Nagios vs. The Competition: What You Need to Know When Comparing IT Monitoring Tools

Nagios is often the center of attention in discussions around IT monitoring. Many IT professionals remain dedicated users of Nagios, while others have moved on due to its limitations. There are countless alternatives to Nagios and plenty of analysis comparing different monitoring tools. Most ‘Nagios vs.’ articles are vendor-driven pieces, which attempt to convince you why you should choose their product over Nagios.

There are several reasons why Opsview is an ideal Nagios alternative for your IT monitoring needs, but rather than focus on our own product features, let’s take a look at the big-picture capabilities you should keep in mind when conducting ‘Nagios vs. the competition’ research. 

Ease of use

Nagios is robust software that has been around for many years, but the learning curve to fully utilize its capabilities can be difficult to manage. There are many use-cases pointing to Nagios being overwhelming and not conducive to ease-of-use. When comparing Nagios to the competition, it is important to find a balanced solution fit for the needs of your environment. With the right mix of power and flexibility, the best monitoring systems oversee all of your data and are intuitive enough to be utilized by new users, taking the desirable aspects of Nagios and making them even better. 

Integrations 

Having the ability to integrate with prevailing technologies is a vital aspect of any monitoring software. Nagios advocates praise its massive number of built-in plugins that extend features such as NetFlow and CPU usage. Make sure to research the 3rd party offerings of the solution you are evaluating because not all of them offer the same integrations out of the box. And although Nagios contains an endless list of plugins, they can be hard to keep track of if they aren’t properly packaged, making it important to have a full understanding of the technologies you want to monitor when conducting your ‘Nagios vs. the competition’ examination. 

New releases 

Monitoring software tends to vary in terms of how often new product updates are released. Products specifically geared toward a niche area of monitoring are less frequent with their releases while full-scale enterprise systems require consistent upgrades to keep up with rapid innovation. Nagios undergoes monthly updates and for other monitoring solutions, it is common to see new product versions several times per year. Be mindful of new release occurrences because it is crucial that the upgrade rate is consistent with the evolving state of your own infrastructure. As long your applications and tools are aligned, your environment will stay up-to-date and if Nagios is lagging, there are other dependable solutions make it a priority to stay ahead of the curve.  

Documentation and community support

As one of the most well known open-source monitoring tools, the Nagios community has greatly expanded over the years. Having both user-generated and vendor documentation is vital when you run into issues that you want to fix on our own, rather than take the time/resources to contact customer support. Recently created monitoring solutions don’t usually have a strong community presence and while there are plenty of better options than Nagios, the amount of online resources and information about Nagios comes in handy. Don’t choose Nagios just because it has a strong support system, but be aware of its significance and make sure your monitoring solution of choice has accurate and up-to-date documentation.