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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 (23rd), Server Monitoring (13th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (25th), Cloud Monitoring Software (25th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (4th)
 

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 3.1%, down 3.6% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 12.3% mindshare, down 13.1% since last year.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nagios XI3.1%
Zabbix6.8%
Datadog4.0%
Other86.1%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Wireshark12.3%
AirMagnet Survey PRO10.0%
LinkRunner9.4%
Other68.3%
Network Troubleshooting
 

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.
DonniUgalde - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior I.T. Systems Engineer at Pro Techs MSP
Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use
I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"BPI: It allows defining peripherals to map business criticality for efficient monitoring, as required."
"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."
"The Script Module in Nagios is really easy to use and is really cost efficient."
"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 alerting system is very effective."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."
"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."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"The options that are required to get the details for the packet drops are good."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"The product is simple to implement."
"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"From an alerting point of view, some graphics and metrics don't work properly with Nagios XI as they do with Checkmk."
"The product does not have SAP monitoring."
"The reporting structure could be more streamlined."
"The GUI could be improved. It's a bit too basic, and maybe having a GraphQL interface would resolve this."
"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 installation and monitoring need improvement."
"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."
"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."
"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."
"The decryption of encrypted packets could be better."
"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."
"The product has been using the same GUI for many years."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"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."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"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."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"The tool is free."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"It's free."
"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's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
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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
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
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 Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
 

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 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: January 2026.
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