Nagios Server Monitoring Alternative

Originally developed in 1999 under the name “NetSaint,” Nagios has since become popular among small to mid-sized businesses, internet service providers, and other institutions across industries. Nagios was originally designed to run on Linux, but it can now monitor devices on Windows and Unix variants.

Nagios Core has basic server monitoring capabilities on its own, but users can expand its functionalities by adding plug-ins. Plug-ins are standalone extensions users can add on to customize their monitoring experience based on their needs.

Nagios XI is the paid, extended version of Nagios Core, designed to more easily fit a large enterprise’s needs. Nagios XI is a server and application monitor, configuration monitor, and toolkit all in one. Other commercials extensions include Nagios Log Server, Nagios Network Analyzer, and Nagios Fusion.

Nagios products can be configured to monitor a range of metrics, including the following through plug-ins or its paid versions:

• Memory usage
• Disk usage
• Microprocessor load
• SMTP
• POP3
• HTTP
• Virtual machines
• User interfaces
• Mobile applications
• Dashboards and more

Since Nagios Core is open source, you may have to add additional plug-ins to achieve full server monitoring functionality, which can also add costs. Nagios performance can also be dependent on customization and scripts and provide limited insights out-of-the-box to monitor critical apps such as SQL Server, IIS, and Exchange, so users may need to build custom scripts and configure additional components. Unfortunately, this winds up being time-consuming, labor-intensive, and can make scalability difficult for large and distributed networks.

If you’re using Nagios, you may want to ask yourself whether you’re spending more time configuring and managing Nagios than for monitoring. When shopping for a Nagios replacement, you should consider a solution with the following features to support an easy migration and improvement from Nagios:

• Straightforward integration with existing Nagios scripts
• Easy setup and overall user-friendliness
• A comprehensive alerting system
• Out-of-the-box application monitoring capabilities
• Scalability for any size network
• Automated network discovery
• Network mapping and topology

When comparing Nagios vs. SolarWinds, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is an enterprise-grade Nagios alternative designed to provide a streamlined transition between programs.

SolarWinds SAM is built to accommodate your existing Nagios scripts, so you can start monitoring without missing a beat. Just convert your Nagios scripts to a compatible format using SAM’s built-in script processor to begin monitoring your servers and applications typically within minutes.

SAM also features built-in application monitoring templates for over 1,200 applications, including email servers, databases, web servers, application servers, and more. SAM is designed so you’ll no longer need to create a custom script for each server you want to monitor—just choose a template and a script server.

In addition, since SAM can support an agentless monitoring solution and doesn’t require third-party integration, SAM is designed to be a Nagios replacement.

SAM is also a user-friendly alternative to Nagios. The intuitive AppInsight dashboard helps visualize your application performance using detailed graphs, charts, and tables. From the dashboard you can monitor application performance, troubleshoot, and map dependencies across every layer of your IT infrastructure.

If you’re interested in a first class, enterprise-grade Nagios alternative, try SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor free for 30 days.