15 Best IT Infrastructure Monitoring Tools (Free & Paid) in 2025

As your business grows, so will your infrastructure and the number of applications or services running in it. In other words, forget about any sort of manual monitoring or home-grown scripts or tools if you want to keep your sanity. Whether you need performance metrics, service health and availability status, infrastructure, or application logs, you need a tool that will give you end-to-end visibility into the health of your infrastructure.

Here, we’ve reviewed and compared some of the best infrastructure monitoring tools and software available today, both open-source and paid.

Why Do You Need an IT Infrastructure Monitoring Tool?

Monitoring your infrastructure enables the early detection of issues, allowing you to respond in time before issues escalate into major problems. 

For instance, identifying a server’s high CPU usage can prevent potential slowdowns or crashes of applications running on that server. Additionally, monitoring helps with optimizing resource utilization and thus, infrastructure costs. It’s similarly important for capacity planning.

Furthermore, consistent monitoring enhances security by detecting unusual activities that could indicate security breaches or vulnerabilities.

What to Consider When Selecting an IT Infrastructure Monitoring Tool

When choosing an IT infrastructure monitoring tool, several factors come into play. Here are some of the key factors to consider.

• Ease of use: So, things like how quickly you can move around the UI? How intuitive is it? How many clicks do you have to perform between getting an alert that something’s wrong and getting to the details of the problem?
• Ease of setup: So, how quickly can you install and configure any agents or anything else through the UI? Can this be automated? Are there out-of-the-box dashboards and alerts or will you have to create those yourself?
• Footprint and impact: So does anything you set up, such as agents, use additional resources like memory and CPU, and if so, how much? Does it slow down your applications or require you to allocate more memory and CPU?
• Cost: How is the solution priced? Per user? Per CPU? Per host? Per pod or container? And what are the rates? Are there annual discounts?
• Support: How are the support people? Do they respond quickly? Are they actually trying to help you or are they constantly trying to actually sell you something? Can you email and chat with them easily, or does that make it difficult?
• Solution quality: Does the solution monitor everything you need? Does it have the integration with the notification service your team uses for alerting? How configurable are the alerts? How about dashboards? Can you easily add and remove users? How easy is it to change plans and see your costs? And so on.

Best IT Infrastructure Monitoring Software

To help you get started, we’ll compare some of the best infrastructure monitoring tools and software available today, both open-source and paid.

Before we proceed, take a look at how these tools compare: 

Tool	Key Features	Pricing
Sematext	Full-stack monitoring, easy setup, 100+ integrations, anomaly & threshold alerts, lightweight agent	Starts at $2.8/month per host, 14-day trial
Elastic Cloud	Managed ELK stack, customizable dashboards, centralized logging, metric alerts, Kibana visualization	From $95/month; free open-source available
Prometheus	Kubernetes-friendly, multi-dimensional querying (PromQL), Grafana integration, standalone operation	Free, open-source
Zabbix	Network/server/cloud monitoring, customizable dashboards, extensive alerting, broad platform support	Free, open-source; paid support available
SolarWinds (SAM)	Deep app/server monitoring, capacity forecasting, extensive integrations, dependency mapping	Starts ~$45,000/year (200 nodes); 30-day trial
Datadog	Full-stack visibility, anomaly detection, 850+ integrations, log aggregation, hybrid environment support	From $18/month per host; free plan (limited)
New Relic	Comprehensive observability, APM integration, distributed tracing, proactive alerts, 700+ integrations	From $49/user/month; free plan (limited)
Dynatrace	AI-powered root-cause detection, single-agent setup, full-stack observability, automatic dependency mapping	~$28.8/month per host; 15-day trial
Splunk AppDynamics	Business-centric monitoring, correlation across infra & apps, automated remediation, intelligent workload opt.	From $7/vCPU/month; premium $36/vCPU/month
Nagios XI	Network/server/application monitoring, extensive customization, active community, automated remediation	From $2,495 (100 nodes); free open-source
ManageEngine OpManager	Real-time server/network monitoring, customizable dashboards, automated workflows, physical device support	From ~$95/year (10 devices); free plan limited
PRTG Network Monitor	Agentless monitoring, auto-discovery, configurable alerts, intuitive dashboards, unified platform	From $1,750/year (500 sensors); free trial
Site24x7	Cloud-based monitoring, AI insights, server/container monitoring, custom plugins, automated device discovery	From $9/month (basic); practical plans $35/mo.
SigNoz	OpenTelemetry support, unified logs/metrics/traces view, flame graphs, centralized logs, active community	From $199/month; free open-source
N-able N-Sight RMM	MSP-focused monitoring, remote management, pre-built automation scripts, proactive remediation	Pricing upon request; free trial

#1 Sematext Monitoring

Sematext Monitoring is a full-stack IT infrastructure monitoring software that gives you real-time visibility across your infrastructure. Whether on-premise, in the cloud, or a mix of anything in between, Sematext can monitor your whole stack. On the backend, so for your infrastructure, the core functionality consists of monitoring and alerting for your:

• Servers (bare metal or VMs)
• Kubernetes and containers
• Top processes by memory and CPU
• Inventory of servers and their distribution and kernel versions, container images, packages and their versions
• Events such as OOM Killed or package install/uninstall events, etc.
• Databases
• and a whole lot more. 

Sematext gives you visibility into containerized applications running in containers or orchestration platforms like Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, and Nomad. With it you will see valuable metrics from each bare metal server or VM, pod and container.

The setup is easy with auto-discovery of services and log sources. Once installed, the Sematext Agent observes your environments for services that can be onboarded automatically. 

Dashboards are completely customizable, letting you see exactly what you want if you want to alter what you get out of the box, which is a lot. 

You can choose between alerts based on anomaly detection or classic threshold-based alerts. There are also heartbeat alerts that will tell you if whatever you are monitoring goes down. The solution comes with a bunch of predefined alerts for the most popular technologies, and there are integrations with Slack, PagerDuty, and a number of other notification channels.

Pros

• Really affordable – see pricing below
• 100+ integrations for popular application stacks, such as Apache Cassandra, MySQL, Apache Spark, MongoDB, and more
• Quick onboarding because of all the out-of-the-box dashboards and alerts. Some dashboards even teach you about the metrics they show.
• A lightweight agent
• Ability to monitor both metrics and logs, as well as events, plus the ability to correlate them
• Collects server inventory and monitors for deviations, discrepancies, and obsolete packages
• Process monitoring, which tells you which processes/applications/services are the most CPU or memory-hungry

Cons

• No transaction tracing support (it’s WIP)
• No full-featured profiler

Pricing

• 14-day free trial without credit card available
• Paid plans start at $2.8 per month per host

#2 Elastic Cloud

Elastic Cloud is a managed service that delivers the full capabilities of the Elastic Stack—comprising Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana—without the operational overhead of managing the underlying infrastructure. 

Elasticsearch handles search and analytics, Logstash facilitates data ingestion and transformation from diverse sources, and Kibana provides intuitive visualizations through charts and graphs based on data analyzed by Elasticsearch. For infrastructure monitoring, Elastic Cloud leverages integrations such as Metricbeat, which collects and correlates metrics from a wide array of sources, including servers, Docker containers, Kubernetes, and more. 

These integrations automatically create index patterns in Kibana, simplifying the visualization of your infrastructure’s status. ​

Additionally, it supports the configuration of alerts based on index or metric thresholds. Notifications can be dispatched through various channels, including email, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and other third-party integrations, ensuring prompt awareness of potential issues. 

Pros

• Real-time customization, analysis, and visualization of data to deliver in-depth insights
• Centralized logging from various sources
• Customizable data visualizations. 
• Supports various programming languages
• View CPU/memory utilization and process-level statistics in the Kibana dashboard
• Analyzes telemetry data from distributed infrastructures in real time
• Libraries for multiple scripting and programming languages
• Additional security features like centralized ingest and agent management, malware prevention and host data collection, case management, and more
  

Cons

• Users reported the platform not being overwhelming due to the high number of integrations
• Steep learning curve

Pricing

• Paid plans start at $95 per month for Core Elastic Stack features, including security Discover, field statistics, Kibana Lens, Elastic Maps, and Canvas Alerting and in-stack action Index modes for metrics and logs

#3 Prometheus

Created by former Google employees, Prometheus is a popular open-source infrastructure monitoring tool, originally intended to monitor heavily containerized environments. It works on time-series-based data. 

The services it monitors should expose an HTTP metrics endpoint that Prometheus periodically polls. Various metrics and their current value should be accessible over this endpoint. In certain cases, you can’t change the containerized service to send the metrics required for Prometheus. 

When that happens, the Prometheus exporter can be bundled with the container service as a sidecar pod container to collect the metrics.

Prometheus uses a single node-based configuration and does not require distributed storage in the architecture. It also uses Prometheus Query Language (PromQL) for querying and aggregating monitoring data in real-time. The Alertmanager generates and sends out alerts based on configured alerting rules.

Pros

• Uses numeric time-series data, which is ideal for dynamic, service-oriented, and microservices-based architectures
• Standalone service with no dependency on an external network or storage
• Doesn’t need extensive infrastructure to operate
• Well-integrated for Kubernetes infrastructure monitoring
• Grafana integration for visualization
• Utilizes a multi-dimensional data model with key-label values
• Enables complex querying and data analysis
• Active community 
• Integration with multiple data sources and third-party tools

Cons

• No native long-term storage or automated scaling
• Needs integration with external dashboards, like Grafana, for visualization (involves additional configuration overhead)
• Complex and time-consuming to manage Prometheus instances; operational overhead if your staff is unfamiliar with the tool
• Need to manually configure and manage Prometheus exporters
• Manual setup required for graphs and alerts
• Some users reported that the UI could be improved

Pricing

• Free and open-source infrastructure monitoring tool

#4 Zabbix

Zabbix is a popular open-source infrastructure monitoring tool that offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities across networks, servers, cloud services, applications, and databases. 

It provides extensive visualization features, enabling insights into infrastructure health, and supports real-time notification and remediation to address issues promptly. 

Zabbix is compatible with multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Unix, and collects key metrics such as CPU, memory, and network usage. It offers out-of-the-box templates for automated component discovery and allows for the development of custom templates as needed. Alerts can be configured based on defined triggers and delivered through various channels like email, SMS, scripts, and webhooks.

Pros

• Lightweight agent with a small footprint centrally managed from the Zabbix server
• Broad support for all relevant infrastructure components
• Open source with strong community and commercial support
• Easy integration with external applications via Zabbix API
• Single-pane visibility into infrastructure through configurable dashboards, graphs, and reports

Cons

• Complex initial deployment and configuration setup
• Requires a database server setup to store configurations
• Can consume substantial system resources in large environments
• Lacks some capabilities found in commercial tools
• Documentation sometimes lacks detail and clarity
• UI/UX needs improvements for better usability
• Difficult procedures for backing up and migrating between versions

Pricing 

• Free open-source tool. Zabbix also offers different tiers of technical support based on your use case.

#5 SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM)

​SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor (SAM) is a comprehensive tool designed to provide in-depth monitoring of IT infrastructures, encompassing both on-premises and cloud environments. 

With out-of-the-box support for over 1,200 applications and systems, as well as numerous community-contributed templates, SAM facilitates seamless integration and extensive monitoring capabilities. 

It supports various monitoring protocols, including WMI, SNMP, PowerShell, and REST API, allowing for versatile data collection across diverse infrastructure components.

Pros

• Server monitoring and cross-stack monitoring data correlation
• Analytics tools for understanding monitoring metrics (e.g., insights into anomalies)
• Capacity charts and forecasts that aid with long-term capacity planning
• Monitors overall server and application performance, uptime, and hardware issues
• Monitors performance metrics, such as CPU, memory, and uptime for Docker containers
• Visualization of data in easy-to-use dashboards
• End-to-end monitoring support with correlated metrics
• Automatic service discovery and application dependency mapping

Cons

• Steep pricing for SMBs
• Overlapping capabilities with other SolarWinds tools
• No anomaly detection for alerts
• No support for identity federation with LDAP
• Generic and limited reporting filters in the dashboard
• Doesn’t provide end-to-end visibility
• Some users reported configuration difficulties
• Some users reported challenges with scalability and performance in complex setups, making instance management intricate.
• Some users reported that the UI needs improvement

Pricing

• 30-day free trial available
• Paid plans are not publicly available (talk with sales required), but a reseller license starts at a hefty price of +$45,000/year for 200 nodes + 1st-year maintenance

#6 Datadog

​Datadog Infrastructure Monitoring is a comprehensive solution that provides real-time visibility into the health and performance of your infrastructure components, both on-premises and in the cloud. With support for over 850 integrations, including popular technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, and Apache Kafka, Datadog enables seamless monitoring across diverse environments.

Pros

• Covers all relevant infrastructure monitoring parameters (metrics, logs, security, etc.)
• Customizable integrations with Datadog API
• Unified monitoring experience through its open-source agent for cloud and on-premises
• Visualization of connected infrastructure components through host map feature
• Customizable dashboards for displaying key insights about your infrastructure health
• Support for log aggregation and analytics
• Support for anomaly detection and alerts
• Support for custom metrics
• Over 850 native integrations
• Support for hybrid environments
• Full-stack observability platform

Cons

• Expensive. User reports that “Once you got onto Datadog (a closed platform), they will leverage switching cost to squeeze you”
• Complex to use; can be overwhelming for new users
• Limited log analytics due to lack of support for JSON log processing
• No overage protection
• Some users reported difficult-to-understand documentation
• Doesn’t have many pre-built dashboards

Pricing

• 14-day free trial available for all solutions
• Free plan available for 1-day retention, up to 5 hosts
• Paid plans start at $18 per month per host for 15 months retention

Want to see how Sematext stacks up? Check out our page on Sematext vs Datadog. Additionally, you should familiarize yourself with all the alternatives to Datadog and how they compare to it. 

#7 New Relic

New Relic is a comprehensive observability platform that offers full-stack monitoring, providing visibility into the performance of your infrastructure components, both on-premises and in the cloud. 

It consolidates data from logs, infrastructure, applications, and serverless functions into a single interface, facilitating real-time health monitoring of key host metrics such as CPU, memory, disk usage, and network status. 

New Relic’s Insights feature allows for easy tracking and querying of infrastructure monitoring data, with dashboards that are automatically generated upon new infrastructure integrations, expediting the process of gaining actionable insights.

Pros

• Ability to debug service-side performance issues from the tool interface
• Consistency for infrastructure monitoring across hybrid platforms
• End-to-end visibility through distributed tracing
• Support for correlated metrics
• Proactive anomaly detection and alerts
• 700+ integrations available
• Robust APM capabilities
• Comprehensive, customizable dashboards
• Easy-to-use interface
• SOC2 compliant with US and EU data centers

Cons

• Complex pricing for the platform – per user, per computing, etc. Major PITA to figure out how much things will end up costing you in the end. See below for just a taste of that.
• Complex UI that seems to be the result of several product acquisitions/merges, so steep learning curve
• Steep learning curve
• Feature complexity may overwhelm small businesses

Pricing

• Free plan available
• Paid plans start at $49/user for Core and $10/first user + $99/additional user for Full platform users

Want to see how Sematext stacks up? Check out our page on Sematext vs New Relic.

#8 Dynatrace

Dynatrace is a comprehensive monitoring platform that provides visibility into your infrastructure across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. 

It monitors various components, including virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, servers, Kubernetes clusters, and host machines. Data collection is streamlined through the deployment of a single agent per host, known as OneAgent, which can monitor servers, applications, services, databases, and more. For infrastructure-focused monitoring, the agent can be configured in infrastructure-monitoring mode. 

Dynatrace offers flexible deployment options: you can deploy the stack within your hybrid cloud or utilize their hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering. The platform enables monitoring of CPU, memory, storage, network interface card (NIC) metrics, host processes, network health, and virtualization platforms like VMware. 

Pros

• On-premises & cloud versions available
• All-in-one platform with support for infrastructure, application performance, business analytics, and cloud automation
• AI-powered anomaly detection and alerts
• The platform’s AI engine, Davis, automatically identifies the root causes of performance issues
• Provides configurable dashboards for quick and focused visualization
• Custom monitoring extensions utilizing OneAgent SDK 
• Automatically discovers and maps dependencies 
• Easy agent management
• Support for virtualized environments
• Full-stack observability platform

Cons

• Very steep pricing for SMBs
• Complex to use, with additional training required
• Lagging documentation for the latest features released
• Some users reported “very cumbersome” Dynatrace query language

Pricing

• 15-day free trial is available
• Paid plans start at $0.04 per hour for any host size. Using quick math, that means you’ll be paying 0.04 * 24 * 30 per host per month, equaling $28.8 per host per month.

To put it into perspective, Sematext Infrastructure monitoring starts at $2.8 per month per host on a starter plan. Check out a detailed comparison of Sematext vs Dynatrace. We also have a comprehensive comparison between all Dynatrace alternatives.

#9 Splunk AppDynamics

AppDynamics provides a comprehensive infrastructure monitoring solution that covers server, storage, and network components in both cloud-native and hybrid environments. 

You can deploy it on-premises or consume it as a SaaS service. With AppDynamics, you can avoid downtime by tagging user experience and business outcomes (the tool’s real focus) to events collected from your infrastructure.

This tool’s full-stack monitoring capabilities help correlate application performance issues with low-level infrastructure bottlenecks, thereby accelerating root-cause analysis and remediation. 

The server monitoring feature gives you an enhanced logical view of the server landscape, from the data center hierarchy to racks and CPU to memory, network, and server disk usage. Storage monitoring supports NetApp storage solutions and can help tie down performance bottlenecks to database and storage anomalies.

Pros

• Intelligent workload optimizer to finetune performance proactively
• Coverage and correlation of all infrastructure component metrics for visibility
• Detailed server monitoring dashboards and metrics
• Health rules and policies for anomaly detection and auto-remediation
• Out-of-the-box integration with incident management and alerting systems like ServiceNow, PagerDuty, and Jira
• Correlation of application performance metrics with server and network performance metrics
• Anomaly detection and alerts
• Business-first observability platform with capacity-planning recommendations

Cons

• Expensive and very much aimed at very large enterprises.
• No free trial available
• No automation for agent installation and configuration
• Complex configuration and a lot of effort required to separate information from noise
• Steep learning curve for advanced features
• Inadequate tutorials and documentation
• Users reported even higher costs for large businesses
• Functionality is overkill for small to medium-sized businesses

Pricing

• Paid plans start at $7 per vCPU per month for the Infrastructure Monitoring Edition. But if you need more than just infra, like Database monitoring for example, you’ll have to proceed with the Premium edition with a hefty price of $36 per vCPU per month. Some discounts apply with annual payments.

Want to see how Sematext stacks up? Check out our page on Sematext vs AppDynamics.

#10 Nagios XI

Nagios XI is a comprehensive enterprise server and network monitoring solution built upon the open-source Nagios Core. It offers enhanced functionality and reduces administration time compared to its predecessor. 

Nagios XI focuses on monitoring server metrics, application performance, and network traffic, collecting data through agents deployed on network elements and monitored components. 

Additionally, it can connect to network switches and other devices via the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and communicate with Windows-based products using the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) protocol. Nagios XI requires initial setup post-installation. 

Once agents are deployed, data populates its standard dashboards. The solution’s high customizability and scalability make it suitable for many enterprises, though this flexibility introduces additional complexity and maintenance overhead.

Pros

• Support for network-related components like routers, switches, and other physical hardware
• Highly customizable; supports custom metrics
• Active user community
• One of the most mature monitoring solutions on the market with a user-friendly GNU GPL license.
• Alerts with escalation capabilities inform 
• Scripting API allows you to monitor virtually anything
• Nagios XI includes capacity planning for your Ubuntu machines, powerful data visualization, configuration wizard, and infrastructure management.
• Extensible architecture through plugins
• Automated remediation capabilities through event handlers

Cons 

• Limited set of default dashboards
• Users reported a complex initial setup with a steep learning curve
• Maintenance and operational overhead
• Users reported high licensing cost 

Pricing

• Free, open-source version (Nagios Core) available with limited features
• Free trial available for all Nagios products
• Paid plans start at $2,495 for a 100-node license for the standard edition. Enterprise edition is an additional $1,995. An unlimited node license is available for $23,995

#11 ManageEngine OpManager

ManageEngine OpManager is a trusted infrastructure monitoring software that supports real-time monitoring of networks, physical and virtual servers, storage devices, and more. 

With customizable dashboards featuring over 200 performance widgets, the platform provides a comprehensive view of overall network performance, as well as performance monitoring of hosts and virtual machines within your infrastructure. 

OpManager enables proactive server monitoring using multiple thresholds, allowing performance checks at various levels. It can also discover all services running on Windows and Linux servers and automatically map availability and response-time monitors to them.

Pros

• Monitors traffic metrics, such as packet loss
• Intelligent analytics for infrastructure performance trends
• End-to-end network monitoring
• Monitoring for physical devices, e.g., routers and switches
• Monitors and troubleshoots VoIP performance
• Customizable dashboards and graphs
• Automated workflows for fault resolution
• Security and event log monitoring

Cons

• No cloud-based SaaS version available
• Application performance monitoring and network correlation are not available
• Operational overhead due to managing continuous patch updates
• Users reported issues with third-party integrations
• Some users reported a limited auto-discovery feature

Pricing

• Free version available
• Paid plans are determined by each customer’s needs. Some sources suggest a starting price of $95/year for 10 devices that scale with the number of devices.

#12 PRTG Network Monitor

PRTG Network Monitor is a comprehensive infrastructure monitoring tool designed to oversee networks, servers, virtual machines, and applications. It supports both agent-based and agentless monitoring, utilizing technologies like WMI, SNMP, SSH, and NetFlow for data collection. 

The platform offers customizable dashboards with over 200 performance widgets, providing a unified view of network performance, including alerts, outages, and warnings. Additionally, PRTG features business process sensors to monitor IT components involved in specific business processes and includes infrastructure capacity monitoring to identify bottlenecks, aiding in long-term planning.

Pros

• No need for modifying or installing anything (i.e., agentless)
• Auto-discovery detects all devices and services in your Linux-based systems
• Configurable and flexible alerts using built-in notifications via e-mail or customized on top of PRTG APIs
• Monitors network, server, and application performance from a single platform
• Intuitive and customizable dashboard for various technical levels
• Fast setup with efficient data collection and real-time monitoring
• Supports local or hosted versions

Cons

• On-premises version for Windows only
• Exponential licensing based on the number of sensors
• Users reported scalability issues beyond 10K sensors

Pricing 

• 30-day free trial
• Paid plans start at $1,750 per year per server license for about 500 sensors, or you can purchase perpetual licensing via a one-time payment.

#13 Site24x7 Infrastructure Monitoring

​Site24x7 is a cloud-based monitoring solution designed to oversee various infrastructure components, including servers, networks, containers, and virtualization platforms. It requires installing an agent on each server, whether they are on-premises or in the cloud. This agent collects critical metrics from both Windows and Linux servers, such as CPU, memory, disk usage, services, and process health, and presents them in a unified console. 

The collected data is displayed on dashboards that provide insights into network information, application activity, and server metrics, offering real-time visibility into infrastructure health. Site24x7 also supports monitoring the performance of Docker hosts and Kubernetes clusters. Beyond its default monitoring capabilities, users can create custom plugins using languages like Shell, PowerShell, Batch, VB, and Python to tailor the monitoring experience to specific needs.

Pros

• AI-powered performance infrastructure monitoring capabilities
• 60+ performance metrics for servers
• Self-hosted outside the subscriber’s data center
• Supports tracking changes on the server’s ports, directories, and syslogs
• Automated discovery, mapping, and monitoring of network devices
• Intuitive dashboard accessible via mobile and desktop
• Uptime monitoring available
• Customizable alerts & flexible notification configurations based on specific thresholds
• Monitors applications, logs, virtual systems, and network devices
• 100+ plugin integrations for applications like MySQL and Apache

Cons

• Complex manual setup; lack of automation
• Difficult to add custom plugins
• Users reported difficulties with report customization
• Users reported the tool as being non-intuitive and difficult to use

Pricing

• “Forever free plan” available
• Paid plans start at $9/month, but to get a somewhat comprehensive feature set, the $35/month plan is required

Want to see how Sematext stacks up? Check out our page on Sematext vs Site24x7

#14 SigNoz

SigNoz is an open-source observability platform designed to provide developers and operations teams with comprehensive insights into application performance. By natively supporting OpenTelemetry, SigNoz enables the collection and correlation of metrics, logs, and traces within a unified interface, facilitating efficient monitoring and troubleshooting of modern distributed systems.

Pros

• Consolidates metrics, logs, and traces into a single-pane view
• It is compatible with a wide range of programming languages and frameworks
• Provides OOTB charts and visualizations for key metrics such as p99 latency, error rates, request rates
• Track user requests across services using flame graphs and Gantt charts 
• Centralized log management with Clickhouse as a data source 
• Active community
• SOC2, HIPAA, and BAA compliant

Cons

• As a relatively new entrant into the observability space, it may lack some advanced features and integrations 
• No dedicated support 
• Steep learning curve

Pricing

• 30-day free trial available
• Paid plans start at $199/month for unlimited users + usage-based pricing

#15 N-able N-Sight RMM

N-able N-Sight RMM delivers the capabilities that managed service providers need to gain visibility into the diverse IT environments of the clients they manage: remote monitoring, management, patching, automation, and more. It can be easily scaled to monitor thousands of infrastructure components and helps with proactive identification and remediation of issues with self-healing capabilities.

N-able RMM uses the N-central probe technology to enroll and add devices to be monitored. It provides a quick view of every customer’s environment with technology mapping, which is beneficial to managed service providers supporting multiple customers. This tool has more than 100 prewritten automated tasks, as well as templates to create new tasks that help fast-track monitoring and remediation activities. 

Pros 

• Easy onboarding for new customers
• Detailed data collection from various resources
• 650 pre-written scripts and customizable templates
• Offers both hosted and on-prem solutions 
• Supports API integration

Cons

• Outdated, non-intuitive UI
• Tailored for MSPs with limited features
• Some users reported difficulties integrating with security providers
• Some users reported being lied to by account reps
• Users reported sudden check failures 

Pricing

• Free trial available
• Paid plans are not publicly available (talk with sales required), which usually indicates a hefty price

What Is the Best IT Monitoring Tool for You?

Your infrastructure monitoring tool must provide a bird’s-eye view of your IT environment’s health status, including performance metrics for servers, Kubernetes, and any containers, for your infrastructure and application logs, various events, and of course it should provide robust alerting that integrates with your team’s preferred tool for alerts and, very importantly, it must not generate false positives.. Some solutions are specialized for specific aspects of this (e.g., performance metrics), while others provide full-spectrum monitoring with options for customization. Our recommendation is to go for the latter because sooner or later, you will realize you want – and need – more comprehensive monitoring, and migration from one solution to another is not trivial and quick and thus not cheap either, even if it might be a winin the  long term.

In any case, when choosing IT monitoring software, the complexity of setup is one of the deciding factors. Some tools come with out-of-the-box integration with your infrastructure components, while others require more effort to configure. Again, our recommendation is to limit your selection only to the former. Your time is precious.

You may be tempted to develop your own monitoring tools to avoid vendor lock-in and get more flexibility. However, in the long run, this will add to the complexity of maintaining your code base and will require additional effort each time you want to add new features. When it comes to build vs. buy, it’s always best to consider the relevant monitoring metrics and then buy an established monitoring tool to avoid additional complexities.

If you want to see what such a tool can do for you, check out Sematext Monitoring, our infrastructure monitoring tool that provides full-stack visibility for your IT environment. There’s a 14-day free trial available for you to try all its functionalities. No need to talk to anyone at Sematext if you don’t want to, and any costs will be displayed in the UI.

You might also be interested in:

• Best System Monitoring Software
• Best Cloud Monitoring Tools
• Top Server Monitoring Services
• Best Linux Monitoring Software

 

Author Bio

Ehab Qadah

Ehab has extensive experience in software engineering and technical leadership roles for over ten years. His main interests involve large-scale back-end development, microservices architecture, cloud infrastructures/DevOps, distributed systems, data engineering, technical writing, and people management. Ehab holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Bonn, Germany and he is currently leading the R&D team at Alma Health (UAE-based healthcare startup).