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Nagios vs Zabbix

Learn how Nagios and Zabbix differ in their key features, development activity, technology stack and community adoption, so you can decide which of these infrastructure monitoring tools is best for you.

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Favicon of Nagios

Nagios

Free open source IT monitoring solution for servers, networks, and applications. Trusted by 1M+ users worldwide with powerful alerting and enterprise-grade features.
2,040stars+8(+0.4%)

Last 30 days

Screenshot of Nagios
Favicon of Zabbix

Zabbix

Monitors networks, servers, cloud services, IoT, and OT environments with no per-device licensing fees, available self-hosted or as a managed SaaS platform.
6,306stars+59(+0.9%)

Last 30 days

Screenshot of Zabbix

Detailed Comparison

Zabbix appears to have several advantages over Nagios, particularly in popularity and growth. Consider your specific needs regarding popularity, growth, activity, maturity, licensing and features when making your decision.

Zabbix wins
Community & Popularity

Zabbix significantly outpaces Nagios in community adoption with 6,306 stars compared to 2,040 stars on GitHub. This 3.1x difference suggests Zabbix has a much larger and more active community. In terms of developer contributions, Zabbix has 1,254 forks, indicating strong developer engagement.

Zabbix wins
Growth Momentum

Zabbix is growing faster, adding 59 stars in the last 30 days (+0.9%) against adding 8 stars for Nagios (+0.4%). Zabbix is both larger and pulling further ahead.

Comparable
Development Activity

Both projects show recent activity, with Nagios last updated 18 days ago and Zabbix 13 hours ago.

Comparable
Project Maturity

Both projects started around the same time, with Nagios beginning 13 years ago and Zabbix 12 years ago.

Comparable
Licensing

The projects use different licenses: Nagios is licensed under GPL-2.0 while Zabbix uses AGPL-3.0. Consider the licensing requirements when choosing for your project.

Comparable
Use Cases & Features

Both tools serve similar use cases in Infrastructure Monitoring.

Comparable
Hosting & Deployment

Both Nagios and Zabbix offer self-hosting capabilities, giving you full control over your data and infrastructure.