Businesses today function in an IT environment that is much more complex than ever before, as they turn to cloud-based technologies, hybrid networks, remote employees and connected devices to maintain business processes. A simple network problem may result in downtime, security risks, decreased productivity and expensive interruptions. That’s where organizations are prioritizing choosing the best network monitoring tools and software.
Network monitoring solutions offer real-time visibility into network performance, device health, bandwidth utilization and potential security threats. They help IT teams detect problems before they impact users, troubleshoot issues faster, and maintain optimal network performance. For any business network, whether it’s small or large, the right monitoring platform can make a significant impact on reliability and operational efficiency.
We’ll take a look at the top network monitoring tools and software on the market today, compare the main features, discuss pros and cons, and explain how to select the right option for your business needs, budget and IT infrastructure.
Why Modern Network Monitoring Goes Beyond Up/Down Status
Let’s make no mistake, up front. The days of simply monitoring whether a device is online or offline are long gone. Modern network monitoring tools and software need to do so much more. They need to provide infrastructure metrics, traffic analytics, cloud telemetry, path visibility, synthetic testing, and AI-assisted investigation. NetOps teams must be agile from symptom to explanation these days. If an application is slow, you need to know right away if it’s a data center issue or a cloud provider problem or a problem with the ISP or a misconfigured firewall.
With the transition to cloud-based services and hybrid architectures, there is a growing demand for innovative monitoring capabilities. Nowadays organizations deploy workloads at on premise data centers, public cloud and edge locations. You need to have a single view of all of these environments in your monitoring solution. It also needs to adopt new concepts such as streaming telemetry for real-time visibility, AI correlation of events across the network and automated remediation workflows.
Keeping these points in mind, let’s take a look at the best options.
The Best Commercial Network Monitoring Tools
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
SolarWinds NPM has always been the benchmark to track network performance, and it makes sense why. This tool is very good at classic on-premise monitoring, adding deep SNMP integration and extensive multi-vendor device support. It can classify more than 1200 applications according to risk, to help you identify if your end-user quality of experience is being impacted by the entire network or just one application.
The one thing that makes SolarWinds so special is that it is customizable. Customizable dashboards can be defined for different teams and provide a “snapshot” of network health. The platform is capable of discovery and mapping the dynamic network automatically, making it easy to discover and visualize network devices. However, one has to take note that setup may be rather cumbersome, but potential buyers should be aware of that. It’s on the road now, however, and you’ll enjoy unmatched see-thrus of your network.
SolarWinds NPM is ideal for large enterprises that have multi-vendor networks. It is a substantial investment due to its enterprise level options.
Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG is worth considering if you’re seeking a single solution that is easy to use. A German-designed tool which operates on a “pay as you go” basis based on a sensor-based licensing program. PRTG is preconfigured with over 250 sensors to monitor your entire IT infrastructure, such as packet sniffing, flow monitoring and traffic monitoring using SNMP.
PRTG’s user-friendliness is consistently highlighted by users. The user interface is simple, the set up process is fast and the auto discovery tool can get you monitoring individual devices immediately. Tailor made dashboards allow you to keep an eye on major metrics. A free version of PRTG can be used at 100 sensors, providing a great way for small to medium-sized businesses to start using a network monitoring tool. The paid version supports thousands of sensors per installation, and has distributed remote monitoring capabilities from multiple locations.
SMBs and expanding businesses are a perfect fit for PRTG, as they require extensive monitoring but don’t need to be overwhelmed by complexity.
Datadog
Datadog has become a leader in the field of cloud-native observability. Where traditional tools are mostly concerned with on-premise infrastructure, Datadog was designed for the cloud age. It offers network monitoring along with application performance monitoring, log management, and security features in a single observability platform.
Datadog is a compelling value proposition for cloud-native teams. You have a fantastic view of what’s happening in your network and between the components. One of the highest features among the platform’s users is its traffic monitoring feature. Datadog seamlessly integrates into AWS, Azure, and GCP, offering comprehensive visibility into cloud network performance.
It charges a subscription fee, which is approximately $15/month for each host. This may add up in large deployments, but the benefit is there is a single platform, rather than using a bunch of disjointed tools. Datadog is ideal for organizations that are already deep into the cloud and seek to have a single pane of glass for all their observability needs.
LogicMonitor
LogicMonitor is one of the leading SaaS-based hybrid infrastructure monitoring solutions. In fact, TechRadar has rated LogicMonitor as their Top Network Monitoring Tool, particularly those that are willing to invest more for reliability and consistency.
The automation that LogicMonitor delivers is its unique feature based on AI. Infrastructure is automatically discovered, identified and monitored, both on premise and in the cloud. This will remove the need for the tedious manual configuration that most other tools have as a drawback. LogicMonitor’s deep integrations and automated topology mapping are extremely beneficial in complex environments.
Learning curve is steep, especially for custom statistics. This isn’t a tool for companies with budget constraints, as premium pricing means this is not an affordable option. For enterprises that require best-in-class monitoring, however, LogicMonitor is a terrific value.
ManageEngine OpManager
ManageEngine OpManager provides a robust and comprehensive infrastructure monitoring tool at an affordable cost, compared to some of its competitors. OpManager offers full visibility into network performance, device status and bandwidth usage, starting from just $245 for 25 devices.
OpManager is praised by users for its usability and reliability. It provides a centralized view of device and server health, making daily checks and incident response quicker. The tool can be used for monitoring in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Large enterprises that require a powerful monitoring solution without a high cost will find OpManager to be an ideal solution.
Progress WhatsUp Gold
In various reviews, WhatsUp Gold is crowned the best overall network monitoring tool. It maps the visual network topology and allows for monitoring of servers, virtual machines and cloud environments. The modular pricing scheme begins at $1,169 annually for 50 devices, making it available to any organizations.
What is included with WhatsUp Gold is a robust set of features, including Log Management, Traffic Analysis, Wireless Network Monitoring and Flowmon Network Performance Diagnostics. The user reviews are mostly positive, with some users pointing out the limitations of the web interface. The tool offers a blend of features and usability for mid-market organisations.
The Best Open-Source Network Monitoring Tools
Zabbix
Zabbix is the one and only king of open source network monitoring. This open source solution is enterprise capable, supporting thousands of network devices, monitoring bandwidth consumption, analyzing network traffic, and managing complex infrastructures. Zabbix is available for Linux, IBM AIX, FreeBSD and Windows platforms.
The key factor of the power of Zabbix is its flexibility. It allows for Hyper-V and VMware virtualization monitoring, machine learning based anomaly prediction and even auto remediation. Agents, SNMP, IPMI and other protocols are used to gather data, giving you full visibility of your infrastructure.
The trade-off? Many skills are required to setup up and maintain the Zabbix system. It is not plug and play. But, for an organization with an IT team that is more skilled and has a limited budget, Zabbix is a great value.
Nagios
Nagios is a popular choice for growing companies, as it was the first to be based on the check approach. Nagios Core is free, light, and has a simple user interface and text file configurations. The true magic of Nagios is the vast number of plugins available that comes from the community and are developed by thousands of people.
Nagios XI is the commercial version which offers wizards which are easier to use, prettied up dashboards, and reports out of the box. It starts at $2,495 for 100 nodes. Nagios is best suited for organizations that wish to have the flexibility of open-source, but also have a need to upgrade to commercial support as necessary.
Cacti
Cacti is the one to go to for minimalist network monitoring, especially when it comes to bandwidth usage. This is an open source tool that is excellent for visualization of performance data as a time-series graph. Cacti is resource-savvy and delivers nicely formatted, customizable graphs of bandwidth usage.
It is 100% free and is available for all Windows, Mac, Linux and Unix platforms. Cacti is perfect for small businesses or particular use cases where graphical representation of network performance is the only requirement. It does not provide the same sort of advanced alerting and automation capabilities as Zabbix or Nagios, but if you need simple monitoring, it will do the job.
Wireshark
Wireshark is not a traditional network monitoring tool, as it does not offer on-going dashboards or alerts. Instead, it’s a network protocol analyzer—also known as the Swiss Army knife of packet inspection tools. Wireshark is a tool that captures real-time network packets and offers detailed insight into network traffic.
Wireshark is extremely useful for troubleshooting complicated network problems. During analysis it can have a low latency of 0.57ms with minimal packet loss of 0.2%. Wireshark is really a tool to help you complement a more comprehensive monitoring solution, especially for in-depth investigations.
Open-Source vs. Commercial: Making the Right Choice
One of the most frequent choices that IT administrators face is that of open source vs commercial network monitoring solutions. Open-source options, such as Zabbix, Nagios and Cacti, do not require a license fee, and give you complete control over your monitoring setup. They are very powerful and flexible, but need technical skills to deploy, configure and maintain.
Commercial options such as SolarWinds, PRTG, and Datadog offer more enterprise-class stability, user-friendly interfaces, and quicker benefits realization. For larger deployments, however, costs of $20,000 per year can be exceeded.
Here is a new approach: It’s not always an either-or proposition. Many organizations take a “hybrid” approach. They leverage open source tools for basic infrastructure monitoring and add commercial tools in cases of specialty monitoring within the scope of a cloud observability or digital experience monitoring solution. The important thing to keep in mind is to match the selection to the ability of your team and your organization’s risk management profile.
Key Features to Look For
When evaluating network monitoring tools and software, keep these critical features in mind:
- Real-time visibility: You need to see what is happening on your network right now, not five minutes ago.
- Automated discovery: The tool should automatically find and map devices on your network.
- Alerting and notifications: Customizable alerts ensure you know about issues before they impact users.
- Traffic analysis: Understanding bandwidth usage patterns helps with capacity planning.
- Multi-vendor support: Your network likely includes devices from multiple vendors—your monitoring tool must support them all.
- Cloud and hybrid support: If you run workloads in the cloud, your monitoring must extend there too.
- Scalability: The tool should grow with your organization.
- Integration capabilities: It should play nicely with your existing IT toolchain.
The Future of Network Monitoring
The world of network monitoring is changing quickly. AI and machine learning are increasingly playing a role, improving predictive analysis and providing proactive management solutions. AI correlation of network events enables teams to pinpoint root causes quickly.
One of the key trends is the transition towards continuous real-time monitoring and automated alerts. Periodic reports are no longer an option as organizations can no longer afford to wait for them to discover problems. They must be instantly visible and automatically remediated.
The emergence of streaming telemetry is also revolutionizing the space, giving real-time insight that polling cannot offer. When added to zero trust and compliance monitoring, which can be enabled by telemetry, these developments are enhancing the security and reliability of networks.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the right network monitoring tools and software is vital to ensure a secure, reliable and high performing IT infrastructure. The best solution would be one that offers a full view of the network, predictive alerts, performance metrics and analytics, and integrates with current systems while being simple to manage as your organization expands.
There isn’t a single networking solution that will fit all businesses. For smaller businesses, affordability and simplicity could be more important than advanced automation, scalability, and extensive monitoring features, which would likely be more critical in the case of larger enterprises. Thoroughly analyzing your deployment requirements, infrastructure, monitoring targets, and budget will help you determine which platform is most cost-effective and valuable.
With the proper network monitoring software, companies can significantly minimize downtime, enhance network performance, fortify network security, and set up a more positive experience for both staff and clients. The ongoing growth of networks means that businesses will continue to need a robust monitoring solution to help them maintain their operations and future business expansion.
