The initial setup is simple."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."
 

Cons

"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"The Configuration Wizard needs improvement, because not all vendors are present."
"The PNP4Nagios plugin not working easily with XI is an issue for me, because some open source monitoring plugins do not work out of the box. But in the end, you learn to live with it."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"The product does not have SAP monitoring."
"The way Nagios displays information isn't easy for a new user to understand. It's not intuitive enough. You need to read some tutorials or be trained to understand what it's displaying. Also, I think it needs more features to improve network visibility because there are some things you can't detect."
"The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic, and maybe having a GraphQL interface would resolve this."
"There's room for improvement in the visibility, and in the ability to extract information. Stuff like this should be more simple."
"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."
"DNS could be improved."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."
"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"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."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"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 pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"I am using the free version of this solution."
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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
47%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due to numerous factors.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Datadog, Auvik and others in IT Infrastructure Monitoring. Updated: April 2025.
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