We compared Centreon and Nagios XI across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Centreon features a user-friendly interface with useful options for customization and manual configuration. Users like the solution’s flexible dashboards and the ability to create plugins. Nagios XI received positive feedback for its versatility and adaptability. It offers a diverse selection of plugins and scripts for monitoring needs.
Room for Improvement: Some Centreon users requested better documentation and more flexibility to customize reporting. Other areas for improvement include auto-scanning efficiency and integration. Users have suggested Nagios XI could improve integration, simplify configuration, and make the platform more user-friendly. Nagios XI users also suggest improvements to network visibility and cloud discovery.
Service and Support: Centreon is highly regarded for its prompt and knowledgeable customer service that offers support in multiple languages. However, some customers feel that the lower levels of support are inadequate. Some Nagios XI customers complained about the lack of chat or phone support options.
Ease of Deployment: Centreon's initial setup is described as time-consuming and complex. The deployment varies in duration depending on the IT infrastructure. Some Nagios XI users found the setup to be relatively simple, while others considered it challenging. Deployment can take a few months to complete, and there’s a steep learning curve.
Pricing: Centreon's cost depends on the company's size. It is affordable and suitable for small companies, but it can be costly to scale up. Nagios XI’s pricing is considered reasonable and transparent, with no extra charges.
ROI: Centreon delivers value by helping users identify and resolve critical issues fasters, which could yield large savings. Nagios XI users reported positive outcomes overall, but some said visibility limitations lower the solution’s ROI.
Comparison Results: Centreon is a flexible solution offering a range of customization options. The solution has earned high marks for support and affordability. At the same time, users say the setup can be complicated and time-consuming. Others said that auto-scanning and integration have room for improvement. Nagios XI is an affordable, flexible solution with a broad feature set and a selection of helpful plugins. At the same time, users say the setup can be complex, and some expressed a desire for more convenient ways to contact support.
"The single dashboard is a valuable feature."
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"We have all our tickets inside Centreon in real-time and can monitor a lot of ELP and CLN in real-time for application purposes."
"The product is available in ISO image format, ready for deployment. Centreon also has a comprehensive guide and documentation that are simple and easy to follow."
"The downtimes feature is helpful. If the ISP is doing some maintenance on its network, we have the option to put downtime on the devices or the services, so we won't get any false alarms."
"I can't point to one valuable feature. All of Centreon is good."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to build an abstraction of service visualization. You can add services to an entity called Business Activities and you can see the state of these activities."
"Another feature we use is Business Activity, which provides us with an end-user perspective when a service is down or isn't working correctly. This is helpful when monitoring the KPIs. When we see a device or server that isn't working, we find the root cause."
"Centreon's most valuable features are preventative maintenance and cost-efficiency. Everything is monitored, and we get a log before the system fails. We have an opportunity to fix the issue and avoid downtime."
"Predetermined templates allow for simple and fast service monitoring configuration."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios XI is customization. We can customize based on our requirements. We can do modifications and implement a lot of scripts. Additionally, it is easy to use."
"You want to monitor a specific metric that nobody else has? You can do it even with the most basic of scripting skills, and you can always share it with the vast community of Nagios Exchange."
"Nagios XI is a simple monitoring tool with performance management."
"The dashboard allows you to see what's going on in the overall system."
"The Script Module in Nagios is really easy to use and is really cost efficient."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard, where I can have a single screen that provides a summary for hundreds of servers."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"The technical support needs improvement."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"There is room for improvement in the area of artificial intelligence. The product gives us a lot of information, but it's only information. We want the product to do more auto-remediation."
"Release management and quality of testing need improvement, because with each major upgrade we have many issues coming in. Then, it takes several minor upgrades to get rid of them."
"I would like to see an improvement of the communication with big data systems, because Centreon is a monitoring system. In our point of view, Centreon should be a part of a source for a big data system, not a big data system itself. So, it should be easier to add data from the Centreon system to a big data system. For example, it should be able to teach machine learning."
"During the initial setup we faced some issues. Part of it was because we had to become more knowledgeable in the solution. There are some gray areas and if you don't know the product well you may have issues. Another part of it was some bugs that we came across, although that's part of every software solution in IT nowadays. But the initial setup could be easier."
"Centreon is actually missing an easy way to create a trendline for the metrics. Actually it is possible to create it, but you need a good knowledge of math, Centreon, and RRD."
"I would like to see a better UI, one which is more responsive."
"I think Centreon's security could be improved by leveraging AI. That's where things are heading in the industry."
"Centreon introduced network discovery in the most recent update. However, it doesn't work well. Our previous monitoring tool could discover networking equipment on the network and identify the relationships between the devices."
"The pricing has recently risen. I know they've changed what is covered under the license, however, it doesn't change the way we use it and adds nothing to our experience, and yet we now have to pay more."
"I would like to see support for notification via SMS."
"It can be quite difficult to know which drivers and agents to use when setting up."
"The reporting part should be made simpler. While we can obtain all the reports we need, we always have to create work-arounds to get them."
"The product could be optimized to improve the administrative user experience via the Nagios Core Configuration (NCC) GUI module."
"They need more documentation for the plugins."
"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"The way Nagios displays information isn't easy for a new user to understand. It's not intuitive enough. You need to read some tutorials or be trained to understand what it's displaying. Also, I think it needs more features to improve network visibility because there are some things you can't detect."
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Centreon is ranked 11th in IT Infrastructure Monitoring with 27 reviews while Nagios XI is ranked 9th in IT Infrastructure Monitoring with 54 reviews. Centreon is rated 8.6, while Nagios XI is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Centreon writes "Proactive reporting guides our NOC on what needs to be fixed, saving them time". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nagios XI writes "Great for monitoring IT services infrastructure with nice tools and helpful notifications". Centreon is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, Nagios Core, Icinga and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, whereas Nagios XI is most compared with Nagios Core, Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, Wireshark and OpsRamp. See our Centreon vs. Nagios XI report.
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We monitor all IT Infrastructure Monitoring reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.