Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups
Register | Login

Nagios VS Wireshark

Compare Nagios VS Wireshark and see what are their differences

Netumo
Ensure healthy website performance, uptime, and free from vulnerabilities. Automatic checks for SSL Certificates, domains and monitor issues with your websites all from one console and get instant notifications on any issues. featured
Contents:
  1. » Base Details
  2. » Videos
  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

Nagios logo Nagios

Complete monitoring and alerting for servers, switches, applications, and services

Wireshark logo Wireshark

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows. It lets you capture and interactively browse the traffic running on a computer network.
  • Nagios Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21
  • Wireshark Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-11

Nagios features and specs

  • Extensive Community Support
    Nagios has a large and active user community, which means you can easily find help and resources online. There are numerous plugins and add-ons developed by the community that can extend the functionality of Nagios.
  • Highly Customizable
    Nagios is highly customizable and flexible. It allows you to tailor monitoring to suit your specific needs, including creating custom plugins, modifying configuration files, and integrating with other tools.
  • Comprehensive Monitoring
    Nagios provides detailed monitoring of network services, host resources, and infrastructure systems. This includes the ability to monitor CPU load, disk usage, memory, and more.
  • Alerting and Notification
    Nagios has robust alerting and notification features that ensure you can stay informed of any issues or downtime. Alerts can be sent via email, SMS, or other communication channels.
  • Scalable
    Nagios is scalable and can grow with your organization. It supports a large number of hosts and services, making it suitable for both small and large enterprises.

Possible disadvantages of Nagios

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Nagios can be quite complex to set up and configure, especially for newcomers. The learning curve is steep, requiring time and effort to fully understand and utilize its capabilities.
  • Manual Configuration
    A significant amount of configuration is manual, particularly in the open-source version. This can be time-consuming and prone to human error, especially in larger environments.
  • Interface
    The user interface of Nagios is often considered outdated and less intuitive compared to other modern monitoring tools. The web interface can be difficult to navigate and is not as visually appealing.
  • Performance Issues
    Nagios can experience performance issues, particularly when monitoring a large number of hosts and services. It can become resource-intensive, requiring careful optimization and tuning.
  • Cost of Enterprise Version
    The enterprise version of Nagios, Nagios XI, comes with a significant cost. While it offers additional features, support, and a more user-friendly interface, it might not be affordable for all organizations.

Wireshark features and specs

  • Comprehensive Protocol Support
    Wireshark supports a vast number of protocols out of the box, allowing for detailed inspection and analysis of network traffic.
  • Free and Open-Source
    Wireshark is free to use and its source code is openly available, enabling customization and community-driven improvements.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Wireshark runs on various operating systems including Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it accessible to a wide audience.
  • Rich Feature Set
    It offers features like live capture, offline analysis, deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, and powerful display filters for granular traffic analysis.
  • Strong Community Support
    A large and active community provides extensive documentation, tutorials, and support forums, making it easier for users to troubleshoot and learn.

Possible disadvantages of Wireshark

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive feature set and technical nature, Wireshark can be challenging for beginners to master.
  • Resource Intensive
    Live traffic capture and analysis can consume considerable system resources, which may affect performance, especially on less powerful machines.
  • Security Risks
    Running packet capture tools like Wireshark on production systems carries inherent security risks, as it could potentially expose sensitive data.
  • Interface Complexity
    The user interface, while powerful, can be overwhelming and non-intuitive for new users, making navigation and finding specific features difficult.
  • Limited Support for Encrypted Traffic
    Wireshark has limited capabilities when it comes to analyzing encrypted traffic, as decryption support requires additional setup and access to encryption keys.

Analysis of Nagios

Overall verdict

  • Nagios is generally considered a good tool, especially for users who require a highly customizable and adaptable monitoring solution. It is reliable and well-established in the IT industry.

Why this product is good

  • Nagios is considered a robust monitoring tool due to its flexibility, comprehensive network and application monitoring capabilities, and wide adoption in the industry. It allows system administrators to monitor critical infrastructure components, such as network protocols, applications, services, servers, and network infrastructure. Its active community and plugin ecosystem provide extensive customization options.

Recommended for

  • Organizations with complex IT environments needing comprehensive monitoring
  • System administrators who require flexibility and customization
  • Users who are comfortable with manual configurations and open-source solutions
  • Companies seeking a large community and a wealth of plugins for various use cases

Analysis of Wireshark

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Wireshark is considered an excellent tool for network analysis. Its open-source nature, regular updates, and strong community support further enhance its reputation as a reliable and robust tool.

Why this product is good

  • Wireshark is widely regarded as a leading network protocol analyzer due to its comprehensive features, user-friendly interface, and extensive protocol support. It allows users to capture and examine data packets in real-time, making it invaluable for diagnosing network issues, performing security audits, and educational purposes.

Recommended for

  • Network administrators looking to troubleshoot connectivity issues.
  • Security professionals conducting penetration tests and analyzing network traffic for vulnerabilities.
  • Students and educators who need a practical tool to learn about network protocols and behaviors.
  • IT professionals managing complex networks who require detailed traffic analysis.

Nagios videos

+ Add

Stop using Nagios - Andy Sykes

More videos:

  • Review - Bernd Erk - Why favour Icinga over Nagios
  • Review - How Nagios XI Works

Wireshark videos

+ Add

Wireshark Tutorial for Beginners

More videos:

  • Review - Monitor Network Traffic with Wireshark - Review
  • Review - Wireshark 101: CloudShark Review - HakTip 144

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Nagios and Wireshark)

Nagios

Wireshark

Monitoring Tools
57 57%
Monitoring Tools
43% 43
Log Management
50 50%
Log Management
50% 50
Performance Monitoring
66 66%
Performance Monitoring
34% 34
Website Monitoring
100 100%
Website Monitoring
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Nagios and Wireshark. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Nagios and Wireshark

Nagios Reviews

11 Best Nagios Alternatives (Free & Open Source) in 2024
Nagios is an open source network monitoring solution. It helps organizations to identify and resolve IT infrastructure issues. However, Nagios could be difficult integrate into automatic provisioning processes. There are few other issues with Nagios as well. Here, is a curated list of top tools that can replace Nagios. This list consists of paid as well as open-source...
Source: www.guru99.com
The Best Nagios Alternatives for Server, Application and Network Monitoring
Nagios is a very strong system monitoring package but its ability to compete in both the free and paid system monitoring market is frequently challenged. The free tool is very comprehensive. However, the Nagios team has taken away the traffic analysis functions from this, moving them off into a separate paid tool, which puts Nagios Core at a disadvantage when compared to...
Source: www.websentra.com
The 10 Best Nagios Alternatives in 2024 (Paid and Open-source)
It’s also important to note that Nagios is completely open-source, which means that it’s free to use. However, “free to use” doesn’t mean that it won’t cost you anything. Often, the reason users look for alternatives to tools like Nagios is because of their open-source nature. Self-hosting a tool of this magnitude can be even more expensive than purchasing a SaaS subscription.
Source: betterstack.com
The Best Cacti Monitoring Alternatives
Nagios is free for small environments with seven or fewer nodes and hosts. Its paid version starts at $1995 for the license and is priced per user. There is also a variety of free training options for Nagios available online. Both of Nagios’ paid versions include a free trial.
Source: www.webservertalk.com
10 Best Linux Monitoring Tools and Software to Improve Server Performance [2022 Comparison]
Nagios Core is an open-source Linux/Unix systems monitoring and alerting tool that can be extended through custom plugins, providing flexible Linux server monitoring. It remotely executes different plugins (executables or scripts) on your Linux server using the NRPE (Nagios Remote Plugin Executor) add-on, which gives you comprehensive monitoring data, including OS metrics,...
Source: sematext.com

Wireshark Reviews

9 Best Angry IP Scanner Alternatives Reviewed 2021 (Free & Paid)
The beauty in Wireshark is that your network scans can be as broad or as granular as you make them. With a few clicks, you can begin capturing a snapshot of all packet traffic across your local area network. It can be overwhelming at first to see every single packet across a network, but Wireshark makes isolating specific events simple with its color coding and filtering...
Source: www.comparitech.com
10 Best WireShark Alternatives for Android Devices in 2021
If you are well enough into network communication, you must know about WireShark. WireShark is the most popular network analyzer for PC. You can use WireShark to see anything on your network that’s not encrypted. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an Android app, however, you can still track, monitor, or capture network packets on your Android devices using our best list of...
Source: techreen.com
11 Best Wireshark Alternatives in 2020
Wireshark is a widely used network monitoring and WiFi troubleshooting tool. However, with Wireshark tool is that you can only gather information from the network but cannot send this information.
Source: www.guru99.com
5 Best Wireshark alternative packet sniffers
Wireshark & Alternative tools FAQs ⭐Can Wireshark do deep packet inspection or do I need something else?⭐Is Wireshark a vulnerability scanner?⭐Is Wireshark good at port scanning?⭐Which tool is a command line alternative to Wireshark?
Source: www.comparitech.com
Comparing Charles Proxy, Fiddler, Wireshark, and Requestly
Although thousands of developers around the globe use Wireshark and Charles Proxy, they fail to occupy the top side in the design aspect. Wireshark’s interface is robust and detailed but can be intimidating for beginners. While Charles Proxy has a more approachable interface compared to Wireshark, it might seem cluttered to some users. Fiddler’s UI is information-rich and...
Source: dev.to

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Wireshark seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 11 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Nagios mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Nagios yet. Tracking of Nagios recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Wireshark mentions (11)

  • Wifi problematic, wired connections seem okay. Help?
    Https://wireshark.org, opening that, go to edit preferences and enable "IP network" in the name resolution area, to show website names instead of only IP addresses. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Eeros in bridge mode with wired home
    To prove this, download wireshark Https://wireshark.org/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Lose internet when downloading large files
    Give that a try and I'll re-recommend for a second time, to run and watch Wireshark: Https://wireshark.org. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Performance scores for Google Lighthouse/Insights seem to be very inaccurate
    Https://www.gap.com/ returned a performance score of 10/100, with a time to interactive score of 36.1 seconds! Https://www.patreon.com/ returned a score of 18 Https://wireshark.org/ returned a score of 28, with "unused javascript" taking 14.9 seconds to load. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Is there a way to programatically turn off Downtime on a child device?
    I tried using Wireshark to figure out which URL is being called but my knowledge here is VERY limited and I couldn’t figure it out. Source: about 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Nagios and Wireshark, you can also consider the following products

Zabbix - Track, record, alert and visualize performance and availability of IT resources

Datadog - See metrics from all of your apps, tools & services in one place with Datadog's cloud monitoring as a service solution. Try it for free.

NewRelic - New Relic is a Software Analytics company that makes sense of billions of metrics across millions of apps. We help the people who build modern software understand the stories their data is trying to tell them.

SolarWinds NPM - Advanced network monitoring for on-premises, hybrid, and cloud. Download a FREE 30-day trial of SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) today!

Prometheus - An open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit.

Microsoft System Center - Microsoft System Center provides solutions to simplify the deployment, configuration, management, and monitoring of the infrastructure.

Loading...