Empower your industrial vision with PLC monitoring by PRTG
- Gain instant visibility into PLC performance and health
- Proactively detect issues before they impact production
- Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements using historical data
Our users give top ratings for monitoring with Paessler PRTG
PRTG PLC monitoring: What you’ll find on this page
PRTG makes PLC monitoring easy
Custom alerts and data visualization make it easy to monitor, identify, and prevent PLC hardware health and performance issues.
Control the controllers & keep your industrial operations flowing
PLCs are the backbone of industrial automation. As they operate in real time, meaning they process input signals and execute control functions with minimal delay, they are crucial for time-sensitive industrial processes.
But what happens if you have issues with PLCs – if they stop working or are lacking in performance? Production processes come to a standstill, unintended operations occur, machinery breaks down – and costs pile up to uncontrollable heights.
This is where Paessler PRTG comes into play. Our PLC monitoring solution keeps an eye on your programmable logic controllers as well as your entire OT environment round the clock, making sure that issues are detected before they become business critical and costly.
5 reasons why to choose PRTG as your PLC monitoring tool
Detect malfunctions in real time
Continuously check inputs, outputs, and the PLC's internal state to immediately identify issues such as sensor failures, communication errors, or programming bugs.
With PRTG, you can detect faults or anomalies in the control system early on, even before potential issues escalate into major problems. This way, you can ensure that your industrial processes stay online, stable, and reliable.
Enhance performance & productivity
By monitoring PLCs with PRTG, you can optimize production processes, identify bottlenecks, and reduce inefficiencies.
Get comprehensive visibility into the performance of your PLCs and the overall health of your industrial network with PRTG’s easy-to-read dashboards and maps, and fine-tune operations based on real-time data and historical performance trends.
Save costs with predictive maintenance
Monitor your PLCs to introduce predictive maintenance strategies and predict when equipment is likely to fail or require maintenance. This helps you to significantly reduce maintenance costs by preventing unplanned downtime and extending the lifespan of equipment.
With PRTG, you can also analyze trends and patterns in PLC data to optimize energy consumption and save even more resources and costs.
Comply with governmental regulations
In industries that have regulatory requirements for monitoring and reporting on equipment performance and environmental conditions, PRTG is the perfect tool to collect and analyze PLC monitoring data and ensure compliance.
Use PRTG’s historical data logging capabilities to prepare the reports required for audits and other regulatory inspections.
Scale to monitor thousands of devices
PRTG is designed to scale effortlessly to meet the growing monitoring needs of industrial environments, and is capable of monitoring thousands of devices simultaneously.
Whether you have a small-scale operation with a few PLCs or a large enterprise environment with extensive industrial infrastructure, PRTG can monitor it – without compromising performance.
What PLC monitoring looks like in PRTG
Diagnose network issues by continuously monitoring the health and performance of your programmable logic controllers. Show I/O states, hardware parameters, environmental metrics, network traffic, and more in real time and visualize data in graphic maps & dashboards to identify problems more easily. Gain the visibility you need to troubleshoot issues with your PLCs.
PRTG dashboard for monitoring an industrial cabinet
Custom PRTG map for visualizing Rhebo integration & monitoring
Keeping an eye on your production line with PRTG
Start monitoring PLCs with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier.
“All-around winning “The real beauty of PRTG is the endless possibilities it offers” “Outstanding cloud IT experts agree: Paessler PRTG is a great solution for IT infrastructure monitoring
network monitor”
monitoring”
Transforming industrial insights: How PLC monitoring with PRTG works
Support for various industrial protocols
PRTG's comprehensive protocol support ensures compatibility with a wide range of industrial devices and systems.
Whether your PLCs communicate via OPC UA, Modbus TCP/IP, Modbus RTU Serial, MQTT, or other industry-standard protocols over gateways, PRTG can seamlessly integrate and gather essential data for monitoring purposes.
Customizable alerts and notifications
Configure alerts based on predefined conditions or thresholds so that PRTG can notify you via SMS, email, in-app push notification, and other methods as soon as a warning or error threshold is breached.
With our product extension Paessler PRTG OPC UA Server, you can even integrate alarms from PRTG in your supervisory and control system using OPC UA.
Individual dashboards for different users
PRTG enhances your monitoring even further with highly customizable dashboards and maps that give you visual real-time insights into the performance and status of your PLCs and your entire industrial infrastructure.
Use our drag-and-drop editor to quickly create personalized views of your PLC health, and publish them internally or over the Internet.
Discover our new product extension
Paessler PRTG OPC UA Server
Get an overview of OT network components in your supervisory and control systems
Do you want to have a full overview of your OT environment in your supervisory and control systems – including traditional IT network components like routers, switches, firewalls, and more?
PRTG OPC UA Server consolidates monitoring data from your OT network and the IIoT in your control system. View all your data in one place for centralized monitoring and alarms.
Your PLC monitor at a glance – even on the go
Set up PRTG in minutes and use it on almost any mobile device.
Get your free white papers
White paper I
In modern industrial IT, the right teams need the right data. Our guide shows how to implement holistic monitoring that brings elements from IT, OT and IIoT into your dashboards.
White paper II
Our second guide gives you inspiration and ideas for dashboards that feature IT, OT and IIoT data – all in one place. We show you what truly convergent industrial dashboards look like!
Easily find the source of the problem with our PRTG programmable logic controller monitoring solution
Real-time alerts and custom notifications make it easy to solve issues with the status, health, and performance of your PLCs.
PRTG is compatible with all major vendors, products, and systems
Create innovative solutions with Paessler’s partners
Partnering with innovative vendors, Paessler unleashes synergies to create
new and additional benefits for joined customers.
Paessler is member of the mioty alliance, composed of companies that use mioty to create innovative IoT and IIoT solutions such as the retrofitting of industrial environments.
mioty alliance
“Excellent tool for detailed monitoring. Alarms and notifications work greatly. Equipment addition is straight forward and server initial setup is very easy. ...feel safe to purchase it if you intend to monitor a large networking landscape.”
Infrastructure and Operations Engineer in the Communications Industry, firm size 10B - 30B USD
PRTG makes PLC monitoring easy
Custom alerts and data visualization make it easy to monitor, identify, and prevent PLC hardware health and performance issues.
Monitoring programmable logic controllers: FAQ
What is a PLC?
A PLC, or Programmable Logic Controller, is a specialized digital computer used in industrial automation and control systems. PLCs are designed to operate in harsh environments such as manufacturing plants, where they can endure high temperatures, humidity, dust, and vibration.
PLCs are programmed to perform control functions based on input received from sensors and other devices, and then they execute output commands to control machinery and processes. They are widely used in various industries for tasks such as controlling assembly lines, regulating chemical processes, managing power generation, and monitoring infrastructure systems.
In essence, PLCs serve as the 'brains' of automated systems, allowing for the centralized control and monitoring of industrial processes, and facilitating efficient and precise operation of machinery and equipment.
What PLCs can be monitored with PRTG?
PRTG supports various communication protocols like OPC UA, Modbus TCP, and MQTT. By supporting these protocols, PRTG can effectively monitor and gather data from PLCs from different manufacturers. Here's a list of some popular PLC brands and models that support OPC UA, Modbus TCP, or MQTT:
- Siemens (SIMATIC S7-1500, 1200, 400, 300 series)
- Allen-Bradley - Rockwell Automation (ControlLogix, CompactLogix, MicroLogix, PLC-5 series)
- Schneider Electric (Modicon M340, M580, Quantum series)
- Mitsubishi Electric ( MELSEC iQ-R, iQ-F, Q series)
- Omron (Sysmac NJ/NX, CP1H, CJ2M series)
- ABB (AC500, AC800M, AC500-eCo series)
- Beckhoff (TwinCAT PLC series)
- B&R Automation (X20, X67 series)
- Delta (AH500, DVP series)
- WAGO (PFC200, PFC100 series)
- Honeywell (ControlEdge PLC, Experion LX series)
- Yokogawa (STARDOM, FA-M3 series)
What are some of the PLC metrics that PRTG can monitor?
PRTG offers a comprehensive monitoring solution for PLCs, allowing users to track a wide range of parameters critical to industrial operations. This includes:
- CPU usage
- Memory usage
- Network traffic
- Input/output states
- Error codes
- Environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, humidity, air quality, noise levels)
- Voltage and current readings
- Equipment health/status (e.g., motor RPM, pump pressure)
- Production counts or throughput
- Machine cycle times
- Equipment uptime/downtime
Do I need to configure my PLCs for monitoring?
PRTG typically does not require any configuration on the PLC side. PRTG supports various industrial protocols like OPC UA, Modbus, and MQTT, allowing it to communicate directly with PLCs to retrieve monitoring data.
As long as the PLC is configured to communicate using one of these supported protocols and the network infrastructure allows communication between PRTG and the PLC, no additional changes to the PLC's configuration are usually necessary. PRTG can access data points or variables exposed by the PLC through the configured protocol without requiring any modifications to the PLC itself.
Can PRTG monitor PLCs in real time?
Yes, PRTG can monitor PLCs in real time. PRTG is a network monitoring software that can monitor various devices and systems, including industrial equipment like PLCs.
To monitor PLCs with PRTG, you typically need to use OPC UA, Modbus, or MQTT sensors provided by PRTG for PLC monitoring. These sensors can gather data such as CPU usage, memory usage, network traffic, and other relevant metrics from the PLCs and display them in real time in the PRTG web interface.
What is a sensor in PRTG?
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.
PRTG: The multi-tool for sysadmins
Adapt PRTG individually and dynamically to your needs and rely on a strong API:- HTTP API: Access monitoring data and manipulate monitoring objects via HTTP requests
- Custom sensors: Create your own PRTG sensors for customized monitoring
- Custom notifications: Create your own notifications and send action triggers to external systems
- REST Custom sensor: Monitor almost everything that provides data in XML or JSON format
Paessler AG conducted trials in over 600 IT departments worldwide to tune its network monitoring software closer to the needs of sysadmins. We asked: would you recommend PRTG?
Over 95% of our customers say yes!
The result of the survey: over 95% of the participants would recommend PRTG – or already have.
Paessler PRTG is used by companies of all sizes. Sysadmins love PRTG because it makes their job a whole lot easier. Bandwidth, servers, virtual environments, websites, VoIP services – PRTG keeps an eye on your entire network. Everyone has different monitoring needs. That’s why we let you try PRTG for free.Still not convinced?
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Start monitoring PLCs with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier.
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PRTG |
Network Monitoring Software - Version 24.2.94.1424 (May 2nd, 2024) |
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Hosting |
Download for Windows and cloud-based version PRTG Hosted Monitor available |
Languages |
English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese |
Pricing |
Up to 100 sensors for free (Price List) |
Unified Monitoring |
Network devices, bandwidth, servers, applications, virtual environments, remote systems, IoT, and more |
Supported Vendors & Applications |
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