To maintain smooth operations and provide a seamless user experience in today’s fast-paced digital environment, businesses and organizations must monitor and manage the performance of systems, networks, and apps.
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With the correct network monitoring tools, you can ensure maximum performance and reduce downtime, whether in charge of a small website, a complicated network infrastructure, or an entire data center.
Fortunately, various monitoring tools are accessible, from open source and free to paid options.
The global open source services market has grown with a CAGR of 16.2%. It is estimated that it will reach 54.1 billion USD by 2027!
Assessing free and open source monitoring solutions' features, community support, and scalability is critical. Choose tools with a reputation for being reliable and having a large user base. Ensure the product gives customization choices, connects with your current systems, and supports various monitoring options. Prioritise monitoring tools with vibrant communities, frequent updates, and thorough documentation to ensure dependable assistance
This article will examine the top 15 free and open source monitoring tools so you can maintain a careful eye on your infrastructure without going over budget.
Let’s have a look at all of them.
What are Open Source Monitoring Tools?
Open source monitoring tools are software applications open to public use, modification, and distribution. These tools are created by a group of developers who share their knowledge and innovations to improve the performance and features of the monitoring tools.
An organization’s infrastructure, apps, and systems can all be monitored using open-source technologies. They gather information, metrics, and logs from various sources, including servers, networks, databases, and applications. They then use this information to provide real-time insights about these elements’ functionality, availability, and overall health.
Open source server monitoring tools allow customers to create unique monitoring setups based on particular needs, ensuring that crucial metrics and events are adequately observed. The frequent system integration of open source network monitoring capabilities enables smooth data transfer and interoperability.
As developers worldwide contribute to the codebase and address issues, the open source nature enables continuous innovation and progress. In addition, community support gives users tools, forums, and documentation to help them use and troubleshoot them.
Organizations can efficiently monitor their systems, applications, and infrastructure using open source monitoring tools without paying exorbitant licensing fees. They increase their understanding of performance bottlenecks, actively identify and address problems, and guarantee the efficient running of their IT environment.
The free open source monitoring tools allow users to decide with knowledge, allocate resources efficiently, and improve their systems’ efficiency and dependability.
What are the Benefits of Open Source Monitoring Tools?
Due to various benefits, open source monitoring software has become incredibly popular in recent years. These tools are intended to aid organizations in monitoring and analyzing the functionality, availability, and general health of their networks, systems, and software.
Let’s look at some benefits of open source monitoring tools.
1. Customizability
Open source monitoring solutions allow you to modify and adapt the software to your needs. Organizations can change the source code to add or delete features, link with current systems, or build customized dashboards and reports. Businesses can design monitoring systems that are well-suited to their particular needs because of this flexibility.
2. Rapid Innovation
The most innovative open source monitoring tools are often free. The best open source monitoring tools continually grow, bringing new features, methods, and approaches to monitoring with a thriving contributor community. Companies can use this ongoing innovation for network traffic analysis and keep ahead of new technologies and fashions while ensuring their monitoring capabilities are strong and relevant.
3. Long-Term Sustainability
Since free open source monitoring tools are not reliant on the existence of a single vendor or business, open source monitoring tools enable long-term sustainability. The community can step in to maintain and improve the technology with a specific corporation supporting it, discontinuing operations, or stopping assisting. Thus, organizations are guaranteed to be able to depend on the monitoring solution over the long term, preventing delays and the need to switch to other solutions.
4. Learning and Skill Development
For IT workers, using open source monitoring tools can be a great learning experience. People can develop their technical abilities, obtain real-world experience, and keep up with the most recent developments in monitoring technologies by researching and contributing to the open source community.
5. Adaptability to Specific Use Cases
Open source monitoring tools can be customized to fit certain use cases and sectors. The solutions enable customization of the monitoring solution to meet the specific monitoring needs of various organizations. Open source server monitoring tools have the adaptability to efficiently handle these various use cases, whether it’s for monitoring infrastructure, apps, security, or particular industry compliance requirements.
6. Transparent Data Handling
Data collection, storage, and processing are transparent when using open source monitoring tools. Organizations may better manage their data with this transparency, making it easier to comply with pertinent privacy and security laws. Businesses can ensure that their sensitive information is handled correctly by reviewing and comprehending the data handling practices.
What Are The Challenges of Open Source Monitoring Tools?
Recent years have seen a substantial increase in the use of open source monitoring tools because of their affordability, adaptability, and vibrant community support. However, they also have their challenges, just like any software solution.
Understanding these challenges is essential for organizations considering implementing open source monitoring tools. Let’s look at some of the drawbacks that need to be resolved.
1. Integration with Existing Systems
Integrating open source monitoring solutions with current IT systems, applications, and infrastructure might be challenging. Compatibility problems, data format incompatibilities, and a lack of standardization might hamper the seamless integration of monitoring tools with other elements in the environment. Careful planning, configuration, and occasionally custom programming are required to ensure effective integration.
2. Community Support and Development
The development and enhancement of open source monitoring tools depend on community contributions. The degree of community involvement and the project’s roadmap can impact the development rate and the accessibility of new features.
In order to determine the long-term viability and growth potential of the selected open source tool, organizations must evaluate the health of the community, the tool’s roadmap, and the frequency of updates.
3. Upgrades and Maintenance
To be safe and relevant, open source technologies need constant upkeep and frequent upgrades. It might be difficult to guarantee the prompt installation of patches, bug fixes, and new releases, especially in large-scale deployments. Organizations must set aside resources and establish procedures for monitoring tool maintenance and upgrades to reduce security risks and take advantage of new features and improvements.
4. Complexity and Learning Curve
The learning curve for open source monitoring tools can often be extremely complex. To set them up, configuring and customizing them to meet specific needs may require significant technical knowledge. Administrators and operators must thoroughly study the tool’s design, functions, and configuration choices.
5. Lack of Commercial Support
Although open source communities offer help, the extent of assistance may differ. Organizations that rely primarily on community support may have trouble locating timely assistance for urgent problems. The load on internal IT teams may increase in complicated situations when competent commercial help is lacking.
Our selection of these Free and Open Source Monitoring Tool is based on thorough research and analysis. We have listed these softwares based on usability and satisfaction score that include features, ease of use, customer support, ratings, and number of reviews from SoftwareSuggest. Our goal is to help businesses select the right softwares that can help them optimize their business processes.
Top 15 Free and Open Source Monitoring Tools
Free and effective monitoring tools have become significantly popular because of the growth of open source software. We’ll now look at the top 15 free and open source monitoring tools.
These tools provide a wide range of features and functionalities to assist you in keeping track of various components of your infrastructure, such as servers, networks, apps, and more.
Tool Name | Pricing | Free Trial Period |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Edition- $1995/one time-license | 100 hosts | |
| Free and Open Source | 10 hosts | |
| Free and Open Source | 100 hosts | |
| Free and Open Source | 10 hosts | |
| NMS- 18€/agent/year | 100 hosts | |
| Free and Open Source | 100 hosts | |
| Free and Open Source | Free | |
| Free and Open Source | Free | |
| Free and Open Source | Free | |
| Netdata Pro- $3/node/month | Free | |
| Sensu Go Pro- $3/node/month | Free | |
| Free and Open Source | Free | |
| Enterprise Edition- $80/month | 1 host | |
| 5 hosts- €65 | 10 hosts | |
| Essential- $42,000/year | 10 hosts |
1. Nagios
Nagios
Nagios, also called Nagios Core, is among the leading open source monitoring tools. It offers monitoring services for switches, servers, operating systems, network protocols, and applications. It is well-known for its high level of performance and robust monitoring capabilities. It runs on a Core 4 monitoring engine, consuming fewer server resources.
Features
- Alerting and notifications
- Customizable dashboard
- Historical data analysis
- Plugin ecosystem
- Distributed monitoring and load balancing
Pricing
Nagios has a free and open source license edition. The other pricing plan includes:
- Standard Edition- $1995/one time-license
- Enterprise Edition- $3495/one time-license
Pros and Cons
- Easy integration with other platforms
- Cost-effective solution for monitoring
- Active user community with an extensive knowledge base
- Customizable to fit specific monitoring needs
- Requires efficient technical knowledge to install it
- Steep learning curve for beginners
- Limited graphic data visualization
2. Zabbix
Zabbix
Zabbix is another leading open source monitoring software specially designed for enterprise-level companies. It serves various industries, including healthcare and medicine, government, energy and chemical, banking and finance, and more. It is among the open-source monitoring tools that control almost everything — from web servers to network equipment, web applications, and databases.
Features
- Alerting and notifications
- Dashboards and visualization
- Reporting and analysis
- Auto-discovery
- Distributed monitoring
Pricing
It is a free and open source monitoring tool.
Pros and Cons
- Offers extensive customization options
- Flexible options for data retention
- Offers pre-configured templates
- Easy integration with existing infrastructure
- Initial learning curve
- Lack of official technical support
- Limited native integration
3. Cacti
Cacti is one of the most popular open-source monitoring tools. It acts as a web-based networking monitoring tool that enables you to generate graphs related to relevant network data. Its popularity is because it offers easy-to-understand network statistics with well-defined charts and graphs.
Features
- Data collection
- Graphics and visualization
- Template-based monitoring
- Plugin system
- Threshold alerting and monitoring
Pricing
It is a free and open source monitoring software
Pros and Cons
- Offers customizable templates
- Active and supportive community
- Great historical data analysis feature
- Extensive graphing capabilities
- Configuration takes extra time
- Lack of real-time monitoring
- Steep learning curve for beginners
4. Icinga
Icinga
Icinga, initially created as a fork of the Nagios monitoring system, has now evolved into Icinga 2 as an independent monitoring tool. Icinga 2 is faster, easier to configure, and enables you to monitor live and historical performance data.
Features
- Template-based reports
- Multiplatform support
- Distributed monitoring
- Advanced alerting and notification
- Performance monitoring
Pricing
It is among the known free and open source server monitoring tools.
Pros and Cons
- Dashboards are customizable
- Provides cross-platform support for several operating systems
- Offers flexible API to view live performance data
- Allows you to monitor host services, network services, and server components
- Configuration can be quite confusing
- Advanced functionalities require additional plugins
- Setting up the tool requires technical expertise
5. Pandora FMS
Pandora FMS
Pandora FMS is considered all-in-one monitoring software best suited for medium- and big-sized enterprises with at least 100 devices. It offers unparalleled flexibility for IT infrastructure monitoring and can address immediate and unforeseen operational issues. Besides, it is highly scalable, making it an ideal choice.
Features
- Centralized dashboard
- Alerting and notification
- Reports and visualizations
- Agent-based and agent-less monitoring
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) monitoring
Pricing
It has a free and opens source licensing version. The other versions include:
- NMS- 18€/agent/year
- Enterprise- custom pricing
- MaaS- starts 3€
Pros and Cons
- Can be deployed in almost all of the major operating systems
- Supports graphic-based reporting based on its own SQL backend
- Easily integrates with third-party platforms like Slack, Apache, MySQL, etc.
- Offers a user-friendly interface
- Deployment can be tedious
- Steep learning curve for beginners
- Offers limited community support
6. Observium
Observium
Observium is an emerging open source monitoring tool that runs on Linux but can support many other device types. It has an impressive clientele list that includes large players, namely Dell and eBay. Paypal, Twitter, and more. You can install the system using an automated script or in manual mode. Moreover, it is professionally developed and maintained by expert network engineers.
Features
- Automatic device discovery
- Alerting and notification
- Configuration management
- Real-time monitoring
- Historical data analysis
Pricing
It is a free and open source monitoring software
Pros and Cons
- Helps in the visualization of distributed networks
- Streamlines capacity and disaster recovery planning
- Has a powerful yet simple and intuitive interface
- Automatically collects and displays information about services
- Complex initial setup
- Limited reporting capabilities
- Lack of integration options
7. Graphite
Graphite is a free, open-source monitoring tool that tracks the network performance of business services, servers, web applications, and more. It was developed in 2008 by Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. In fact, it is used by big production companies like Booking.com, Etsy, The Washington Post, and more.
Features
- Query language
- Real-time graphing
- Dashboard creation
- Data collection and storage
- Alerting and notifications
Pricing
It is a free and open source monitoring tool.
Pros and Cons
- Collects, stores, and displays time-series data in real-time
- Rolling aggregation to make storage manageable
- Offers event tracking and supports seamless integration
- Provides graph metrics and has an active support group
- Few users complaint about inconsistent data
- Steep learning curve for beginners
- Limited GUI-based management
8. Prometheus
Prometheus is one of the best open source monitoring tools that enables you to identify time-series data by metric name and a set of key-value pairs. The best part is that it has a large community following, which provides you with regular updates and instant assistance. It can seamlessly integrate with third-party apps like Rancher, Sensu, Stackstorm, Kong, RocketChat, and more.
Features
- Time-series data collection
- Query language
- Alerting and alert manager integration
- Multi-dimensional data model
- Service discovery and dynamic configuration
Pricing
It is among the free open source server monitoring tools with no licensing costs
Pros and Cons
- Offers multiple modes to visualize data
- Efficiently stores time series in memory and local disk
- Sends notifications via email, PagerDuty, or OpsGenie
- Offers flexible query language
- Not-so-easy to set up and implement
- Steep learning curve for beginners
- Long-term storage requires additional components
9. Riemann
Riemann is another popular open-source monitoring tool that aims to make tracking and measuring events an easy default. The system aggregates events from your servers and applications and offers alerting capabilities. It can track the state of events from seconds to second and build checks that take advantage of combinations of events.
Features
- Real-time monitoring
- Complex event processing
- Network latency monitoring
- Anomaly detection
- Distributed architecture
Pricing
It is a free open source monitoring tool
Pros and Cons
- Easy integration with PagerDuty for SMS or phone alerts
- Generates detailed reports on network data
- Written in Clojure and runs on top of the JVM
- Fast and highly configurable tool
- Steep learning curve for beginners
- Lacks official technical support
- Limited built-in data visualization
10. Netdata
Netdata is a leading open source monitoring tool that can be run on all systems without disruption. It offers highly optimized, unparalleled real-time health monitoring and performance troubleshooting for applications and systems. And the best part is that it can be easily integrated into existing monitoring toolchains, such as Graphite, Kafka, Prometheus, and more.
Features
- Real-time monitoring
- Extensive plugin ecosystem
- Alerts and notifications
- Distributed monitoring
- Automatic anomaly detection
Pricing
The Netdata Community plan is among the known free open source monitoring tools. The other pricing options include:
- Netdata Pro- $3/node/month
- Netdata Business- $4/node/month
Pros and Cons
- Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, and macOS
- Enables quick installation without any requirement for dedicated resources
- Can auto-detect thousands of metrics from dozens of services and application
- Offers highly interactive web dashboards
- It is unsecured by default
- Offers limited historical data
- Steep learning curve for advanced configuration
11. Sensu
Sensu
Sensu is among the open-source monitoring tools created to assist businesses in gaining visibility into and understanding their applications and infrastructure. It offers a scalable and adaptable solution for keeping track of different servers, networks, and services in an IT environment. Users can proactively identify problems using Sensu and take action, assuring the dependability and performance of their systems.
Features
- Multiple network protocols
- Real-time monitoring
- Dynamic scaling
- Event processing
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Pricing
The Sensu Go is a free and open source monitoring tool. The other pricing options include:
- Sensu Go Pro- $3/node/month
- Sensu Go Enterprise- $5/node/month
Pros and Cons
- Flexible and customizable alerting options
- Wide range of monitoring options to detect issues from multiple angles
- Offers built-in support for cloud platforms
- Excellent compliance and auditing capabilities
- Steep learning for beginners
- Extensive effort and expertise to set up and configure
- Limited resource requirements for large-scale setups
12. LibreNMS
LibreNMS is an open source network management and monitoring tool that gives complete visibility into a network infrastructure. Network administrators may monitor devices, measure performance metrics, find and fix problems, and assure the best performance of their networks with LibreNMS’s rich feature set. Its easy web interface makes network monitoring and troubleshooting duties easier and suits networks of all sizes.
Features
- Auto-discovery
- Performance monitoring
- Alerting and notification
- Graphing and visualization
- Fault detection and troubleshooting
Pricing
It is a free open source monitoring software
Pros and Cons
- Can be installed on various operating systems
- Intuitive and easy-to-navigate web-based interface
- Offers multi-vendor support for centralized monitoring
- Allows personalized dashboards to create custom scripts
- Limited commercial support
- Complex initial setup
- Scalability challenges to manage extremely large networks
13. Checkmk
Checkmk
Checkmk is a robust open-source monitoring application made to make controlling and monitoring IT systems easier. Checkmk helps organizations to obtain real-time insights into their systems, networks, and applications because of its extensive capabilities, user-friendly interface, and extensible architecture, ensuring optimal performance and prompt issue resolution. Regardless of size, Checkmk provides a flexible and scalable monitoring solution catering to your unique requirements.
Features
- Smart alerting
- Performance visualization
- Automation and configuration management
- Business process monitoring
- Reporting and analytics
Pricing
The Checkmk Raw Edition is free and open source. The other pricing options are:
- Enterprise Edition- $80/month
- Cloud Edition- custom pricing
Pros and Cons
- Accommodates growing needs of small businesses and large enterprises
- Easy to create personalized dashboards
- Proactive monitoring to identify and resolve issues
- Centralized monitoring console for a holistic view of the entire infrastructure
- Complex initial configuration
- Requires continuous maintenance
- Learning curve for advanced features
14. M/Monit
M/Monit is among the effective open source monitoring tools to assist system administrators and IT specialists in effectively monitoring and managing their infrastructure. M/Monit offers real-time insights into the health and performance of servers, networks, and applications because of its extensive feature set and user-friendly interface.
This enables organizations to proactively identify and fix problems in network bandwidth usage before they impact business operations.
Features
- Centralized monitoring
- Alerting and notification
- Historical data and reporting
- Real-time monitoring
- Event log monitoring
Pricing
M/Monit is available as a free open source version. The commercial version is based on the number of monitored hosts:
- 5 hosts- €65
- 10 hosts- €129
- 20 hosts- €229
- 50 hosts- €349
- 100 hosts- €499
- 500 hosts- €699
- 1000 hosts- €849
- M/Monit Enterprise- €12000
Pros and Cons
- Intuitive web-based interface for easy navigation
- Flexible customization for unique monitoring needs
- Minimal CPU and memory resource usage
- Resource-based access control to enhance security
- Limited features in the open source version
- Learning curve for new users
- Limited integration ecosystem
15. OpenNMS
OpenNMS is a robust open-source network monitoring and management solution that give users complete visibility and administration over network infrastructure. OpenNMS gives network managers the tools they need to monitor, diagnose, and improve the operation of their networks owing to its many capabilities and flexibility.
Features
- Fault management
- Performance monitoring
- Event management
- Configuration management
- IP address management (IPAM)
Pricing
It offers a free open source version. The other pricing options are:
- Essential- $42,000/year
- Premier- $56,700/year
- Premier+- custom pricing
Pros and Cons
- Offers extensive customization options
- Excellent cross-platform capabilities
- Robust automation features to reduce manual intervention
- Employs a scalable and distributed architecture
- Requires technical expertise to set up
- Limited commercial support
- Higher resource requirements
Conclusion
As the technological landscape continues to devel, serverave dependable monitoring tools to guarantee the efficient operation of numerous systems and applications. By offering affordable solutions without sacrificing capability, the availability of free and open source monitoring tools has revolutionized the way organizations approach monitoring.
This article examined fifteen of the top free and open source monitoring tools. Each tool caters to various monitoring requirements with special features and capabilities. These tools address several facets of IT infrastructure, such as network monitoring, server performance monitoring, and application performance monitoring.
Although these open source and free monitoring tools have a wide range of features, it is vital to remember that they might not always offer the same degree of customer service and usability as their paid equivalents. When choosing the best monitoring system, organizations must consider their unique requirements, level of technical skill, and resources that are accessible.
Organizations can proactively manage their systems, enhance performance, and guarantee the efficient running of their IT by utilizing the capabilities of these monitoring solutions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Open source monitoring tools have several benefits. First of all, they are frequently cost-free to use, saving businesses money. Second, it is possible to customize and be flexible because the source code is available. Open source technologies are also supported by a sizable development community that offers ongoing updates, enhancements, and a plethora of information.
Yes, large-scale environments can be managed by open source monitoring tools. They provide scalability and versatility, enabling organizations to monitor many gadgets, systems, and programs efficiently. Open source monitoring solutions can satisfy large-scale environments' monitoring requirements due to their adaptable features and active community assistance.
Yes, open source monitoring tools are ideal for startups and small organizations. They offer affordable solutions for controlling and monitoring networks, applications, and IT infrastructure. Open source solutions are a sensible option as they provide flexibility, scalability, and a variety of features.
Open source monitoring solutions are reliable and secure if a large developer community properly maintains them. Regular upgrades, code reviews, and vulnerability patches ensure the security of the software. However, utilizing less well-known or unsupported tools should be done cautiously as they may provide greater hazards.
Compared to proprietary solutions, open source monitoring tools have several benefits. They offer cost efficiency, customization possibilities, flexibility, and a thriving community for support and growth. Proprietary systems, however more expensive, could provide specialized features, better integration, and devoted support.
Priya is a seasoned writer with expertise in the SaaS industry. With over five years of experience in the field, she deeply understands the requirement of this specific industry, its techniques, and tools. Her articles, whitepapers, and blog posts are known for their clarity, practicality, and actionable insights. Priya also possesses in-depth knowledge of SEO and content marketing, which enables her to develop effective strategies to increase website traffic and improve brand visibility.
