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Icinga vs Nagios XI comparison

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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

Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
44th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
17th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
50th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
34th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
16th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.6%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios XI3.6%
Icinga1.3%
Other95.1%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201 - PeerSpot reviewer
Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect
It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated. The alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"The most valuable feature is one that not many are even aware of, as Icinga has a self-healing event handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted, and you can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction."
"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."
"The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."
"The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"All of them, but mainly: Highly-efficient server performance monitoring engine Configuration wizards Infrastructure management Configuration snapshot."
"Nagios is an open source monitoring tool for monitoring network services, with easy installation, a user-friendly and configurable interface, and the ability to monitor disk space, CPU utilization, memory usage, host availability, NFS availability and many other things, making it widely used in IT markets."
"Nagios is the best monitoring tool that I have ever worked on."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"The most valuable feature is its support for different types of devices, where it can use all of the equipment that you need."
"I would recommend this solution because it's so powerful with no limitation, especially when using the XI version."
"Since this is an open source technology, if we are capable of writing the plugins in any scripting language, this product allows us to monitor anything we want."
"The overall performance of the product is superb."
 

Cons

"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."
"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."
"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"I think that the community needs to concentrate development to get a standard GUI (Adagios is a side project) and gives the user a better notification system."
"Nagios XI can improve its GUI for users with a new look."
"The reporting structure could be more streamlined."
"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."
"The NCC does have issues where it locks up or an admin cannot be sure if the system configuration was exact."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"The GUI could be improved."
"There's room for improvement in the visibility, and in the ability to extract information. Stuff like this should be more simple."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The solution is cheap."
"The solution is free to use."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"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."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"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."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
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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
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
13%
University
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. Nagios XI and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.