Paessler PRTG – The best alternative to Nagios

Enjoy an easy-to-use and powerful monitoring solution
Start monitoring your network within minutes
Save precious time while managing your network

Why switch from Nagios to PRTG?

At first glance, Nagios open-source software seems considerably less expensive than Paessler PRTG. After all, why should you pay for something that you can get for free?

Nagios saves you money but costs you time & effort

You can only install the tool’s free edition via Linux/Unix
All devices and checkpoints must be added using shell commands
Setup can take several days, even for experienced Linux users

speed

Choose PRTG, a tool which is ready to go in minutes

Adding, processing, and deleting sensors is straightforward
Extremely intuitive thanks to an easy-to-understand user interface
Smart setup assistant guides you through the setup and initial configuration

happy-admins

Join over 500,000 happy sysadmins who use PRTG

PRTG comes with a state-of-the-art, responsive web interface
You won't waste countless hours reading forums and editing configuration files
Automated monitoring lets you deal with other important daily tasks

FAQs about PRTG

What is PRTG Network Monitor?

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor is a proprietary network monitoring software by Paessler AG. It is best suited for small & medium IT infrastructures and offers extensive features for monitoring OT & IoT environments as well. The powerful on-premises monitoring tool runs on Windows servers and is easily scalable.

Is PRTG Network Monitor free?

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor offers a free 30-day trial that includes all monitoring, alerting, and reporting features as well as historical data analysis. There’s also a freeware edition of PRTG Network Monitor that is free of charge for up to 100 PRTG sensors (or monitored aspects). If your trial period expires or you need more than 100 sensors, you have to purchase one of the various perpetual PRTG licenses.

What are the advantages of PRTG Network Monitor?

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor has several benefits:

Easy installation and setup including one-click installer and automatic network discovery
Great usability via different user interfaces for web, desktop, and smartphone
Customizable dashboards and network maps including drag-and-drop widget editor
Customizable alerting, notification, and reporting system
Vendor agnostic and agentless monitoring software for on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments
Quick and easy configuration due to preconfigured PRTG sensors and device templates
Out-of-the-box support of numerous technologies and protocols as well as the most popular manufacturers

What can you use PRTG Network Monitor for?

You can use Paessler PRTG Network Monitor to monitor the health and performance of your physical and virtual IT, OT, and IoT infrastructures – on premises or in the cloud. Monitor, for example, network devices (servers, switches, routers, firewalls), virtual environments, applications, services, websites, operating systems, network traffic, environmental parameters, entire data centers, resource consumption, and much more.

What is a sensor in PRTG Network Monitor?

In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, for example the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, or the free space on a disk drive.

On average, you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.