The editors at Solutions Review have developed this resource to assist buyers in search of the best network detection and response solutions to fit the needs of their organization. Choosing the right vendor and tool can be a complicated process — one that requires in-depth research and often comes down to more than just the tool and its technical capabilities. To make your search a little easier, we’ve profiled the best free and open-source network monitoring tools and providers all in one place. We’ve also included platform and product line names and introductory software tutorials straight from the source so you can see each solution in action. Note:Companies are listed in alphabetical order.Solutions Review’s listing of the best free and open-source network monitoring tools is an annual sneak peek of the solution providers included in our Buyer’s Guideand Solutions Directory. Information was gathered via online materials and reports, conversations with vendor representatives, andexaminationsof productdemonstrationsand free trials.
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The Best Free and Open Source Network Monitoring Tools
Tool: Cacti
Related Products: Spine
Description: Cacti is an open source network monitoring tool based on RRDTool’s data logging and graphing system. The tool uses network polling and data collection functionality to gather information on devices on networks of any size. This includes the ability to design custom scripts for data collection alongside support for SNMP polling. It then displays this information in easy-to-understand graphs which can be arranged in whatever hierarchy your business is most comfortable with.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Checkmk Raw Edition
Related Products: Checkmk Enterprise Free Edition, Checkmk Enterprise Standard Edition
Description: Checkmk Raw Edition is an open source infrastructure and application monitoring tool that also includes network monitoring capabilities. For network monitoring, Checkmk can discover and monitor switches and routers, wireless networks, and firewalls; the software supports integration with several network hardware vendors. The solution uses a rule-based concept for configuring network and device monitoring, allowing your company to configure an entire network to monitor for specific metrics.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: EventSentry Light
Related Products: Admin Assistant, EventSentry SysAdmin Tools
Description: EventSentry Light is a free version of EventSentry’s SIEM, server monitoring, and network monitoring tool suite. The Light version still features the same event log monitoring capabilities as the full version, so your enterprise can collect and interpret data from logs on devices connected to your network. EventSentry Light also handles system health monitoring functions, including service monitoring, performance issue monitoring, and hardware failure monitoring.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Icinga
Related Products: Icinga Module for vSphere, Icinga for Windows, Icingabeat
Description: Icinga is an open source network monitoring tool that measures network availability and performance. Through a web interface, your enterprise can observe hosts and applications across your entire network infrastructure. The tool is natively scalable and can easily be configured to work with every kind of device. There are also a handful of Icinga modules for specific monitoring capabilities, such as monitoring for VMWare’s vSphere cloud environment and business process modelling.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: LibreNMS
Description: LibreNMS is an open source network monitoring system that uses several network protocols to observe every device on your network. The LibreNMS API can retrieve, manage, and graph the data it collects and supports horizontal scaling to grow its monitoring capabilities alongside your network. The tool features a flexible alerting system that is tailor-made to communicate with you via the method that works best for your company. They offer native iOS and Android apps as well.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: LogRhythm NetMon Freemium
Related Products: NextGen SIEM Platform, NetworkXDR, LogRhythm Cloud
Description: LogRhythm NetMon Freemium is a free version of LogRhythm NetMon that provides the same enterprise-grade packet capturing and analysis capabilities as the full version. While there are limits on packet storage and data processing, it still allows users to perform network threat detection and response functions based on data packet analysis. It also provides the same network threat alerting system as the full version, allowing you to stay up to date on your network’s performance and security.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Nagios Core
Related Products: Nagios XI, Nagios Log Server, Nagios Fusion
Description: Nagios Core is an open source network monitoring tool designed as the basis for other monitoring and alerting software offered by Nagios. The solution is primarily a performance check tool that schedules and executes checks for network performance across the entire infrastructure. As the event processor for performance checks used by other Nagios software, Nagios Core is also able to extend its capabilities with independent add-ons that can be downloaded via the Naigos Exchange.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: NetXMS
Description: NetXMS is an open source infrastructure and network monitoring and management solution. The tool features flexible event processing, reporting, and visual graphing for all layers of the IT infrastructure. For network monitoring, NetXMS offers automatic Layer 2 and 3 discovery and full SMNPv3 support. The vendor’s network monitoring solution also includes both active and passive discovery, combining both scanning probes and information collection capabilities together.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: ntopng
Related Products: nProbe, PF_RING
Description: ntopng is an open source network traffic analysis tool that also features network monitoring capabilities. The tool is a network traffic probe that sorts network traffic into different criteria, including IP addresses and throughput. By characterizing network traffic, your enterprise can easily determine different network statistics that are affecting your network. While ntopng’s Community version is released as open source, Professional and Enterprise versions are also available.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Observium Community
Related Products: Observium Professional
Description: Observium Community is the free version of Observium’s network monitoring solution. With the free version, users can monitor an unlimited number of devices while also taking full advantage of Observium’s network mapping features. The Observium network monitoring platform features automatic discovery of connected devices, ensuring that the map of your network is up to date. This way, users can account for any new devices as they connect to the network.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Opmantek NMIS
Related Products: NMIS Professional, Virtual Appliance Package
Description: Opmantek Network Management Information System is an open source network management solution for scalable network performance and device status monitoring. NMIS has support for 10,000 vendors and classifies network events based on their business impact. NMIS is included in Opmantek’s NMIS professional bundle, which also includes opCharts for charting performance through customizable dashboards and opReports for analyzing performance data and generating reports on this data.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Pandora FMS Community
Related Products: Pandora FMS Enterprise
Description: Pandora FMS Community is an open source monitoring tool that helps companies observe their entire IT infrastructure. It not only features network monitoring capabilities, but also Windows and Unix servers and virtual interfaces. For networks, Pandora FMS contains features such as ICMP polling, SNMP support, network latency monitoring, and system overload. You can also install agents on devices to observe factors like device temperature and overheating, as well as logfile occurrences.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Paessler PRTG 100
Related Products: NewFlow Tester, SNMP Tester
Description: Paessler is a network monitoring provider that offers a free version of their solution: PRTG 100. Paessler offers this tier of their monitoring program that supports 100 devices on a single network. PRTG monitoring features include tracking network traffic, applications, data packets, and bandwidth. The software functions as an all-in-one monitoring suite which is also able to monitor cloud environments, virtual machines, and hardware in addition to a company’s network.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Prometheus
Description: Prometheus is an open source monitoring solution focused on data collection and analysis. It allows users to set up network monitoring capabilities using the native toolset. The tool is able to collect information on devices using SNMP pings and examine network bandwidth usage from the device perspective, among other functinos. The PromQL system analyzes data and allows for the program to generate graphs, tables, and other visuals on the systems it monitors.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Spiceworks Network Monitoring
Related Products: Help Desk, IP Lookup
Description: Spiceworks Network Monitoring is a free tool offered as a part of a Spiceworks monitoring and management solution suite. Their monitoring solution offers real-time monitoring capabilities for networks and devices. You can perform ping checks to verify that your network and all connected nodes are currently functional. The tool also supports common network protocols, like HTTP and SIP, or user-defined custom protocols, as well as custom settings for alerts based on sensitivity.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
Tool: Zabbix
Description: Zabbix is an open source monitoring tool suite that includes network monitoring. The network monitoring capabilties of Zabbix includes performance metric analysis, such as bandwidth usage, packet loss, and CPU/memory utilization. It can also detect network node and connection health problems by checking for devices in critical condition. Zabbix can alert you when hardware functions are dropping (fan speed of a network device is low) or when an SNMP check is not responded to.
Looking to get more knowledge about network monitoring? Click here to see the top network monitoring courses on Coursera.
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Daniel Hein
Dan is a tech writer who writes about Cybersecurity for Solutions Review. He graduated from Fitchburg State University with a Bachelor's in Professional Writing. You can reach him at dhein@solutionsreview.com
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FAQs
How can I monitor my network for free? ›
- SolarWinds ipMonitor Free Edition (FREE TOOL) At the number one spot on this list, we have SolarWinds ipMonitor Free Edition. ...
- Paessler PRTG Network Monitor (FREE EDITION) ...
- Site24x7 Server Monitoring (FREE EDITION) ...
- ManageEngine OpManager (FREE TRIAL) ...
- Domotz (FREE TRIAL) ...
- Zabbix. ...
- Nagios Core. ...
- Icinga 2.
Nagios Core One of the top open-source network monitoring tools. Includes a dashboard view, alerts system, community plugins, and more.
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.
Is there a free version of PRTG? ›3. Do I need a commercial license for PRTG or can I use the Freeware Edition? The Freeware Edition is available for both personal and commercial use for free, but is limited to monitoring 100 sensors. If you want to monitor more sensors, you need one of the commercial editions.
Is Ntop free? ›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 Nagios free to use? ›Nagios Core /ˈnɑːɡiːoʊs/, formerly known as Nagios, is a free and open-source computer-software application that monitors systems, networks and infrastructure. Nagios offers monitoring and alerting services for servers, switches, applications and services.
Which is better Nagios vs zabbix? ›The Zabbix tool's performance is good compared to Nagios, and the tool is fast compared to the Nagios tool. The Nagios tool is a bit slow compared to the Zabbix tool, and there is always an issue in the Nagios tool's performance.
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.
What is the best monitoring tool? ›- Zabbix.
- Spiceworks Network Monitor.
- Nagios.
- OpManager by ManageEngine.
- WhatsUp Gold.
- Cacti.
- Icinga.
- OpenNMS.
Description: Paessler Router Traffic Grapher (PRTG) Network Monitor is network management software for bandwidth, usage, and availability monitoring. This technology runs on a Windows machine within the network and can automatically discover devices and collect various statistics.
What is Zabbix network monitoring? ›
Zabbix is an open source monitoring software tool for diverse IT components, including networks, servers, virtual machines (VMs) and cloud services. Zabbix provides monitoring metrics, such as network utilization, CPU load and disk space consumption.
Is PRTG open source? ›...
| PRTG | Network Monitoring Software - Version 22.3.79.2108 (September 14th, 2022) |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Up to 100 sensors for free (Price List) |
Zenoss Community Edition was a free and open-source application, server, and network management platform based on the Zope application server. It provided a web interface that allowed system administrators to monitor availability, inventory/configuration, performance, and events.
Is Nagios XI free? ›Nagios XI is available free of charge for monitoring small environments. Students may qualify for increased or unrestricted monitoring limits based on their needs and qualifications. Each license/edition includes twelve months of maintenance (upgrade entitlements) and email support.
What can OpenNMS monitor? ›...
- A Java 1.3+ development environment.
- PostgreSQL database servers.
- Tomcat servlet server.
- JBossmq Java server.
- RRDTool graphing engine.
NetFlow Analyzer is a free NetFlow network traffic analyzer and its customizable dashboard enables you to view widgets grouped by devices, interfaces, interface groups, or IP groups, and can also detect network anomalies at a glance.
What is nProbe? ›nProbe is a software NetFlow v5/v9/IPFIX probe able to collect, analyze and export network traffic reports using the standard Cisco NetFlow v5/v9/IPFIX format. It is available for most of the OSs on the market (Windows, BSD, Linux, MacOSX).
What is Nload? ›nload is a console application which monitors network traffic and bandwidth usage in real time. It visualizes the in- and outgoing traffic using two graphs and provides additional info like total amount of transfered data and min/max network usage.
Is zabbix free to use? ›Absolutely Free
Zabbix is released under the GPL license, thus is free for commercial and non-commercial use. There are no limitations on the number of monitored devices, you can use Zabbix to monitor many thousands of devices absolutely free.
Grafana can integrate with a huge range of collectors, agents, and storage engines. Grafana is open source, and free. Nagios is a legacy IT infrastructure monitoring tool with a focus on server, network, and application monitoring.
What is the difference between Nagios and Splunk? ›
While Splunk is used for log analysis Nagios is used for continuous monitoring. Both Splunk and Nagios are the tools to study the health of system infrastructure. While each has a distinct way of working and different architecture, there are some areas where they overlap.
How can I monitor my network connection? ›Access your router by entering your router's IP address into a web browser. Once you sign in, look for a Status section on the router (you might even have a Bandwidth or Network Monitor section depending on the type of router). From there, you should be able to see the IP addresses of devices connected to your network.
How do you see what sites are visited on my WiFi? ›- Log into your router via your web browser.
- Click Advanced. Depending on the router you're using, you may need to click something different such as Administration, Logs, or even Device History.
- Click System. ...
- Click System Log.
- Scroll down and browse through your router's history.
...
- Track Bandwidth Usage via Your Router. The best place to start figuring out what is consuming your bandwidth is your router. ...
- Check Bandwidth Usage With Capsa. ...
- Scan Your System for Malware. ...
- Use Netstat to Uncover Network Issues. ...
- Check Network Activity With Windows Resource Monitor.
...
What to Know
- To locate your router's IP address, in Windows, open a Command Prompt and run ipconfig. ...
- Using a router, open browser and enter router IP address > Enter > locate Device List > Status, or Bandwidth or Network Monitoring.
By default, Wireshark only captures packets going to and from the computer where it runs. By checking the box to run Wireshark in promiscuous mode in the capture settings, you can capture most of the traffic on the LAN.
What is better than Fingbox? ›The best alternative is Nmap, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Fingbox are Angry IP Scanner, Zenmap, Advanced IP Scanner and Wireless Network Watcher. Fingbox alternatives are mainly Network Monitors but may also be IP Scanners or Network Analyzers.
Can I see messages sent over my WiFi? ›Most messenger apps only encrypt texts while sending them over WiFi or mobile data. The service can access messages. The most secure apps use end-to-end encryption, so only recipients can read them. Being on WiFi does not automatically guarantee a text is transmitted or stored encrypted.
Can someone see what I do on my phone through WiFi? ›Yes. If you use a smartphone to surf the Internet, your WiFi provider or a WiFi owner can see your browsing history. Except for browsing history, they can also see the following information: Apps you were using.
Can I see what websites are visited on my router? ›Check Your Router Log
You'll need to use your web browser to log into your router to access a "History" or "Logs" setting. Before you choose this option, it's worth noting that you will only be able to see the IP addresses of sites viewed on your WiFi.
How do I stop WiFi owner from viewing my history? ›
Use a VPN
Your internet service provider can't see your history when you use a VPN. That's because using a VPN establishes a secure, encrypted connection between your device and the VPN server. Your ISP won't be able to decipher any of your traffic, even as it passes right through their servers.
- Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack. ...
- NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. ...
- PRTG Network Monitor. ...
- NetFlow Analyzer. ...
- FREE Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor. ...
- FREE Network Analyzer & Bandwidth Monitoring Bundle. ...
- ntopng. ...
- Cacti.
Another route is to download Wi-Fi Monitor, a Google Play app that scans your Wi-Fi network and tells you what devices use it. It is an excellent way to identify devices accessing your network.
Can I use Wireshark on my home network? ›Yes. Wireshark can capture packets off of a WiFi network as long as the computer it is installed on has a WiFi transceiver and is in promiscuous mode. Wireshark uses the Airpcap standard for wireless packet capture.
How do I monitor network traffic using CMD? ›- Step 1: Press Windows + X keys together to open the Windows Super User Menu. ...
- Step 2: In the Command Prompt window, type netstat followed by a switch name. ...
- Step 3: The Command Prompt displays all of the ESTABLISHED network connections.
Wireless transmission intercepts, in which unencrypted wireless network traffic is intercepted and confidential information compromised. "WiPhishing" involves covertly setting up a wireless-enabled laptop or access point in order to get devices to connect with it as a prelude to hacking attacks.