List of Network and System Performance Monitoring Tools and Software

Network and System monitoring is very important task for every System and Network Administrator. The purpose of performance monitoring is to foresee the things for business continuity. Network and System Performance Monitoring tool notifies Administrator via alarms and alerts in time for slow and failing systems. It not also saves the time and cost but reduce the frequency of problems occurred on daily basis. Monitoring is proactive approach to optimize your network performance and availability and tracking the trends. Administrators diagnose the reported issues in system and stayed informed. All monitoring tools are collect data via SNMP and ICMP. Freeware and Open Source are free and Administrators at small organizations can install for their help but sometimes these are tricky to install and configure. However big organizations purchase commercial software to continue their business. Here is the list of these monitoring tools and software;

1.      PTRG (Paessler Router Traffic Grapher)

Trial version will give you unlimited sensors and only 100 sensors forever after trial period. PRTG for windows server installations. You can install it and use it via "remote console". It can track bandwidth usage and availability of devices at network. It also checks availability of websites.

2.      Zabbix

It is Linux based, highly customizable, scalable, free and really great tool even customizable with your own scripts. It is used for heterogenous environment. You can configure it to monitor services, windows and Linux servers, and other resources as well. I think Zabbix is the best solution and easier to setup, documentation available online.

3.      Open NMS

OpenNMS is an open source Network management platform that uses SNMP for monitoring. It generates email-based alerts for events like disk usage is too high or in case Server or Network device is down.

4.      Nagios

Nagios is free and open source application for monitoring Systems, Networks and Infrastructure. With a lot of free plugins plus nagiosgraph. You can monitor anything you like, use your own scripts with NSClient++.

5.      Spiceworks

Spiceworks isn't opensource but free and it is agentless. Spiceworks works more for inventorying but it has some limitations.

6.      Cacti

Cacti is any open-source, web-based network monitoring and graphing tool written in PHP/MySQL with front end application, industry standard data logging tool RRtool (Round Robin Database tool) engine to store data and generate graphs. It collects periodical data through SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).

7.      CactiEZ

It is a compact distro loaded with extra features such as Syslog and Netflow data collection. Wheathermaps, reports, auto discovery and much more. It is configurations is very easy and tool is totally free.

8.      Pandora FMS

It is monitoring software for IT Infrastructure management including Network Equipment, Windows, Linux Servers and virtual infrastructure. It has large number of features which covers all the monitoring issues.

9.      SCOM (System Center Operations Manager)

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) is a cross platform data center monitoring system for operating systems and hypervisors. Using single interface, it shows state, health and performance of computer systems. It works with MS Windows Servers and Unix based hosts.

10.  Solarwinds

solarwinds is a suit of different monitoring tools few of them are freeware while rest are commercial versions which you need to purchase. Over all it’s a good product.

11.  Check_Mk

It is monitoring system with comprehensive open source solution for monitoring of operating systems, hardware, networks and processing centers.

12.  Centreon

Another very good tool helps IT teams to be more reactive and proactive. It simplifies communication between IT and business.

13.  Opsview

It is a software for physical, virtual and cloud-based IT Infrastructure. Opsview offers a free version which is limited to 25 monitored hosts. It is built with Nagios core, Perl, Catalyst, ExtJS, MySQL, Net-SNMP and RRDtool.

14.  Naemon

Naemon is an open source computer System, Network, Infrastructure and Software Applications monitoring. It alerts Administrators before the things go wrong.

15.  OSSIM

AlienVault offers you complete network security monitoring for your cloud, on-premises and hybrid environment.  

16.  EventSentry

EventSentry is an easy to use flexible and affordable a real time log, system and network monitoring. It monitors log files as well as availability of all system components.

17.  LibreNMS

It is a great tool, it does a lot and is very customization. It has an iso image you can deploy and be up and running in a short amount of time. Librenms can monitor Servers, and network equipment around 500 endpoints on it. Standard ping, uptime.

18.  The Dude

The dude network monitor is an application by MikroTik for windows-based computers. It functions as a visual network monitor which enables users to manage network structure.

19.  Grafana

It's extremely easy to set up, configure and add new servers. It gives a history of what has been going on using beautiful graphs. You can see a graph of CPU/memory/hard drive/network usage, hard drive free space, number of handles each running application has, and view it over any time period I choose.

20.  Lansweeper

It is an excellent tool for a small network. It's free for up to 100 nodes. It is agentless IT assets management and network inventory software tool for Windows OS.

21.  My Ping App

My Ping App is great for managing and health checking servers.

22.  MRTG

MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher) is a tool that monitors traffic on a network connection mainly using SNMP. Many of its users have now discovered PRTG network monitor an innovative and user-friendly network and bandwidth monitoring tool.

23.  Observium

Observium is a PHP/MySQL driven network observation and monitoring application, that supports a wide range of operating systems/hardware platforms including windows Linux, cisco and many more.

24.  IP Switch

Powerful software for Network Monitoring across Cloud, Virtual and On-premises environments.

25.  Zenoss

Zenoss provides software and tools for effective monitoring of physical infrastructures to successfully manage Networks, Servers and Storage.

26.  OP5

An enterprise level open source monitoring solution which allows Administrators to complete monitoring of their IT Infrastructure.

27.  Whatsup Gold

Whatsup Gold Network Monitoring software lets you monitor entire Networked Infrastructure as well as applications, configurations and Network traffic.