The 10 Best Nagios Alternatives in 2024 (Paid and Open-source)

Although it’s not as popular as other platforms, Nagios still has pedigree. It’s like the Seabiscuit of open-source monitoring.

Nagios has been the standard for IT infrastructure monitoring since its inception in 2007, and it has gradually gained popularity amongst those looking to self-host their suite of solutions.

It’s a great option for monitoring networking devices, log data, flow data, and anything that needs electricity to function (their words exactly).

But is Nagios the perfect solution? Definitely not. For various reasons, users have fled and begun looking for Nagios alternatives.

Whether you're a previous user or you’re just browsing around, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of 10 of the best Nagios alternatives out there in 2024. But before we begin, let’s dissect Nagios a little.

Nagios Features

Nagios is most well known for its IT infrastructure monitoring capabilities, but the tool goes a little bit deeper than that. In actuality, it’s an entire IT management software suite with numerous products. These products are broken down into 5 parts:

• Nagios XI- IT infrastructure software for monitoring and alerting for non-technical users
• Nagios Log Server - Log management software for search and analysis
• Nagios Network Analyzer - Network flow data analysis solution
• Nagios Fusion - Visualizations for operational status and problem resolution
• Nagios Core - IT infrastructure software for monitoring and alerting for technical users

It’s also important to note that Nagios is completely open-source, which means that it’s free to use. However, “free to use” doesn’t mean that it won’t cost you anything. Often, the reason users look for alternatives to tools like Nagios is because of their open-source nature. Self-hosting a tool of this magnitude can be even more expensive than purchasing a SaaS subscription.

The 10 Best Nagios Alternatives in 2024 (Paid and Open-source)

1. Better Stack

Better Stack is one of the best alternatives to Nagios, providing all essential aspects of synthetic monitoring. This includes various checks such as HTTPS keywords, Heartbeat, SSL, Ping, TLD, TCP/UDP, POP3/IMAP/SMTP, and DNS server monitoring.

We continuously monitor your website, checking it as frequently as every 30 seconds from different locations to prevent false alarms. Additionally, you can configure location-specific checks to address issues specific to different regions.

Better Stack seamlessly integrates with popular third-party tools and platforms like Heroku, Datadog, New Relic, Grafana On-Call, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, AWS CloudWatch, and Google Cloud.

Each incident is meticulously documented with screenshots, error logs, incident timelines, post-mortems, and advanced escalation rules. Our on-call scheduling and integrations ensure rapid responses. In case of downtime, you can create personalized status pages with unique designs for user subscriptions.

A notable feature of Better Stack is its capability to execute Playwright scripts. You can easily input your script into the dashboard, allowing Better Stack to monitor front-end transactions effectively.

🌟Key features

• Log management
• API monitoring
• Incident management
• Uptime monitoring

➕Pros

• Built-in Status Pages
• On-call scheduling
• Dozens of integrations
• 30-second check frequency
• Able to run Playwright script

➖Cons

• Not a full-stack observability solution

💲Pricing

Better Stack Uptime provides a complementary basic monitoring and incident management package.

Our Uptime premium packages for enhanced functionality begin at just $25 per month, offering 50 monitors, 5 status pages, and integrated incident management.

Our Logs premium packages also start at $25 per month, and they come with a 30GB allowance and 15 days of retention.

2. Zabbix

Zabbix, a widely adopted open-source monitoring tool, offers a range of practical features. It allows you to monitor various aspects of your system, including transactions, application performance, and real browser monitoring. With ready-to-use templates for different servers and operating systems, Zabbix simplifies the monitoring process.

One of Zabbix's key strengths lies in its ability to collect data from diverse sources such as network devices, cloud services, containers, databases, and applications. In the event of issues, Zabbix notifies you through communication channels like On-Call, Opsgenie, Pagerduty, Slack, and more.

What's remarkable about Zabbix is its abundance of learning resources and certifications, which help users become proficient in its functionalities. Despite its lightweight design, Zabbix excels in monitoring nearly every aspect of your system.

Not a big fan of Zabbix? Check out some similar tools to Zabbix.

🌟Key features

• Open-source monitoring

➕Pros

• Lightweight

➖Cons

• The cost of self-hosting Zabbix can be expensive

3. Prometheus

Prometheus is a cloud-native, open-source monitoring solution prioritizing data collection and analysis. Its integrated toolset empowers users to establish diverse monitoring capabilities effectively.

It is widely recognized for its infrastructure monitoring abilities, yet its utility extends beyond that scope. It serves various monitoring purposes, such as synthetic monitoring and application performance monitoring.

What sets Prometheus apart and draws many users is its high level of customization and versatility, being an open-source tool. It effectively gathers and archives time-series data, associating it with timestamps. This feature enables users to monitor cloud-native environments like Kubernetes comprehensively and receive timely alerts in case of any issues.

Not a big fan of Prometheus? Check out some similar tools to Prometheus.

🌟Key features

• Open-source monitoring

➕Pros

• Single web portal
• Easily integrates with 3rd party tools
• A large number of visualization tools

➖Cons

• The cost of self-hosting Prometheus can be expensive

4. Graphite

Graphite, the last open-source solution on this list, consists of three main components: Graphite, Carbon, and Whisper. Graphite web is responsible for graph rendering, Carbon for receiving time series data, and Whisper for data storage.

Although Graphite's UI might not be the most impressive, it seamlessly integrates with Grafana for improved visualizations. It's important to note that Graphite itself doesn't collect data directly; instead, applications need to be configured to send data to Graphite. Carbon then listens for this data and forwards it to Whisper, where it is stored in time series format on the filesystem.

Despite its UI limitations, this open-source system effectively collaborates to offer valuable insights into almost any application, process, or service, including APIs. This versatility positions it as a strong alternative to Nagios.

🌟Key features

• Open-source monitoring

➕Pros

• Simple metric storage

➖Cons

• The cost of self-hosting Graphite can be expensive
• Needs a Grafana integration for the best visualizations

5. Datadog

Datadog is a great choice for website monitoring across various categories, thanks to its extensive array of features. However, it’s important to understand that Datadog is practically famous for being expensive.

One of Datadog's standout features is its user-friendly interface, which allows users to create tests without requiring coding skills. Its web recorder facilitates interaction with websites just like a regular user, delivering real-time results. In the event of issues, Datadog provides detailed insights, including screenshots, performance metrics, server traces, error logs, and more, thereby aiding efficient troubleshooting.

Datadog enables performance comparison both within and outside your network firewall, alongside offering automation tools to streamline tasks. With these comprehensive monitoring options, users can effectively tackle issues and gain valuable insights into their websites and systems.

Not a big fan of Datadog? Check out some similar tools to Datadog.

🌟Key features

• Infrastructure monitoring
• Synthetic monitoring
• Real User monitoring
• Log management
• + A lot more

➕Pros

• 20+ individual solutions
• All the integrations you can imagine

➖Cons

• Datadog is expensive and only suitable for massive budgets

💲Pricing

Datadog offers a variety of solutions, too many to list comprehensively here. However, here are some key pricing highlights to give you an idea:

• Infrastructure monitoring: $15 per host per month.
• Synthetic monitoring: $5 for every 10,000 API runs and $12 for every 1,000 browser runs.
• Real user monitoring (RUM): $1.50 for every 1,000 sessions per month.
• Log management: $0.10 for every GB ingested and $1.70 for every million log events per month.

These prices provide a glimpse into how much Datadog can damage your wallet. Sure, the product side is pretty bulletproof, but it comes at a massive cost.

6. Site 24x7

Site 24x7, tailored for businesses ranging from small startups to large enterprises, is a solid Nagios alternative with its cloud-based platform dedicated to monitoring websites and servers. Powered by AI, it offers an intuitive solution for website monitoring, covering essential aspects like uptime, performance, and user experience.

Additionally, Site 24x7 extends its capabilities to server monitoring, enabling users to closely monitor server health, resource usage, and network performance. Beyond basic monitoring, it provides features such as customizable alerting, trend analysis, and reporting functionalities.

With its user-friendly interface and scalability, Site 24x7 empowers businesses to effectively manage their online presence and ensure optimal performance and reliability.

Not a big fan of Site 24x7? Check out some similar tools to Site 24x7.

🌟Key features

• Infrastructure monitoring
• Real user monitoring
• Synthetic monitoring
• Server monitoring

➕Pros

• Simple and reliable

➖Cons

• Limited feature set
• User reviews report occasional technical restrictions
• User reviews complain about a cluttered UI that’s hard to use

💲Pricing

Site24x7 offers various pricing options tailored to different monitoring needs, although the structure might seem complex initially. For website monitoring, plans begin at $9 per month, providing basic uptime monitors, while the enterprise plan, priced at $225 per month, includes synthetic monitors, network monitors, and more.

Similarly, infrastructure monitoring costs $9 per month, with limitations like only 10 monitors and 500MB of log data for the entire month. Additional infrastructure monitors cost $15 per month for every 10 monitors, and every 10GB of log data incurs an extra $10 charge.

APM plans begin at $35 per month, but like other plans, they come with various add-ons that can impact the final cost. The same goes for MSP plans, which start at $45 per month but can quickly escalate with add-ons.

Their all-in-one solution combines all tools into one package, starting at $45 per month. However, expenses can increase rapidly with additional add-ons, so users should carefully evaluate their requirements before opting for additional features.

7. Dotcom-monitor

Dotcom-monitor is very well-known for its API monitoring capabilities, but its usefulness doesn’t stop there, making it a decent Nagios alternative. With Dotcom Monitor's Web API monitoring service, users can effectively oversee the performance and uptime of various web services, including SOAP, REST, JSON, and XML.

Furthermore, Dotcom-monitor offers seamless integration with Postman, facilitating internal API testing through shared public links to the Dotcom-monitor platform.

Dotcom-monitor's API monitoring solution is not only straightforward but also highly efficient. It enables users to monitor from 30 global locations and establish multi-step API calls to validate complex API sequences, ensuring comprehensive monitoring coverage across various scenarios.

🌟Key features

• Infrastructure monitoring
• API monitoring

➕Pros

• Real-time data collection
• Clean dashboards
• Testing from multiple global locations

➖Cons

• The price per monitor is expensive
• User reviews complain about complexities in setting up complex workflows
• User reviews complain about occasional reporting complexities

💲Pricing

Dotcom-Monitor provides Web API monitoring as part of its Web Services package, starting at $19.95 per month. The pricing is flexible, depending on the chosen check frequency and task frequency selected by the user.

The Premium package offers 5-minute checks, while the Platinum package includes more frequent 1-minute checks. This range of pricing options enables users to choose the package that aligns best with their monitoring requirements and budget, although detailed pricing information may not be readily available online.

8. Sematext

With Sematext Synthetics, users gain access to a diverse array of monitoring capabilities, including uptime and API monitoring from multiple locations, even within private networks and behind firewalls. It covers all layers of monitoring, from DNS and TCP to SSL and HTTP, while also providing customizable API monitoring and vigilance over SSL certificates, website performance, and end-to-end visibility.

In contrast to Nagios, Sematext takes a unified approach, offering a single-pane interface that facilitates seamless correlation of data across various metrics. This integration extends beyond infrastructure metrics to encompass application logs, events, real-user data, and synthetic performance metrics, empowering users with comprehensive insights and analysis capabilities.

To top it off, with Infrastructure, users can map their entire stack. The numerous integrations enable the collection, reporting, and tracking of various metrics to provide a real-time view of infrastructure, whether on-premise or cloud-based.

🌟Key features

• Synthetic monitoring
• Infrastructure monitoring
• Real user monitoring
• Log management

➕Pros

• Price-per-monitor option for Synthetics
• Full-stack monitoring
• Out-of-the-box dashboards

➖Cons

• Log monitoring is expensive per GB
• Dashboard configuration is a bit complicated
• User reviews complain about occasional difficulties with user management

💲Pricing

Sematext offers flexible pricing options, including a pay-as-you-go model that allows users to tailor their subscriptions to their specific needs. In this model, Synthetics begins at $2 per monitor and $7 per Browser monitor.

Alternatively, Sematext provides standard subscription packages. The starter package for Synthetics is the Standard plan, which starts at $29 per month. This plan includes 40 HTTP monitors and 5 Browser monitors, with data retention for up to 30 days.

Infrastructure monitoring is available starting at a very accessible $3.60 per host, but it comes with a retention period of only 7 days.

9. Sumo Logic

Sumo Logic is yet another tempting Nagios alternative, especially appealing to large corporations, while also offering notable infrastructure monitoring capabilities. One standout feature of Sumo Logic is its utilization of cloud-based machine learning, which proves invaluable in efficiently managing vast amounts of data concurrently, making it particularly advantageous for large enterprises.

What distinguishes Sumo Logic from Nagios and other alternatives is its focus on end-to-end monitoring. Beyond basic infrastructure monitoring, Sumo Logic provides features such as root cause analysis, anomaly detection, and pre-set alerts. This comprehensive approach empowers organizations to gain deeper insights into their systems' performance and proactively address issues.

Not a big fan of Sumo Logic? Check out some similar tools to Sumo Logic.

🌟Key Features

• AWS monitoring
• Log management
• Kubernetes monitoring
• Application observability
• Infrastructure monitoring

➕Pros

• Pre-set alert rules
• Offers security tools
• Out-of-the-box dashboards
• Powerful. Full-stack monitoring

➖Cons

• Sumo Logic is expensive and only suited for large corporations
• User reviews complain about a learning curve

💲Pricing

Despite being an industry giant, Sumo Logic lacks pricing transparency, as they only provide limited pricing information online and require users to contact sales for further details.

The only prices available online are for logs, which come in various iterations such as logs for monitoring and troubleshooting AWS, Kubernetes, etc. These log offerings start at $3 per gigabyte.

For additional information regarding infrastructure monitoring pricing, users must reach out to Sumo Logic's sales team.

10. Splunk

Recently acquired for an astounding $28 billion, Splunk has been known for a while as a significant player in the website monitoring domain. With its comprehensive full-stack observability and integrated security features, Splunk distinguishes itself from competitors.

What sets Splunk apart, likely contributing to its premium price, is its expansive network. With over 2,200 partners spanning various industries, Splunk ensures users can fully leverage the platform. Additionally, boasting a community of over 18,000 active members and 1,800 Splunk experts, users have access to support for problem-solving, architecture, deployment, and scalability.

Splunk is a holistic solution that addresses threats, minimizes downtime, and accelerates issue resolution. Its resilience and wide-ranging feature set make it a valuable asset for organizations in need of robust monitoring solutions.

Not a big fan of Splunk? Check out some similar tools to Splunk.

🌟Key features

• Full stack monitoring
• Synthetic monitoring
• Real user monitoring
• + A lot more

➕Pros

• All-in-one observability and security tool
• Helpful network of experts

➖Cons

• Splunk is known for being very expensive
• User reviews complain about intense resource consumption

💲Pricing

Splunk's pricing structure is not transparent, as only a few of their solutions display prices online, often hidden within their website. The available prices mainly pertain to their cloud observability offerings:

• End-to-End: $75 per host per month
• App & Infra: $60 per host per month
• APM: $55 per host per month
• Infrastructure: $15 per host per month
• RUM: $14 per 10,000 sessions
• Synthetics: $1 per 10,000 uptime requests
• On-call: $5 per user per month

The 10 Best Nagios Alternatives Comparison

Conclusion

Nagios is clearly a great tool, but that doesn’t mean it’s suited for everyone. For many users, the cost of ownership with an open-source tool just isn’t worth the overhead, pushing them to opt for a SaaS tool.

No matter what you’re looking for, this list provides a comprehensive overview of 10 of the best Nagios alternatives currently on the market. Feel free to use it as a resource, but don’t forget to do your research before pulling the trigger.

Article by

Zach McDaniel

With his laptop as a sword and coffee machine as a shield, Zach is a content strategist here at Better Stack. When he's not wordsmithing, he's putting together PCs, working on cars, or scheming about how to own a zoo one day.

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