PRTG Network Monitor Reviews

We use PRTG to monitor all of our business critical and distributed systems around the areas that we operate in the UK. This is ensure they have good system uptime and can demonstrate against SLAs.

The historical data provided by the solution is one of the main reasons why we went with PRTG. It gives you that granular view to be able to go back 24 hours, two days, a month, or year. You can start building powerful data patterns with this technology platform.

One of the things which became apparent was that we didn't know when things were going down out of hours unless somebody sat and was there watching the consoles. Nobody knew when things were going down. Now, one of the things that we've noticed is we are picking up when we are having out of hours outages. The solution is starting to correlate data so we can speak to the relative representatives and make sure the outages stop happening.

The solution provides us with needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It gives us really good quality of service when it comes to monitoring of available space and available resources. It allows us to preempt issues before they become a problem for the business.

It is easy to use and intuitive, which is really important. It does what it says on the box by giving you a visual of the state of what is going on at any one time. 

The feature set does what it says on the box. It does the monitoring well. It doesn't try to do anything which it is not supposed to. It does what it does well.

There is a good selection of sensors and probes in it.

While the web application side of things is fantastic, the desktop app is the one area where it do with some improvement. From a user's perspective, I would like to be able to get more out of the desktop offering as opposed to where we are now with it. It could be stronger. There are opportunities there that you don't have with the web-based application to do some interesting and innovative stuff.

An important thing is to keep up with the technology which is now coming out. There is obviously a lot of generic stuff in the solution, and there is also a lot of new tech which is coming out that people need to be able to monitor.

We have had no issues. It just works and is up 24/7/365. Every update which comes out is rock solid.

We are a fairly large implantation, as we have currently 2500 nodes. We are just about to double that. The solution allows you to keep on doubling and doubling, as much as you need. The only restriction is the platform that you put it on. When you get into those larger areas, from what I understand, the performance on PRTG is just as good as it is on the smaller implementations.

We have contacted their tech support a few times, which is really good. They got back to us very quickly with a good level of technical knowledge.

The previous solution that we had (SolarWinds) was giving us a lot of false positives. We were spending a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on. We had used PRTG before, and it has always been a solid platform. 

We were experiencing network and system downtime before implementing PRTG. This was that a driving factor to switch solutions.

The initial setup was straightforward. Within a half an hour, we had it set up and running. The setup is intuitive and the install is very much wizard-driven. There is no real agenda behind it. It is very much just click and go once you have finished your scanning, then it works straightaway.

It took two to three hours from the time that we set up the solution until it provided us with feedback on our IT infrastructure. It was very quick.

We used a reseller (Axis) for the deployment, and our experience with them was really good.

The solution has enabled our IT department to be more cost-effective. It cuts down on downtime. This means we are not chasing after things that we don't need to chase. It is bringing to our attention the operational problems that we have, so we can focus our attention on those, instead of running around trying to figure out what the problem is.

It is constantly ensuring our systems are up and running. They are in a solid position. If you look at the costs attributed to downtime, those have been removed.

It is about £4,500 for the first year, then about another 15 to 20 percent annually after that. So, we are looking at about £1000 running costs a year. When you think about how much an outage costs per minute, it's negligible.

We just considered PRTG when moving away from SolarWinds.

Look at what it is you want your organization to be able to do and what it is you need to monitor. Then, concentrate on the key elements first. Don't try and overcloud what you're trying to do. Start with your core stuff and work outwards, then you will always get a good solid solution.

It is a really good, solid product, which does exactly what we need it to do.

We're using PRTG Network Monitor for server-level monitoring and network-level monitoring, and in our network, we have switches and firewalls.

We're also using the solution for bandwidth monitoring and internet link monitoring.

We're also planning to use PRTG Network Monitor to monitor CCTV and other IoT devices.

I like that PRTG Network Monitor is evolving as a product. For example, it's releasing new sensors on the OT, Modbus, and MQTT side, but its most valuable feature is the remote probe.

Other OEMs in the market will charge you after some time if you have multiple sites distributed within a particular region. Suppose you have four or five locations and deployed the agent; other solutions will charge you extra or add commercial charges to your invoice. Still, PRTG Network Monitor allows up to sixty or eighty remote probes for one server, particularly when you buy the PRTG main server license. I find this pricing model helpful, mainly because my company has multiple sites here in India, between thirty to forty sites. The company doesn't need to buy an additional license or commercial license.

The remote probe will be deployed at the site remotely, and PRTG Network Monitor will monitor the site and feed all monitoring data to the central server. It is beneficial because it ultimately gives you visibility from the central server. The remote probe feature in the tool helps you monitor remote systems or your network, so it's an outstanding feature available in PRTG Network Monitor compared to other OEMs in the market. Some OEMs may have the feature, but the charges would be huge for such a feature.

Here's an area for improvement in PRTG Network Monitor: my company needs to perform SNMPv3 monitoring, and by default, SNMPv2 is there. From a security point of view, SNMPv3 monitoring needs to be stronger. Otherwise, it'll reduce performance when you need to monitor it at the server level. It'll impact performance, including the PRTG Network Monitor performance.

If my company does a large number of SNMPv3 queries, that will reduce server performance, so PRTG recommends not scanning or monitoring a massive amount of SNMPv3. If PRTG Network Monitor can evolve into agent-level configurations rather than server-level configurations, where you can install the agent on the server and the agent provides the necessary feedback, that would improve the tool.

Performance-wise, PRTG Network Monitor still needs improvement because a large number of SNMPv3 queries reduces tool performance. It could also impact the server level. If the monitoring method for PRTG Network Monitor could be similar to other OEMs, such as SolarWinds, where the agent is on the server and provides server performance information to the main console server, that would be great.

Another area for improvement in PRTG Network Monitor is reporting. For example, if you want the report or the dashboard in a particular format, you'd need to exert some effort. You cannot do it without the support of the vendor or an expert. As a customer, you cannot configure PRTG Network Monitor reports independently because reporting is difficult.

I've been working with PRTG Network Monitor for three years.

I didn't see many stability issues in PRTG Network Monitor, so it's a nine out of ten. Most of the time, the tool works fine.

PRTG Network Monitor is a scalable tool, and I'd give it a rating of nine out of ten.

At the moment, PRTG Network Monitor support is only email-based, and that has to be improved. You never receive remote session support from PRTG.  If you're facing an issue, you either need to work with the vendor, or if you need OEM support, you must send an email.

The PRTG Network Monitor support team responds to your email, but it usually takes a lot of time. If support can directly join the remote session to brief you on the process, it would be easier than just getting email-based support.

Whenever my team communicates via email, support will provide a reference link or KB article link that tells you how to configure PRTG Network Monitor.

It would be helpful for any customer if PRTG had remote-based support, and it'll be simpler to show customers how to configure the tool.

My company only takes a little support from the PRTG Network Monitor team nowadays, but I'd give support a seven out of ten. The PRTG technical support team usually responds quickly over email, and it's good. The only limitation is the absence of remote support.

Neutral

I didn't use other solutions apart from PRTG Network Monitor. My company had a lot of issues at the time the decision to use the tool was made. My company was blind as it didn't have any monitoring tool, yet it had a lot of sites, internet links, and services. Because I worked on the PRTG Network Monitor in my previous company, I was aware of its performance and that it meets basic requirements and the company budget, versus SolarWinds, which would require a larger budget, so my company went with PRTG Network Monitor. I deployed it within the environment, and the tool works fine so far.

Setting up PRTG Network Monitor was easy, so I'd rate its setup an eight out of ten.

Installing the tool was straightforward, and there wasn't much required to set PRTG Network Monitor up. It's only the dashboard that requires a lot of effort.

Completing the setup for the tool took around two to three weeks, including the onboarding of all devices.

I followed the PRTG Network Monitor installation guide. I ensured all prerequisites by PRTG were ready, including the recommended OS or server, such as Windows OS, and other software prerequisites. I then installed the tool, and it had a GUI-based, intuitive installation, so it was instant.

What took time was onboarding the devices, though I gradually updated and onboarded the devices. I didn't do a bulk update, and onboarding devices into PRTG Network Monitor wasn't that difficult. You can even show how it's done to anybody, even a person with a limited skillset because installing the tool doesn't require much.

I implemented PRTG Network Monitor because, in my previous organization, I also implemented the tool, so I was aware of the process.

PRTG Network Monitor is very easy to use and doesn't require a lot of manpower for deployment and management, so based on this, the features of the product, and the cost, the ROI for PRTG Network Monitor is good.

You can get ROI from the tool quickly within a year. You won't have to wait three or four years to get ROI because PRTG Network Monitor is cheaper than other solutions.

I'd rate ROI from the tool as ten, so it's a hundred percent.

Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is a nine out of ten. It meets my company's budget and monitoring requirements. My company is on a perpetual license, particularly a basic license that doesn't require purchasing an additional license.

Regarding PRTG Network Monitor support, my company pays for it annually compared to other vendors, and the support cost is lower. You need to renew support annually for the tool. My company has an annual maintenance contract with PRTG.

My company is currently using PRTG Network Monitor.

I'm not using the latest version of the solution, but my company plans to upgrade to the latest one.

One person from the IT department handles the day-to-day maintenance of the PRTG Network Monitor.

Between five to six people from the IT team use the tool. Only a few members log into PRTG Network Monitor to generate a report or do additional monitoring. Usually, a person doesn't use the tool. That person receives an email alert based on his respective device and doesn't need to open the PRTG Network Monitor console because my team enabled email-based alerts. Different groups would receive the alerts, such as the application team, the security team, the frontend team, etc.

My company has plans to extend the license and apply the solution to another environment, an OT environment.

I'd tell anyone looking into implementing PRTG Network Monitor to go for it, especially if you're in a medium-sized organization that doesn't have a massive infrastructure, but it still depends on the customer. It varies from customer to customer. A large organization could still evaluate other solutions in the market, but PRTG Network Monitor is a good tool for small to medium-sized organizations.

My rating for the tool is eight out of ten because it has some areas for improvement, particularly the reporting, which could be more user-friendly, and the support, which is only email-based, with no remote support available. If I see improvement in the two areas I mentioned, I could easily give PRTG Network Monitor a nine or ten, but right now, it's an eight for me.

My company is a customer, not a partner, of PRTG Network Monitor.

We use it to manage customers and to keep an eye on when stuff goes down or when stuff is not working as intended. We monitor mostly servers, but we use it to monitor websites and some of the network infrastructure as well.

With the monitoring, certainly for some of our customers that are hosting websites, we've added in PRTG's advanced http sensors, to provide them site monitoring in addition to the server monitoring which we were doing. We can pass the information on to them when they have issues, as opposed to them not knowing until one of their customers contacts them.

I would say the solution makes our IT department more cost-effective because it allows us to respond to things a lot quicker. We can get an idea of where a problem lies in the server, if it's hardware. It saves a bit of time of trying to track down a problem.

It also tells us when we're running into problems with certain bits of infrastructure that we're monitoring.

• It's really easy to use.
• You can see as soon as there is a problem and you can track it down pretty quickly.
• You don't have to go through loads of options to find when something goes wrong.

It's very easy to manage when you've got time to do some work on it: things like adding devices, adding groups, adding sensor clusters, and being able to clone and move stuff around.

I really like the Desktop app. I'm not a big fan of the web app because I've had some browser issues with it. Since finding the desktop app, I have used that exclusively.

Thinking about the overall feature set, I've had no problems with the features that I use. It hasn't happened that I've thought, "I wish I could do this," without being able to usually find an option to do it. Among those options are things like multiple users, different types of reporting, and different actions that occur after a sensor starts. There's always been something in there. I wanted it to auto-confirm when an error does come up in the test lab and, on PRTG's website, they had an API string to do that. Everything that I've needed to do, I've been able to find in the program or on their website.

It has to be installed on a Windows machine. We'd prefer it if we could install the actual control panel on a Linux.

In addition, I wouldn't mind better categories for the sensors. When I go to add a new sensor for a new device, there are some categories in there already, and they can be filtered out, but there's quite a large pool of sensors. That's one thing that I always struggle with. When I want to go in and find something quite specific, I have got to scroll down and scroll down to find what I'm actually looking for, if I want something that I may not have used before. 

With their "recommend sensors" feature, I wouldn't mind seeing that being a bit more able to scan the device that it goes on, as it doesn't necessarily pick up everything that is on there, as it should.

It's rock solid. We restart it, and the Windows machine it sits on, once a month because it's recommended to do so, to update it. We have not had any issues with it going down or not working as intended.

We've been able to scale it up as we've brought more and more customers on. Having a sensor pool which we can dip into and use has been good. If we brought on five or ten customers, we could scale it up quite quickly with cloning and copying of templates.

We started off using open source, Nagios/Cacti-type monitoring software utilities. Yes, they're open source and they don't cost you anything, but adding devices is quite cumbersome, the management is quite difficult, and the training is more difficult. Whereas, the UI of PRTG is much easier to use; much more intuitive. 

Everybody generally starts off open-source, something that won't cost you much, but they soon realize the limits of open-source. PRTG is a company that has invested a lot of time and effort building it to make easy to use, to give it a nice UI, and to make it as responsive as it is. It's just a natural progression.

The driving factor in the decision wasn't that we experienced system downtime, it was the fact that we needed something more enterprise-oriented and something that was easier to use and manage, which PRTG is, compared to Nagios. When something like Nagios breaks, it's quite difficult to get it working again, whereas with PRTG, once you buy a block of sensors you get some support for 12 or 24 months, and you've got somebody to fall back on if you ever need it.

It was already in place when I started with the company. We've moved it across to another system and I've re-set that up and it was just a matter of installing it, setting it up. It was fine, no problems. The usual control-panel install wizard made it very easy to import our old data from our previous install into it as well.

It took about 15 to 20 minutes, from the time we set up the solution until it provided us with feedback on the IT infrastructure. That was after we imported all the other data into it.

ROI is hard to measure on something like this. It has helped us out in identifying problems that are likely to happen or that are about to happen or even when they happen. We get notified as quickly as possible. To measure the ROI on that is not an easy thing to do. But, in terms of customer service, it has helped us because we are obviously much more proactive. We notice things before a customer reports them to us. For customer service there would have been some ROI, but it is hard to quantify.

One thing I like is that when you buy sensors, it's a perpetual license, so once you buy 2,000 sensors, you've got 2,000 sensors; it's not a recurring cost. With some products, it's a subscription model where you pay every year.

We looked at SolarWinds. If I remember correctly, it came down to cost. In that regard, PRTG did work out cheaper. In addition, one of our engineers had previously worked with PRTG so he had a bias toward PRTG already. It just made sense to go with it.

You can get the trial version of PRTG, you can get a load of sensors and the actual software package to try. Install it, give it a go, it is very easy to set up. SNMP is very easy to set up on Windows and Linux, and you've got a lot of options within PRTG so you really need to get stuck in and mess about with it to see if it has what you need in it.

In terms of the sensors and remote probes, I don't have many problems with it because everything seems to be covered by it. I've not found something that I've not been able to monitor or that I've not been able to find data for. I have no problems with the probes when it comes to actually sending them and receiving the data. They just go out, collect the data. I have no network problems with it.

We only monitor certain parts of the network with PRTG, but we do compare some of the historical data to real-time data, just to make sure everything's running smoothly and nothing looks out of place.

I would rate it at eight out of ten. It is a very solid product; it does what we need it to do. There are a few bits and pieces that I wish I could do with it which, due to what it is, they don't offer.

It provides a consolidated view of servers, switching, and network connectivity for the offices that I look after.

We are reactive sooner, when we need to be. There is less of waiting for our users to call, and say, "We have no Internet." It has allowed us to move a bit quicker.

The historical data provided by the solution helps us optimize our network performance. I have just taken over the IT infrastructure. I now have six months of history, so I know what my norms are. I can identify the quirks and issues from the history to keep going forward.

The most valuable feature is the notifications. As long as you spend time and think about what and when you want to be notified, it's always accurate. It is always there. I find things out before my Internet provider. 

Without all of the sensors or out-of-the-box functions, the notifications just don't work. For a small companies like us, it keeps an eye on our different offices and the few cloud servers that we have. We don't worry about them because the job is done.

The remote probe is fantastic, particularly since they started adopting. You can run them on smaller hardware. 

All of the sensors that I have needed in their adoption of some specific cloud have been great. 

The general server/client infrastructure is well done.

I don't like the desktop app and never use it. The web client is far easier to navigate with the notifications that pop up. The web app comes with everything that you need.

I preferred the look and feel of the previous version's user interface.

I would like to see more from an Office 365 standpoint, getting a more nitty-gritty app.

I am not sure the solution is giving me all the needed feedback that we need. When something goes off on our IT infrastructure, it does tell me. However, it would be nice if it gave more intuitive information, e.g., the hard drive has gone up by 60 percent in an hour. 

The stability is great in a 64-bit deployment. If anybody mixes it with a 32-bit speed version or with WMI sensors, I have found it to be wobbly. But, a 64-bit deployment is significantly stable.

The scalability is there, but smaller companies might need CAM software to be able afford the product. 

We have not used their technical support.

Our previous solution wasn't aware of what was going on across the environment. It was too focused on server infrastructure. This was a white label SolarWinds product through an MSP.

The initial setup is next, next, next, then done. You can't go wrong.

The installer works. It installs prerequisites. If you want to generate a remote probe for a site, at the other end of a VPN deployment, it creates everything encapsulated. You hit next four times, then it is installed. 

It took two hours from the time we set up the solution until it provided us with feedback on our IT infrastructure. The hardest part was stopping auto discovery, because that goes out, finding everything. Sometimes, you're just not interested.

We deployed the product in-house.

The solution has enabled our IT department to be more cost effective by insourcing some of our functions that we used to throw over the garden fence (outsource).

It has saved us money because we are not paying a managed service provider to monitor 50 percent of our infrastructure. If there was a pricing/licensing model for smaller companies, this would provide me even more return.

Right now, the smallest sensor pack that they have is just a bit out of range for me, as a business. This kills me, as I need the product. Therefore, there is always a balance between needing to buy it or continuing their free version.

I would like better pricing models for smaller businesses. The free version is fantastic, but it's too restrictive. If they could just get up to 200 sensors for a reasonable fee for on-premise, I would give PRTG my credit card right now.

PRTG was the only vendor on the list. I knew what I wanted and knew I could get it.

Download the free installer, get it installed on a VM somewhere, and just watch. Pick a server, pick a network switch, and give it a go. 

Having used it from various iterations, the solution's feature set is great. There are moments where I want to go back in time and use the old IP tech product. However, as it evolves, with the quick releases that they bring, it really provides me an all-round product.

If you want to grant access for clients to the MSP service provider, you can use this solution. For example, if the client wants to monitor the net flow and net flow traffic with PRTG, you can analyze this traffic for them.

If you have a problem with your slow network, you can get visibility on the net flow and SNMP protocols in order to review them and then handle troubleshooting specifically about the issue.

We like the monitoring with the net flow and net flow protocols and SNMP protocols. 

The health check functionality is currently very good.

Its initial setup process is fast and easy.

It is stable. 

The scalability is pretty good.

The technical support services could be better. The service operation center also needs to be improved.

Users need to buy the more expensive licenses if they expect to be able to scale. 

We would like to see more advanced features. It would be great if they can help us exclude some protocols if you want to configure some scripts. 

I've been using the solution for two to four years. 

This is a stable product. You only need to deploy remote probes around the network and infrastructure, so you need to add enough remote probes to meet your needs, however, if you do that, it remains stable. 

You can scale the solution if you buy the most expensive licenses or limited sensors. 

We have 12 people using the solution within the company.

At this time, we do have plans to increase usage and add clients to the MSP.

Technical support could be better. 

Positive

I've previously used HPE and SolarWinds products in the past. 

The initial setup is really fast. We didn't need to download the setup on the webpage. You just click through. It is traditionally Vista for Windows.

We have ten users that are capable of handling maintenance tasks. 

We had a consultant assist us during the initial setup.

We have seen an ROI as it allows us to avoid downtime. When you have a problem with your network, and it goes down, it's a really big problem.

The solution is very cheap. You can buy 600 sensors for $1000 or a bit more. 

We did not previously evaluate other solutions.

Currently, I have Privileged Access Management solutions, Identity solutions, Privileged Cloud solutions, and Identity solutions. We use both cloud and on-premises deployments. 

I'd advise new users to implement a hybrid architecture. That way, you can get visibility around cloud solutions and on-premise solutions. It's very important to get visibility around these architectures.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

PRTG has been a network monitoring solution for our company for over five years now. We constantly monitor our servers, switches, broadband. Anything that we can put a sensor on, it monitors. I monitor four domains and I use cross-domain network monitoring as well.

In terms of the historical data provided by the solution, I look at the network performance and, obviously, if I've got an offsite backup going through, I want to monitor what sort of impact that's had on the network. If it's detrimental, then I can change the times when the backups happen and make sure that there's not a severe impact on my local network.

Previously, other parts of the company have used different products, and PRTG has helped broaden their minds into what a decent piece of monitoring software actually does. I'm pushing it out further afield, which is why it's in four domains.

When it comes to helping our IT department to be more cost-effective, if I've got as-it-happens monitoring, I can deploy the resources to resolve the issues quicker.

One of the things I like is the fact that I can use it on my mobile phone. I use the mobile app and it alerts me if there is a problem. Obviously if I'm not in the office or available to get in. I can monitor it externally and am able to deploy resources to sort things out quickly.

The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature as well.

I use the Desktop app all the time, it's constantly on my taskbar so that I can monitor things. If there is a problem, it flashes up red and lets me know there's an issue and I get to deal with it almost immediately.

The remote probes are okay. I think that there could be more sensors available, especially with newer technologies coming along. It has been a bit stagnant. Unfortunately, it uses an almost "external workforce" through its forums to create new sensors.

Also, I have an issue with DFS, distributed file services. Currently, although there is a forum post with regards to the issue of PRTG and the DFS monitoring, there isn't one by default. I think it is quite a necessity that they make one, one that's actually easily integratable. Taking into account the difference between DFS and DFSR as well would be great. They need one that pulls up the report, shows you how much is out of sync, if it's out, and how much of a time difference there is between the synchronizations. Anything like that would be a help.

It's always on. I have a server dedicated to it, that's all it does. I've never had it fall down, ever.

With the remote probes, the ability to monitor external domains makes this product easy to scale.

I've only used the technical support a couple of times. There is a lot of information available on the forums. More than likely, if I have a problem, somebody else has had that same problem. The forums can help in that way to find a resolution.

Setup, is fairly straight-forward, but it can be a laborious task initially, once you have populated the sensors everything just ticks along nicely.

In-House setup but if there's a problem, I know that the support from PRTG is not far away.

The solution has definitely saved us time and money. Services need to be constantly monitored, if you don't have a good product to monitor these things you have to wait till something stops working and then use command-line tools to diagnose the issue. This is counter-productive.

Mostly I know if a DC is starting to go down because it stops responding to remote desktop session calls. I don't know why, but that's the first thing that goes down. It flags up that I can't get the user remote desktop and that's the first sign that that server is going to go down very soon.

At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed.

I have actually used other solutions, because I do look after four domains. Previously, they had other packages that were already there, and I still find PRTG to be the best.

PRTG is free for an initial trial of 30 days. Once you've used it, I think you'll find that it is a great product and well worth the investment.

The overall feature set is pretty good. It's not a complete feature set. I'd like to see more, but, as a general rule, I've been using it for over five years. I must be pretty happy with what it does, as it is.

I would rate the product at eight out of ten because there's always room for improvement. Nobody's going to be the best of the best. If a DFSR or DFS sensor were added, I'd give it a nine.

The primary use case is for monitoring infrastructure: servers, printers, endpoints, and certain services on certain systems. We are alerted in regards to any issue with them.

The remote probes are absolutely fine. They allow us to connect from sites. We have a few different sites spaced across the UK. The remote probes serve a purpose, like separating stuff logically, which is handy. 

The historical data provided by the solution helps us optimize our network performance. Though, we had a few issues with a specific performance, we managed to pin it down because it wasn't throttling in any way. Seeing the history six months ago compared to what it was six months down the line, where there have been more computers put on the site, we could start slowly seeing the bandwidth increase. Then, we were able to identify what the issue is, and resolve it.

In general, we can see trends for a lot of different things, such as hard drive space and bandwidth usage. We can see and plan for the future by knowing, "We're sort of at 75% capacity now. In three months time, we know we're going to be up to 90%,so we need to plan ahead for it, getting upgrades booked in place." Since things like this take time and effort, it's handy to see trends into the future of where our company is going.

The nitty-gritty that you can get down to in terms of monitoring individual things. While seeing if the service or hard drives have halfway fallen out is fine, being able to monitor stuff with custom scripts (such as SQL scripts) and know whether your data warehouse is built in the morning, this is something which ticks all the boxes for us.

The sensors work as they should. There are hundreds of thousands of them with custom scripts that you can put out there to do different things, like file counts, monitoring SQL Server databases, and specific entries. There are a plethora of sensors out there that are really cool.

It gives us feedback on our servers. For example, we've an ERP server which we monitor for certain files, and it allows us to go back and see that we had an influx around dinnertime or lunchtime of a certain number of files, so this was a busy period. It also provides us the feedback to go back to the business, and say, "This is a busy period of the day for us. Are there any resources that we need to ramp up during that time?"

I would like a live chat solution. This would be useful and handy, especially with the ability to provide logs and an overview of what we are doing at that moment in time to get answers to our questions. 

The setup aspect of it  and getting devices working needs improvement. The reliance between different devices, so if one device goes down on Ping, the whole network will go down if the roots goes down. So, the time it takes to set that up is a bit more than I would have liked and is a bit cumbersome to actually go through. That's the only side that I can see a bit of improvement on. Some sort of relationship between devices, making that a bit easier to see what would be useful.

The stability is absolutely spot on, in terms that it will never go down. 

The only sort of limitation is the actual probes. So, if you don't have enough probes on there, you can over flip them and cause the WMI sensors and SNMP sensors to sort of overload. Sometimes, they might timeout for a minute, but they do come back. 

We have close to a 1000 sensors on it. I'm sure there are other people out there with a lot more sensors with bigger infrastructures than us. It performs absolutely fine if you have a site which has got a 1000 sensors on it. 

We can just add another probe onto another server on the site and extend that by doubling up the capacity on it. So, it can go as large as we want it to.

The technical support is very interactive. They've invited us to go down to the computer museum down in Milton Keynes, where they run trips. You can go down, they put on lunch, then have Q&A and a bit of a demo. They're very interactive people. They have active forums, as well. If you ask a question, it's not just the employees who will answer. Other key users like to get into the nitty-gritty stuff, which is really good.

We had sort of massive bandwidth bottlenecks, where our sites used VoIP telephonics. So, when something was throttling the bandwidth for one site, they wouldn't be able to make telephone calls. We had a few instances of that before we got the PRTG product in place.

We knew we need to invest in a new solution because of the amount of time that we were spending manually checking if devices were up or not, then troubleshooting those instances, and where devices went down. We realized that we could have seen these a lot earlier and spent a lot less time on them, thus allowing us to have more time to spend doing actual project work rather than dealing with the break/fix side of things.

The initial setup is as straightforward as you want to make it. You will get out of it the time that you've put into it. It's absolutely fine and straightforward to the point. It's only when you go into more specific stuff, like custom sensors, then you might need a little technical support, but they are always there to help.

It took a week from the time we set up the solution until it provided us with feedback on our IT infrastructure.

We used a reseller to purchase it. However, we just sort of integrated it ourselves.

We have gotten weeks and hours back from using the product.

This solution enables our IT department to be more cost-effective. The time that you spend looking at stuff and monitoring services for updates, PRTG notifies you when stuff needs to be done. You could spend eight hours a week looking at stuff manually or you could just wait for PRTG to email you. Once you put in a couple of hours setting it up, it will just notify you to the business critical stuff, allowing you to plan ahead for your next week or month.

While I am not the person who deals with pricing, I would say that we pay around 1000 pounds a year.

We looked at PRTG and SolarWinds. From a cost side perspective, compared to PRTG, and from what you get back from it, PRTG was sort of a hands down the winner. We had read a few different reviews of PRTG and had a few of the colleagues that we'd worked with in the past who now used it at their new businesses and recommending it. These were sort of the main driving factors for going down that route.

Spend your time looking into PRTG and give it a trial. They're more than happy to give you a trial license for 30 days or so. Get it up and running on a certain site or system that you want to monitor just to see what you think of it. 

It is a very in-depth solution. You have to take the time to get it up and running the way you want. If you want it to be the best monitoring system, you have to put the time into it, such as creating a reliance on other sensors. E.g., if a ping sensor goes down, you're not going to get a response from the other sensors 99% of the time if the device isn't working.

They've spent a good amount of time refining and turning it into a really robust product.

We don't use the desktop app. We just use the web browser.

It's a globally distributed network. We have multiple data centers or IT setups, and PRTG is deployed at the local data centers. Some of the applications are in the cloud, and PRTG can also monitor those.

PRTG is simple to manage. First, you can create a template for a device, then apply it to hundreds of similar devices. That's a great advantage. Secondly, I can use the 80-20 functional rule for any devices I need to monitor. 

For infrastructure monitoring, 80 percent of parameters are monitored every minute or so. I can define all of them at the highest level, and those definitions are inherited at the lowest level. Then you need to customize the setup for the remaining 20 percent. You can deploy them in various groups and do a group-level setup, which will again percolate down to devices. 

The third thing is the concept of tags. PRTG assigns tags to devices and also the parameters you monitor. For example, if you choose to deploy a bandwidth sensor, PRTG automatically tags it with that parameter while giving you the freedom to apply your own tag. 

Let's say my organization has three or even four ISPs. If I'm globally distributed, the ISPs could be different. Now I can monitor all the bandwidth across ISPs based on the tag, or I can see the bandwidth of each ISP individually. I know my uptime and recovery in case of failure. I can also group by choosing a specific ISP tag and getting a report. I now know which of my ISPs is a better performer, which helps me improve the service and decide who to go with.

PRTG is constantly evolving. You have between eight to 12 releases every year, including enhancements to functionality and performance as well as security and bug fixes, so it stays current with our business requirements. It's a well-rounded product.

There's always room for improvement. The high availability feature is good, but it's an area that PRTG could marginally improve. For example, in PRTG, both servers have a different IP, but it would make things a lot easier if they were bound by a single IP.  I'm not necessarily trying to say PRTG should imitate other products. 

I'm saying it should be like a typical HA solution should be. It is a fail-safe feature, and the HA component should act like one. In PRTG, it is in an active-active mode, not active-passive. Now, the customers don't need to know the mechanism behind the high availability. They just need to know how many servers are required for deployment. If there is a cluster with a single IP address, it's much easier from the customer's point of view. 

We've been working on various versions of PRTG since 2003. While we are using PRTG, we are also looking at various alternatives, but we haven't seen a reason to switch so far.

PRTG itself is a highly reliable product because of large installed base.

Overall, PRTG is easy to install and understand. We provide frontline support for our customers, but our more competent customers don't come back to us for any support at all. If they don't have the skills, they can install and do the basic deployment, but they require hand-holding and coaching for some things. Still, I think it's a straightforward product. Once a user gets started with the product, they don't need hand-holding for basic functions.

The price of PRTG is reasonable. PRTG's competitors like SolarWinds and ManageEngine charge more for the same functionality. They are much more expensive at licensing level. What's more, PRTG comes as one bundle. For example, the database is part of the PRTG release, so Paessler takes total responsibility for all components they deliver. With other products, you need a separate database engine and databases, and these NMS companies don't take responsibility. When they put out new releases, what if it doesn't work with the previous release of a database? Things become a little tricky. You have to deal with two or more entities for NMS but only one with PRTG.

I rate PRTG Network Monitor 9.5 out of 10. If you're planning to implement PRTG, my advice is to first create a master plan. Set a goal for monitoring. Decide what you want to monitor and why. You need to get ready by organizing network management at the technical and policy level. If you start with a clear understanding of your goals and your environment, PRTG will be a cakewalk.