PRTG Network Monitor is a powerful solution that monitors your entire infrastructure, including systems, devices, traffic and applications.

This product from Paessler AG can monitor and classify systems based on different parameters such as bandwidth usage, up-time and more.

Here’s our list of the top PRTG Alternatives:

1. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor – FREE TRIAL this on-premises package uses SNMP to discover all network devices and then track their statuses and activities. Runs on Windows Server. Start 30-day free trial.
2. Atera – FREE TRIAL A SaaS platform of tools for managed service providers that includes a remote monitoring system for networks, servers, and applications. Access 30-day free trial.
3. ManageEngine OpManager – FREE TRIAL A package of network and server monitors that automatically discovers all assets connected to a network, draws up a network inventory and map, and then performs live monitoring. Available for Windows Server and Linux. Start 30-day free trial.
4. Nagios XI A package of network, server, and application monitors that can be expanded to track the performance of specific technologies through the addition of free plus-ins. Runs on Linux and Docker.
5. WhatsUp Gold An SNMP-based network performance monitor that can be extended by paid add-ons for server, traffic, and application monitoring. Runs on Windows Server.
6. Zabbix A free monitoring service for networks, servers, and applications that provides SNMP-based live monitoring plus capacity forecasting. Available for Linux, macOS, and Unix.

PRTG presents an easy-to-understand hierarchical view of a network, generates an exhaustive set of reports and even gives plenty of alerts, so you can always stay on top of what is going on in your system.

Though PRTG comes with many interesting features, there are some downsides to it as well. Firstly, it is quite expensive.

The exact price depends to a large extent on the number of sensors you use. The first 100 sensors are free, and it costs

• $1600 for 500 sensors
• $2850 for 1000 sensors
• $5,950 for 2500 sensors
• $10,500 for 5000 sensors
• $14,500 for unlimited sensors in one core installation
• $60,000 for unlimited sensors in five core installations.

The above pricing clearly shows that PRTG is expensive and hence, is not ideal for all organizations.

Methodology for selecting the Best PRTG Alternatives for Network Monitoring

Many organizations look for PRTG Alternatives for Network Monitoring for it is quite expensive, may not scale well for larger networks, and is also complex to configure. It does provide real-time monitoring of network devices and other benefits, yet most users prefer PRTG Alternatives. To make it easier for you to choose the best one, we have listed a few methodologies that you must consider before finalizing the software.

• Make sure that your selected product can keep track of networks, servers, as well as applications
• Check if the network autodiscovery feature is available
• Make sure to check if your selected product offers an automated network topology mapper
• Check if your tool is compatible with different operating systems.
• Does it offer free add-ons to extend the functionality of the original software?
• Can you track the health performance and run network traffic analysis with the selected product?
• Does it send instant alerts related to performance and resource availability?
• Does it send a notification by email or SMS on detecting an issue?
• Check if your selected tool provides a money-back guarantee or free trials. 

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The Best PRTG Alternatives

Besides cost, there are also a few other things that can be a spot of bother. Adding and removing sensors or moving devices from one group to another can be quite a hassle. Also, it provides only limited support for Windows 10. If any of these downsides are likely to impact you, it makes sense to look for alternatives to PRTG.

Let’s take a detailed look into the features of each of these products to help you make the right choice, along with some screenshots and download links to get you started right away if you wish to move on.

1. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor – FREE TRIAL

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor – also known as NPM – is a popular alternate to PRTG. This is an advanced monitoring network that reduces outages and improves overall performance.

Features: Important features of SolarWinds NPM are:

• Quickly detects, diagnoses and resolves performance issues
• Gives a hop-by-hop analysis of critical paths.
• Allows you to drag and drop metrics on a common timeline for visual correlation of all your data.
• Offers a customizable topology and intelligent alerts that take into account various dependencies.
• Automatically discovers and maps devices, metrics, link utilization and more.
• Provides insight into the health and performance of any F5 service delivery environment.
• Calculates exhaustion dates using customizable thresholds. This can help with capacity planning, forecasting and budgeting.
• Retrieves performance metrics for autonomous access points, clients and wireless controllers.
• Comes with out-of-the-box alerts and reports, that are advanced and highly relevant to the performance of your infrastructure.
• Installs and deploys within just an hour.
• Offers a web-based network performance dashboards, views and charts.
• Uses Packet Capture and Analysis feature to determine the quality of end-user experience.
• Dynamically calculates baseline thresholds from historical network performance data.
• Monitors, alerts and reports key network monitoring metrics such as temperature and power supply.

System requirements:
The system requirements of SolarWinds NPM are:

• CPU : Dual processor, 3.0 GHz
• Memory: 3GB
• Hard drive: 20GB free disk space
• Operating system: Windows server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows server 2012 and Windows server 2012 R2.
• Database: All versions of SQL Server 2008, 2008 SP1, 2008 SP2, 2008 SP3, 2008 SP4, SQL Server 2008 R2, 2008 R2 SP1, 2008 R2 SP3, SQL Server 2012, 2012 SP1, 2012 SP2, 2012 SP3, SQL Server 2014, 2014 SP1 and SQL Server 2016.
• .NET framework: version 4.5 is required.

Pricing: 30 Day FREE Fully Functional Trial, Download Below to Get Started!

Download: Full Functional Download Here: https://www.solarwinds.com/network-performance-monitor/registration

2. Atera – FREE TRIAL

Atera is a package of tools for managed service providers that includes automated remote monitoring for networks, servers, and applications. 

This system has a multi-tenant architecture, which keeps the data of MSP clients separate. 

Features:

• SNMP-based network device performance monitoring
• Server hardware monitoring
• Application activity monitoring
• Operating system patching for Windows and macOS
• Automated maintenance tasks implemented on schedules
• Software installer and updater
• A ticketing system for task tracking and team management
• A technician dashboard with task management utilities
• Remote desktop tools – Splashtop and AnyDesk
• Chat windows for communication between technicians and users
• Professional services automation (PSA) tools for MSP business management
• Alerts for device status issues
• Performance thresholds that spot evolving problems
• Cloud-based service that can be accessed by work-from-home technicians
• Per technician pricing suitable for independent support consultants and MSPs of all sizes

System requirements: This cloud-based system can be accessed through any standard Web browser.

Pricing: There are three plans for Atera that are charged for on a subscription per technician and with monthly or yearly payment plans. The price for each plan per month when paid annually is:

• Pro – $99 
• Growth – $129 
• Power – $169 

Download: Get a 30-day free trial here: https://www.atera.com/signup/

3. ManageEngine OpManager – FREE TRIAL

ManageEngine OpManager is a powerful and user-friendly monitoring software that can monitor different elements in your infrastructure such as routers, switches, firewalls, servers, virtual machines and more.

Features: Salient features of ManageEngine OpManager are:

• Visualizes and resolves WAN or router problems.
• Monitors routers, interfaces, bandwidth and WAN links for both availability and performance.
• Proactively monitors VoIP call quality across the entire WAN infrastructure. it even troubleshoots poor performance of any VoIP call.
• Automatically maps L1 and L2 networks to identify network outages and performance problems.
• Leverages Cisco IP SLA technology to monitor WAN link availability and latency.
• Monitors physical and virtual servers across different operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Unix, VMware, BSD and more.
• Uses more than 70 VMware performance monitors to agentlessly monitor VMware virtualized servers.
• Uses WMI credentials to monitor the performance of hyper-v hosts and guests.
• Monitors Citrix Hypervisor and provides the necessary details about its performance
• Uses SNMP/CLI/WMI to manage processes running on discovered devices and to gather pertinent data.
• Performs first and second level troubleshooting tasks
• Supports more than 300 SNMP traps per second.
• Monitors critical security logs across all Windows servers and workstations.
• Provides insights into capacity performance and configuration of RAID controller devices.
• Automatically discovers fabric switches in a SAN environment.
• Creates an exact replica of your data center in 3D format.
• Tracks your network bandwidth usage in real-time.
• Scales up to 10K devices and ensures high availability of these devices
• Allows you to extend the scope of OpManager by installing add-ons.

Editions: There are two editions available for OpManager, and they are:

• Essential for small and medium enterprises
• Enterprise for large and distributed networks

Pricing: Essential edition starts at $715 for 25 devices while Enterprise starts at $19,795 for 500 devices. Start with a 30-day free trial to figure out your network requirements.

Download: You can download OpManager below FREE: https://www.manageengine.com/network-monitoring/download.html

4. Nagios XI

Nagios XI is a comprehensive enterprise server and network monitoring software. It is an integral component of Nagios’ powerful suite of applications.

Features: Here is a look at what Nagios XI can offer for your organization.

• Monitors all the critical components of IT infrastructure including applications, services, operating systems, network protocols, devices and more.
• Offers a web interface that gives access to a powerful dashboard. You can monitor and control every aspect of your infrastructure monitoring through this dashboard.
• Uses a powerful monitoring engine called Nagios Core 4.
• Comes with configuration wizards that make it easy for users to do many operations such as adding new devices. This reduces a lot of time and effort for users.
• Capacity planning makes it easy to identify existing issues and come with the right infrastructure mix for optimal performance.
• Its advanced graphs give a quick insight into the performance and availability of different devices in the network.
• Delivers multi-tenant capabilities. It means this software can accommodate multiple users and provides the capability to manage these different users.
• Gives the option to extend its capability through APIs and add-ons.
• Provides network-specific and customizable alerts

Editions: There are two editions in Nagios XI, namely, Standard and Enterprise.

Standard edition comes with the following features:

• Easy Configuration Wizards
• GUI Configuration
• Advanced Reporting
• Enhanced Visualizations
• Custom User Dashboards
• Custom User Views
• Executive Summary Report
• Custom Actions
• Dashboard Deployment
• Notification Escalations

Enterprise edition has all that is available in the standard edition, and to top it, this edition has the following features.

• Scheduled Reports
• Capacity Planning Reports
• Web-Based Server Console Access
• Bulk-Modification Tools
• Audit Logging
• Notification Deployment
• SLA Reports
• Scheduled Pages
• Automated Host Decommissioning

Pricing: Standard edition starts from $1,995 while enterprise edition starts from $3,495.

Download: You can download a fully functional 60-day free trial from https://www.nagios.com/downloads/nagios-xi/

5. Progress WhatsUp Gold

WhatsUp Gold is a network monitoring software from Progress that can cover the end-to-end of your infrastructure, right from the network edge to cloud.

Features: The features of WhatsUp Gold include,

• Provides complete visibility into the status of network devices, systems and applications.
• Leverages topology-aware monitoring to understand network dependencies, so you receive only the most relevant alerts.
• Sends notifications through SMS, web, email or Slack, depending on your preferences.
• Automatically discovers and maps all the devices on your entire network.
• Gives you the option to create dashboards that provide the most relevant information needed to troubleshoot problems.
• Makes it easy to add credentials such as SNMP, ADO, Windows domain administrator, VMware, JMX and SMIS.
• Comes with active monitors that poll devices for an up or down response.
• Provides advanced reports that gives you information in a well-arranged format. Also offers flexible scheduling and email distribution.
• Allows any report to be exported into multiple formats.

Editions: There are three editions of this product, namely, Premium annual subscription, Premium license and Total Plus license.

Features	Premium Annual Subscription	Premium License	Total Plus License
Network Device & Server Monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic Discovery	Yes	Yes	Yes
Interactive Map	Yes	Yes	Yes
Availability & Performance Monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes
Alerts and Notifications	Yes	Yes	Yes
Customizable Dashboards & Reporting	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wireless Network Monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cloud & Storage Monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes
Network Traffic Analysis	Add-On	Add-On	Yes
Application Monitoring	Add-On	Add-On	Yes
Virtualization Monitoring	Add-On	Add-On	Yes
Configuration Management	Add-On	Add-On	Yes
Scalability Pollers	Add-On	Add-On	Yes
Failover	N/A	Add-On	Add-On
Support	Included in Subscription	1st Year Included	1st Year Included
Licensing	Device-based	Device-based	Point-based

Pricing: Contact the sales team at https://www.whatsupgold.com/quote

Download: You can download a free trial from https://www.whatsupgold.com/trial

6. Zabbix

Zabbix is an enterprise class monitoring solution that can pretty much monitor anything, regardless of the infrastructure, services, applications or devices.

Features: Key features of Zabbix are:

• Collects metrics from any device, system or application
• Detects problem states within the incoming information, so there is no need for a separate analysis.
• Offers highly flexible definition options
• Predicts trends, detects anomaly and gives root cause analysis.
• Native web interface gives a visual overview of the entire network.
• Provides many reports, widgets, slideshows and network maps to give you a precise idea of the state of your network
• You have the choice to allow Zabbix to fix all issues automatically.
• Escalates problems based on user preferences
• Customizes messages based on recipient’s role.
• There is a strong encryption among all Zabbix components
• Code is open for security audits
• Installs within minutes
• Build custom templates based on your preferences
• Allows you to monitor thousands of devices through configuration templates
• Periodically scans devices and discovers them automatically.
• Monitors devices even behind firewalls and DMZs
• Remotely runs custom scripts on monitored hosts
• Can be easily integrated with third party software

Pricing: Zabbix is 100% free.

Download: You can download Zabbix from https://www.zabbix.com/download

Conclusion

To conclude, PRTG is a great tool for Monitoring networks and your Infrastructure, as well as keeping your critical systems monitored and online. If your looking to move to a different platform for your IT Monitoring Solution, then we suggest one of the aforementioned software packages – they are all Great Replacements to PRTG and will more or less, complete the same tasks!

We hope these alternatives will help you make the right decision for your organization.

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