Monitoring is necessary for businesses to make sure that the required system is up and working. Monitoring various aspects of the IT infrastructure can be quite pesky and cause many difficulties if not done properly.
Regardless of the company’s size, one cannot ignore the need for Server, network, and infrastructure monitoring using the best monitoring tool. All modern cloud and on-premise infrastructure come with the best monitoring solutions.
Also, when it comes to DevOps, monitoring, and observability plays a key role in the team’s performance.
Following are the key areas when it comes to monitoring.
- Real-time Server Monitoring
- Network Performance monitoring
- Container Monitoring (Docker/Kubernetes/Mesos etc.)
- Cloud Infrastructure monitoring (Public & Private)
- Application monitoring.
What are the Best Opensource Monitoring Tools?
Professional or Business-grade tech solutions are generally regarded as costly, but that’s not necessarily always the case.
Following is the key list of key indicators for the best monitoring software.
- Provide indicators on outages and service degradation
- Detect service outages and unauthorized activities
- Scalable
- Able to handle and process huge amounts of monitoring data
- Collect system/application metrics in real-time
- Able to provide long-term insights for better capacity planning.
- Highly available
- Support all modern cloud and containerized applications.
- Support metric visualization tools
- Good traceability
- Have a good user-friendly interface.
Numerous absolutely free and open-source network monitoring tools can be considered while looking for monitoring solutions. Let’s take a look at the top-rated open-source monitoring tools and see what works for you!
1. Prometheus
Prometheus is an open-source monitoring solution primarily fixated on data gathering and analysis based on time-series data. It enables users to set up monitoring capabilities by utilizing the in-built toolset.
It is an ideal monitoring setup for containerized environments like kubernetes and the best open-source server monitoring tool.
It is able to assemble several metrics on servers, kubernetes, and various devices using SNMP pings and inspect network bandwidth usage from the device point of view, along with the other functions. The PromQL system analyzes data and permits the program to produce plots, tables, and other graphics on the systems it monitors.
The alert manager is another component of Prometheus. It handles alerting for all alerting rules configured in Prometheus.
Prometheus can collect system metrics, application metrics, and metrics from modern containerized applications. Also, it has very good integration with tools like Grafana for visualizing metrics. Grafana is one of the best open-source monitoring dashboards.
Tutorial: How To Install and Configure Prometheus
2. Zabbix
Zabbix is open-source monitoring software with an easy-to-use interface for users with a low learning curve that provides enterprise-class solutions to large organizations. It is a centralized system that stores the data in a relational DB for efficient processing.
Here is what Zabbix can do.
- Network Monitoring
- Server Monitoring
- Cloud Monitoring
- Application Monitoring
- Service Monitoring
3. Nagios
Nagios is an open-source monitoring tool that has been in the market since 1999. It provides numerous facilities like integration with third-party apps using an additional plugin. Considering the length of time that Nagios has been in the industry, there are plenty of plugins written for it. It can monitor a variety of components including Oss, applications, websites, middlewares, web servers, etc.
4. Riemann
Riemann is an ideal open source monitoring tool for distributed systems. It’s a low latency even processing system capable of collecting metrics from a variety of distributed systems. It is designed to handle millions of even per second with low latency. It is an apt monitoring tool for highly distributed scalable systems.
5. Sensu
Sensu is indorsed as a full-stack monitoring tool. By means of a single platform, you can monitor services, applications, servers, and reports on business KPIs. Its monitoring does not require a separate workflow. It supports all the popular Operating Systems like Windows, Linux, etc.
6. Icinga
Icinga is an open-source network monitoring tool that calculates the availability and performance of the network. Through a web interface, your business can observe applications and hosts around your complete network infrastructure. The tool is scalable and easily configurable to function with each type of device. There exist a few Icinga modules for very specific monitoring capabilities, like monitoring for VMWare’s vSphere cloud environment and business process modeling.
7. Cacti
Cacti is an open-source network monitoring tool built on RRD Tool’s data classification and plotting system. The tool utilizes data gathering functionality and network polling to collect information on various devices on networks of any scope. This comprises the capability to create custom scripts for data gathering along with the facility for SNMP polling. It then showcases this information in easy to comprehend plots which can be organized in whichever hierarchy as per your business’s convenience.
8. LibreNMS
LibreNMS is an open-source network monitoring system that utilizes multiple network protocols to observe every device on your network. The LibreNMS API can recover, manage, and plot the data it collects and facilitates horizontal scaling to grow its monitoring abilities along with your network. The tool presents a flexible alerting system that is custom-made to communicate to you by the method that suits best to your company. They offer their iOS and Android
9. Observium Community
Observium Community is the free counterpart of Observium’s network monitoring tool. In the free version of the Observium Community, you can monitor a limitless amount of devices along with taking complete advantage of Obersvium’s network mapping attributes. The Observium network monitoring tool features the programmed discovery of connected devices. It also comes well-appointed with discovery protocols to make sure that the map of your network is the latest. In this manner, you can keep track of new devices as they connect with the network.
10. Pandora FMS
Pandora FMS is an open source monitoring tool that aids businesses to observe their whole IT substructure. It not just features network monitoring capabilities but also Unix and Windows servers and virtual interfaces. For networks, Pandora FMS comprises top-notch features like SNMP support, ICMP polling, network latency monitoring, as well as system overload. Agents can also be installed on devices to observe aspects like device temperature and overheating, as well as for logfile happenings.
11. LogRhythm NetMon Freemium
LogRhythm NetMon Freemium is a free version of LogRhythm NetMon that offers similar business-grade module capturing and analysis abilities as the full version. Though there are restrictions or limits on data processing and module storage, the freemium version still permits the users to perform network risk detection and response functions built on data packet analysis. It also offers a similar network threat alerting system as the full version, letting you stay updated on your network’s performance and security.
12. Famatech Advanced IP Scanner
Famatech’s Advanced IP Scanner is free of cost network monitoring as well as a scanning tool that offers analysis on Local Area Networks and LAN devices. The advanced IP Scanner allows the scanning of devices on the network and remotely regulates the connected computers and other resources. It provides the ability to switch computers off from the tool if the device is not in use and is using resources. The tool connects with Famatech’s Radmin solution for distant IT management, so you can manage the IPs wherever you are.
13. AppNeta PathTest
AppNeta PathTest is a free network volume testing tool intended to aid businesses to comprehend the true ability of their network. PathTest seeks to advance layer three and layer four performance by exhibiting a precise depiction of your network’s maximum capabilities. It deliberately floods your network with data packets to fill the network to its full capacity. Users can set the duration of this test up to a maximum of 10 seconds and run the tests at any time.
Conclusion
Monitoring provides supervisors a crisp view of the services, applications, and devices running on their network and the ability to track the performance of these resources. This facilitates active management rather than responding to issues as and when they happen.
Open-source monitoring tools are utilized to monitor the status of the framework being used, so as to have the warnings of defects, failures, or issues and to improve them. There are monitoring tools for servers, network, cloud infrastructure, containers, databases, security, execution, site and web use, and applications.
Sometimes, it is wise to use default monitoring systems that come with the infrastructure providers. One example is the AWS cloudwatch. However, open-source monitoring tools provide a lot of functionality to monitor your infrastructure components with a lot of customization.
Opting for an appropriate open source monitoring solution for your business is not as easy as it seems.
IT professionals like the Network and DevOps Engineers need to consider multiple factors while searching for an open-source monitoring solution for their enterprises, such as compatibility, facility, effortlessness, and budget.
As a DevOps engineer myself, I can’t think of a project where we never used monitoring tools. So if you want to become a devops engineer, I would highly suggest you look at the open-source monitoring tools.
Also, if you’re looking for the best service discovery tools, read my reviews on the best open-source service discovery tools.
FAQs
Which of the following open source tools help enable continuous monitoring? ›
Nagios is one of the DevOps tools for continuous monitoring. It is a widely-used open-source tool. In a DevOps culture, Nagios can assist to monitor systems, applications, services, and business processes.
Which are the three basic tools for monitoring? ›There are three basic categories of monitoring; technical monitoring, functional monitoring and business process monitoring. These are shown in the diagram below. These three categories have a very clear hierarchy.
How many types of monitoring tools are there? ›What are the basic types of IT monitoring? The basic types of IT monitoring include availability monitoring, web performance monitoring, web application management and application performance management, API management, real user monitoring, security monitoring and business activity monitoring.
Which open source tool is used for monitoring network events? ›1. Zabbix. Zabbix is a powerful and popular open-source networking monitoring tool. It uses simple agents to collect SNMP and IPMP data to provide insights into different networks, applications, hosts, and cloud-based services.
What are the eight 8 famously used network management tools? ›- SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (FREE TRIAL) ...
- Paessler PRTG (FREE TRIAL) ...
- NetCrunch Monitoring Suite. ...
- ManageEngine OpManager. ...
- Zabbix. ...
- Nagios XI. ...
- Icinga. ...
- Spiceworks Network Monitor.
PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG Network Monitor is a monitoring tool that gives you extensive infrastructure monitoring capabilities for networks, servers, virtual machines, and applications. It offers both agent-based and agentless monitoring.
Since SigNoz is an open-source tool, it is completely free to use.
Which DevOps platform is used for monitoring? ›- Nagios. A pioneering DevOps monitoring tool, Nagios offers server, application, and network monitoring capabilities. ...
- Prometheus. Prometheus is also downloadable. ...
- Zabbix. A top Nagios alternative, Zabbix also monitors real-time network traffic, services, applications, clouds, and servers. ...
- Monit.
Developer mode allows developers all over the world contribute to the open-source Datadog Agent with an easy ...
What are the four forms of monitoring? ›Four basic types of monitoring can be readily distinguished by the nature of questions that the particular monitoring effort is designed to address—(1) surveillance monitoring, (2) implementation monitoring, (3) effectiveness monitoring, and (4) ecological effects monitoring (Table 1).
What are M & E tools? ›
Monitoring and evaluation (often called M&E ) is a combination of data collection and analysis (monitoring) and assessing to what extent a program or intervention has, or has not, met its objectives (evaluation).
What is cloud monitoring tool? ›Cloud Monitoring offers automatic out-of-the-box metric collection dashboards for Google Cloud services. It also supports monitoring of hybrid and multicloud environments.
What are the examples of monitoring? ›The Periodic tracking (for example, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually) of any activity's progress by systematically gathering and analyzing data and information is called Monitoring.
Which is better Nagios vs zabbix? ›Dashboard and User Interface
High-quality dashboard. The Nagios Core dashboard provides basic information such as the status of devices but it doesn't offer the same level of clarity and display quality as Zabbix. High-quality dashboard. Zabbix has the edge based on its production value.
ntopng comes in four versions, Community, Professional, Enterprise M, Enterprise L. The Community version is free to use and opensource (code can be found on Github). The Professional and Enterprise offer some extra features that are particularly useful for SMEs or larger organizations.
Is PRTG still free? ›Our fair and transparent pricing ensures that there are no hidden costs for you – you don't need to buy additional add-ons or plug-ins to monitor your entire IT infrastructure. Unlimited use of PRTG for 30 days. After 30 days PRTG reverts to the freeware edition. You can upgrade to a paid license at any time.
How can I monitor my network traffic for free? ›- Nagios Core. Nagios® is the great-grand-daddy of monitoring tools, with only ping being more ubiquitous in some circles. ...
- Cacti. ...
- Zabbix. ...
- ntop. ...
- Icinga. ...
- Spiceworks. ...
- Observium Community. ...
- Wireshark.
Using a router, open browser and enter router IP address > Enter > locate Device List > Status, or Bandwidth or Network Monitoring.
What are the tools needed for monitoring projects? ›- Network Diagrams. ...
- Critical Path Method or CPM. ...
- Gantt Chart. ...
- PERT Chart. ...
- Project Management Software for Calendar. ...
- Project Management Software for Timeline. ...
- Project Management Software for WBS Diagram or Work Breakdown Structure. ...
- Project Management Software for Mind Map.
Provides a user-friendly means of understanding the current status of the relevant policy. Provides a rationale for how future performance targets are set. It must be computerized. It must make the decision making at management level easy and efficient.
What are different project monitoring methods? ›
Project monitoring methods include project records, formal surveys, interviews, direct observation, focus group discussions and mapping. The project evaluation and review technique, or PERT, organizes, schedules and coordinates all events in a network chart.
What is PostHog? ›"PostHog is a game-changer; it's a full-featured product analytics suite you can self-host. There's no need to risk breaches by sending data to third parties or to waste time on lengthy compliance checks.
Is SigNoz open source? ›SigNoz is based natively on OpenTelemetry, a vendor neutral open source standard for instrumentation. No fear of instrumenting with vendor SDK and getting locked in.
How do I monitor my Golang app? ›You can then navigate to http://localhost:3301/application (needs signup) to see your Go app being monitored. Go to Metrics → goGinApp → you will be able to see the dashboard. You can monitor application metrics like application latency, requests per second, error percentage, etc. with the Metrics tab of SigNoz.
Which tool is used for continuous monitoring? ›Nagios is an open-source and one of the most popular tools for continuous monitoring. Nagios help to monitor systems, applications, service and business Process in a DevOps culture.
What is popular tool for DevOps? ›Some of the most popular DevOps automation tools include Puppet, Chef, Ansible, and SaltStack. Puppet is a configuration management tool that helps you manage your infrastructure as code.
Is splunk a DevOps monitoring tool? ›Splunk is a popular application monitoring tool to gain real-time visibility into DevOps-driven application delivery for Continuous Delivery or Continuous Integration to move from concept to production quickly.
Is there a free version of Datadog? ›Datadog, with its customizable dashboards, is free for up to 5 hosts (with 1-day data retention). After that, customers are billed at $15/host per month. There's also a 14-day free trial available. You can check the updated pricing of the Datadog infrastructure on the website.
Is splunk open source? ›No, Splunk is not an open source and there is a good amount of costing is associated with its usage. In this Is Splunk Open Source article, We will be discussing more about Splunk and why it is not an open source tool.
Is Datadog a Chinese company? ›New York City, New York, U.S.
Which is the best monitoring tool for servers? ›
- SolarWinds Server & Application Manager. ...
- Dynatrace. ...
- Datadog. ...
- New Relic. ...
- ManageEngine OpManager. ...
- AppDynamics. ...
- Sensu Go. ...
- Nagios XI. Nagios XI is a comprehensive software for monitoring enterprise servers and networks.
It is a Software-as-a-Service-based platform and it monitors servers, applications, and network performance. With the help of this tool, you can customize the alert so that you can respond only to the alerts which you want to respond. It also provides real-time reports on different metrics.
Is splunk a monitoring tool? ›Splunk is used for monitoring and searching through big data. It indexes and correlates information in a container that makes it searchable, and makes it possible to generate alerts, reports and visualizations.
What is database monitoring tool? ›What are database monitoring tools? Database monitoring tools are solutions designed to monitor your database management system. Database monitoring software uses a multi-pronged approach for performance optimization designed to help free time and resources for database admins.
What is an enterprise monitoring tool? ›Modern enterprise monitoring tools allow you to proactively track and optimize your entire IT stack's performance, from your backend infrastructure to your application traces and logs.
How do you build a monitoring system? ›- Establishing a monitoring system. Step 1: Define the intervention logic. ...
- Choose key performance indicators. Identifying indicators. ...
- Step 3: Select data collection tools. Which data collection tools? ...
- Step 4: Deploy the system to aggregate, analyse and report on results. Aggregating results.
Monitors every online and offline activity of Android devices. Track the whereabouts of the target device and provide detailed reports on location history.
Is OpenNMS free? ›OpenNMS is the world's first fully open source enterprise-grade network service monitoring platform, and hundreds of enterprises are using it every day without a bit of help from us. It's that easy to work with. And as true open source, it's 100% free.
What is Datadoghq? ›Datadog is a monitoring and analytics tool for information technology (IT) and DevOps teams that can be used to determine performance metrics as well as event monitoring for infrastructure and cloud services. The software can monitor services such as servers, databases and tools.
What can you monitor with Splunk? ›Splunk is a software platform widely used for monitoring, searching, analyzing and visualizing the machine-generated data in real time. It performs capturing, indexing, and correlating the real time data in a searchable container and produces graphs, alerts, dashboards and visualizations.
What is better than Splunk? ›
Sumo Logic is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) log management platform that received attention for marketing itself as a cloud-based competitor to Splunk. Sumo Logic automatically scales to your log volume as a hosted service, claiming to support multiple terabytes of ingested data per day.
Is Datadog better than Splunk? ›However, while Splunk wins hands down on breadth of management, Datadog comes out ahead on depth – at least across a limited feature set. Purely within APM and cloud services, Datadog offers better drill down and general management capabilities. Further, it is better at managing itself.
Is Splunk free to use? ›If you want to run Splunk Enterprise to practice searches, data ingestion, and other tasks without worrying about a license, Splunk Free is the tool for you. The Free license gives very limited access to Splunk Enterprise features. The Free license is for a standalone, single-instance use only installation.
How can I monitor database activity? ›Database activity monitoring is done by combining several techniques such as network sniffing, memory scraping and reading system tables and database audit logs. Regardless of the methods used, DAM tools enable data correlation so as to provide an accurate picture of all the activities in the database.
What is Foglight monitoring? ›Foglight is the broadest and deepest monitoring and optimization solution for the hybrid enterprise. It provides performance monitoring and deep diagnostic capabilities across servers, virtual machines, containers and cloud offerings.