Updated March 27, 2023
Difference Between Zabbix and Nagios
The Zabbix tool can be categorized into the monitoring application, which is available as open-source used for monitoring the performance of VMs (virtual machine), networks, and servers and capable of monitoring CPU utilization, network utilization and disk consumption on machines. The Nagios is another type of monitoring tool that is also available as an open-source that used for continuous monitoring of the IT components like network, infrastructure, and system and is also used to check the health of the system installed in the network. The Nagios tool would send an immediate alert to the technician if something went wrong in the system.
Head to Head Comparison between Zabbix and Nagios (Infographics)
Below are the top 8 comparisons between Zabbix vs Nagios:
Key differences between Zabbix and Nagios
Let us discuss some key differences between Zabbix vs Nagios in the following points:
- One of the major differences between the two tools is that the Nagios tool is a continuous monitoring tool, whereas the Zabbix tool is not. The Nagios tool is an open-source tool that is a continuous monitoring tool used to monitor the health of system machines, network infrastructure, and architecture. The Zabbix tool is a type of monitoring tool that is used to monitor the network, servers, virtual machine.
- The other difference between Zabbix vs Nagios is cost and installation steps. The Zabbix tool is much cheaper and easy to install on the user system, and it does not require additional steps for installation. In the Nagios tool, the free version has very limited features. The premium version is better, which is expensive and required additional support for the installation.
- The other difference between the Zabbix and Nagios tool is the monitoring components for which they are used for. The Zabbix tool is used to monitor the networking system, CPU load statistics, and memory heap. The Nagios tool is used for continuous monitoring of applications, services, and systems.
- The other key difference in between Zabbix vs Nagios is sending alerts and alarms upon any raised issue. The Nagios tool sends immediate alerts when there is any unusual behaviour observe on the system so that the appropriate action can be taken against the alert. In the Zabbix tool, there is no such functionality of sending alerts and notify the technical team.
- In the Zabbix tool, the data can be visualized in different forms like screens, graphs, overviews, and maps. As the tool can monitor the servers, it gives actual statistics and information about performance data. In the Nagios tool, the functionality of visualizing the data is not present, creating a problem to analyze the data and monitoring the system.
- The other major difference between Zabbix vs Nagios is HA (high availability) and automatically fixing issues. The Nagios tool can maintain the security of the system and the high availability of the system for other business operations. The Nagios tool is also capable of fixing the problems automatically when there is any situation arises. The Zabbix tool does not fix the issue automatically; it requires technical support. The Zabbix can also be scalable from a small scale environment to a large scale environment.
- In the Zabbix tool, one centralized web-based management interface is used for managing the data in the database and monitoring the system. In the Nagios tool, there is no centralized system to monitor the system and data. The Nagios tool uses the GUI that uses CGI for displaying the web pages. The web page includes graphs, buttons, and sound for notifying about the alerts. When an alert is raised more than once, the hard alarm is immediately raised to notify the technician team.
- The Nagios tool offers different network monitoring services: HTTP, SNMP, POP, SMTP, SSH, FTP, and many more. The Zabbix tool can monitor the thousands of metrics collected from the various virtual machine and physical machines.
Comparison Table of Zabbix vs Nagios
The below table summarizes the comparisons between Zabbix vs Nagios:
|
Zabbix |
Nagios |
| There is no such functionality in the Zabbix tool to send alerts or alarms to the technician and inform them about the raised issue. | For any monitoring tool, the most valuable feature is when there is an issue, the tool should send alerts to notify about the issue. The Nagios tool sends alerts to the technical team and informs them about the issue. |
| Zabbix tool is a type of monitoring tool which helps to monitor the system and its components. | Nagios tool is a continuous monitoring tool that tests the system’s performance and sends immediate alerts for any raised issue in the system. |
| The data can be represented in graphs and maps using the Zabbix tool, which helps to visualize the data better. | There is no such functionality in the Nagios tool to represent the data in graphs or any maps. |
| The issues are not automatically resolved in the Zabbix tool. Manual work is required for fixing the bug. | The Nagios tool is capable of solving the issue automatically if there is an issue raised in the servers. |
| The installation and commissioning of the Zabbix tool are comparatively easy to the Nagios tool. | The installation and commissioning are not so easy and required a technician for installing the tool on the system. |
| The Zabbix tool’s performance is good compared to Nagios, and the tool is fast compared to the Nagios tool. | The Nagios tool is a bit slow compared to the Zabbix tool, and there is always an issue in the Nagios tool’s performance. |
| The UI/UX of the Zabbix tool has some issues as it does not use JavaScript for presenting the charts and graphs, which creates problem to understand the data. | There is no such issue for the Nagios tool as the UI represents all the data accurately, and the user can use the UI for performing the monitoring operations. |
Conclusion
Zabbix tool and Nagios tool are both used for monitoring the system and health of the system. For choosing the tool, the only factor that needs to be considered is the tool’s requirement and use. Both tools are capable of monitoring the servers, system and performance of the system.
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