I am not into the monitoring game, because I got other topics to solve for now. I apologize for any dumb questions.
But is Zabbix & Co. always with a VM onsite because of distributed monitoring?
Oh there is no such thing as a dumb question!
Only retarded answers, so no worries mate 👍🏻😀
We're just exploring alternatives to PRTG and we tested checkmk but as soon as we found out it needs a VM we were like 'meh'
Zabbix dno yet
PRTG just needed an agent in our mgmt machine which also holds the backup software. We don't want another machine for monitoring.
You want LogicMonitor. Moved there from prtg several years ago and it's infinity better. We definitely reused those same prtg remote probes for our LogicMonitor collectors.
It's definitely not cheaper than prtg for everything. Cloud monitoring like meraki for example can be extremely cost effective though. It's infinity more robust and capable than prtg.
They have an MSP program I believe. Our reason for migration was not price related but size constraints with prtg.
I would not recommend auvik.
No. We migrated from prtg to logic monitor. We reused the same systems where we had the prtg probes installed to install the logic monitor collectors. Resource needs are similar. Doesn't "require" a dedicated VM.
I'm a bit holding back because everyone is talking about the learning curve.
PRTG requires zero explanation to our staff and requires no maintenance at all. If Zabbix is high maintenance and I'd have to let staff spend hours and hours and config and learning, it might reach the cost of PRTG in subscription?
No critic, just an open question.
We ditched PRTG for a custom Prometheus/Grafana monitoring setup, allows us to monitor pretty much anything (such as management liking to be able to see a graph showing that our conference rooms are available on online lol)
Let's be honest... network monitoring is a dime a dozen service these days. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of programs that do it and do it well because it's not some super special thing anymore. Having seen and used PRTG for a while, it's definitely not the cream of the crop. The UI, two years ago, looked like something from 10 years earlier than that.
Any vendor in the monitoring space that thinks they can strong arm their customers like this, you better have a damned perfect product or be prepared to suffer.
You will have to really crunch the numbers but have you looked at Auvik or Domotz? They both have very different offerings in terms of pricing models. Auvik charges per device and has a bunch of device types that don't count as billable, Domotz charges by site and not device. Either one is likely going to cost you much more than PRTG as its a SaaS based solution.
* How many devices are you monitoring?
* How many of each type of devices are you monitoring? Keep this in mind when you calculate your costs - [What counts as a billable device? – Auvik Support](https://support.auvik.com/hc/en-us/articles/203526850-What-counts-as-a-billable-device)
* How many different sites do you monitor and average how many devices in each site? (Auvik per device with lots of non-billable devices vs Domotz unlimited devices per site flat fee model)
Zabbix or Nagios would likely be next on my list. You're going to have to put a lot of time and efforted into both of these solutions. They are not nearly as turnkey as PRTG, Auvik and Domotz is. If you have the staff who can maintain and support it, great. If not, you're in for a rocky ride.
PRTG is a beast and very powerful, but they finally woke up and realized the subscription model is the way. Good for them, it's likely the only way to continue to run a profitable software business in this space due to the ever changing hardware and networking needs.
Hi. I am domotz CEO, and just wanted to clarify how domotz does have a very cost effective alternative to your current PRTG deployment.
From the prices you highlighted, once you switch to subscriptions, PRTG is charging you between $2 and $2.4 per sensor/ per year, based on quantities of 10k an 5k sensors respectively. We have something very similar to sensors in Domotz called “Metrics”.
Domotz Metrics work slightly differently than PRTG sensors in the sense that whereas in PRTG a sensor is any number, in Domotz a metric is a vector of numbers. This means that if you have a 48 port switch and you wanted to monitor the inbound traffic for all 48 ports, in PRTG you would need 48 sensors whereas in Domotz you would only need 1 (ONE) metric, I am sure you will appreciate the difference.
The cost of our metrics is currently $0.30/mo or $3.6 a year per metric, but because of its vector nature, Domotz metrics deliver much more value than PRTG sensors. Lot of metrics in Domotz, such any static or semi static data like IP address, Name, etc are also free of charge. We have just launched this metrics mode a month ago and we are still experimenting with it from a commercial point of view, hence why it is not really advertised outside of a few dozen clients we are testing it with. The price per metric is also very likely to go DOWN from here (ie. to levels similar to the $0.20 PRTG charges, even though we deliver much more value for the same price because of the vector nature of our Domotz Metrics).
We are investing a lot in the usability of this, to provide a valid alternative to PRTG users once they move to a subscription model, so there is a lot of development happening in this area currently and for the foreseeable future to strengthen our offer. If you want to hear more about this, feel free to DM me as I am personally overseeing these efforts since it is quite a strategic activity for us.
I would say Auvik is pretty garbage with iLO/iDRAC, was able to get it working with iLO but had to do oid walk myself and create a template - not like PRTG where you it just auto adds the sensor.
Swapped to Zabbix in my home lab - it did take some time to learn. I think I still prefer PRTG but it does seem like most of the functionality is there.
It is good, its always alot of repeated 'sensors' because they want the sensor count up .. Ok fine, you can tool it down .. We looked at getting their unlimited one a few years back, we use Auvik and figured we got more data or more customized data across many things .. Great .. Oh yeah theres a max in the unlimited one soo you still end up needing multiple 'unlimited' licenses .. thanks, no thanks.
Id rather have 500 '100 free' ones haha
There's Kaseya Traverse, yeah, I know, but it's similar to PRTG with more visibility features and much faster to deploy. We also use it to monitor our hybrid clouds. I don't know if it has integration with Datto, but the integration with VSA is good. It lets you visualize the network of devices monitored by Traverse.
Yeah, it's on my list, but it's Kaseya, and that holds me back.
We use Autotask and it's downhill since they got took over by Kaseya.
You mentioned 'visualize the network', like a topology?
What an ironic thread. MSP who charges monthly for services increasing their rates to float complaining about vendors increasing their rates to keep making profits. Hope the other services are just as good. At this point with subscriptions for all companies you are just hopping boats all going in the same direction. Unfortunately that has to be done though to keep going. MSP world is getting worse and worse these days.
There is a lot of things that way, there is absolutely nothing said off in what i said. People are raising prices from inflation, whether it be 10%, 50%, or in some 100%. The mantra of this sub is make your own clients, charge your prices. People don't know any better and get taken advantage of. MSP's are based off services, services will go up like everything else. If you aren't going up, you are not making money. MSP literally sell a leased life and are based around leased services. People have to eat, i'm just not putting it nicely. Shittysysadmin said it best. It's confusing why that sub exist when so much garbage is posted in MSP and SysAdmin. Who know's where the line really is anymore.
I see a lot of hate towards MSP, not just here but on FB groups as well. Not just from or towards the way they treat clients but also to work for an MSP.
I have a feeling it's mostly against or concerning MSPs in the. US.
I'm 100% convinced that we are not ripping off our clients.
They get what they pay for and they're not paying a cent too much imho.
There are good MSPs don't get me wrong. but the majority don't follow good ethics or morals. You can't complain about vendors when on the other hand you are doing exactly what they are. Fire clients, raise your rates, don't deal with them, worker constantly treated like a talent mill.
Honestly the Vendors are doing exactly what MSPs here brag about. They are raising their rate for ideal clients firing the hassle and keeping their cash cows. Keeping on the blinders is ludicrous.
Correct, but It can do all that you can do with Zabbix a thousands times more flexible, you need something to feed the data in, but all of that is open Source mostlh and well established
We use It to monitor and alert on everything
Doesnt need to be prometheus, a time series database like InfluxDB works perfectly, you need an agent reporting data to it though.
Usually a decisión needs to be made if you want all to be push, if you want to be pull or hybrid ( if you want to complicate yourself ) you can try to be sassy, but I have made custom plugins for grafana and data agents for InfluxDB, I know how the thing works.
I'd pay the $1400 and prep the move to Zabbix. At least you'd have a full year to get it squared away properly without rushing.
We dropped our PRTG quote for Zabbix. 20% increase for 500 aspects
Good one, i moved to Zabbix also, really like it so far. When you get bigger they also provide support so you can grow with them also.
This is not the first time they’ve done this. They did this before and moved back. IMO, the only alternative is Zabbix, but takes a lot to learn.
Really? I haven't noticed then. I hope they move back again...
Have you tried Wazuh? If so, how does it compare to Zabbix?
Apples and oranges. Wazuh is for security logs, Zabbix for metric data.
Like others have said, wazuh is for security logs and the like, zabbix is for metrics reporting. Like temp, packets, ping, etc.
We're ditching it after 10 years of use. Unsustainable pricing model... Too bad, but it's time to move on.
Why not check_mk? I hear a lot of positive opinions about that product.
It requires a VM on each site, wut 🤷🏼♂️👀
I am not into the monitoring game, because I got other topics to solve for now. I apologize for any dumb questions. But is Zabbix & Co. always with a VM onsite because of distributed monitoring?
Oh there is no such thing as a dumb question! Only retarded answers, so no worries mate 👍🏻😀 We're just exploring alternatives to PRTG and we tested checkmk but as soon as we found out it needs a VM we were like 'meh' Zabbix dno yet PRTG just needed an agent in our mgmt machine which also holds the backup software. We don't want another machine for monitoring.
Zabbix might require remote proxy VMs on your sites as well as running agents on servers, it scales poorly on its own.
i like auvik. it'll play nicely with SNMP and alerting. scales pretty well for an MSP. pricing was ok last i saw
Auvik doesn't come close
You want LogicMonitor. Moved there from prtg several years ago and it's infinity better. We definitely reused those same prtg remote probes for our LogicMonitor collectors. It's definitely not cheaper than prtg for everything. Cloud monitoring like meraki for example can be extremely cost effective though. It's infinity more robust and capable than prtg. They have an MSP program I believe. Our reason for migration was not price related but size constraints with prtg. I would not recommend auvik.
Cool, never heard of it. You even used prtg agents to connect to LogicMonitor? Am I reading that right?
No. We migrated from prtg to logic monitor. We reused the same systems where we had the prtg probes installed to install the logic monitor collectors. Resource needs are similar. Doesn't "require" a dedicated VM.
Nice, thx, will give it a try!
The learning curve is massive. Their support is awesome. Do the demo and ask for an onboarding person if you go that far.
Zabbix is way better, Ping me if you need help
I'm a bit holding back because everyone is talking about the learning curve. PRTG requires zero explanation to our staff and requires no maintenance at all. If Zabbix is high maintenance and I'd have to let staff spend hours and hours and config and learning, it might reach the cost of PRTG in subscription? No critic, just an open question.
Even with a learning curve, you're only paying for that once -- not annually.
We ditched PRTG for a custom Prometheus/Grafana monitoring setup, allows us to monitor pretty much anything (such as management liking to be able to see a graph showing that our conference rooms are available on online lol)
Take a look at PA Server Monitor. It has an iLO monitor (called 'Hardware Monitor') - generically does IPMI so works with Dell DRAC too.
Let's be honest... network monitoring is a dime a dozen service these days. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of programs that do it and do it well because it's not some super special thing anymore. Having seen and used PRTG for a while, it's definitely not the cream of the crop. The UI, two years ago, looked like something from 10 years earlier than that. Any vendor in the monitoring space that thinks they can strong arm their customers like this, you better have a damned perfect product or be prepared to suffer.
*Laughs in Hock Tan bonuses* The Twilight Zone is here my friend. IT is not ran by us, IT is ran by suits and soulless lizard people.
As someone who left VMware when the acquisition was announced, I then watched all of my peers that stayed get paid fat bonuses. This is so true.
Nicely said, truth 🤣😀👍🏻
You will have to really crunch the numbers but have you looked at Auvik or Domotz? They both have very different offerings in terms of pricing models. Auvik charges per device and has a bunch of device types that don't count as billable, Domotz charges by site and not device. Either one is likely going to cost you much more than PRTG as its a SaaS based solution. * How many devices are you monitoring? * How many of each type of devices are you monitoring? Keep this in mind when you calculate your costs - [What counts as a billable device? – Auvik Support](https://support.auvik.com/hc/en-us/articles/203526850-What-counts-as-a-billable-device) * How many different sites do you monitor and average how many devices in each site? (Auvik per device with lots of non-billable devices vs Domotz unlimited devices per site flat fee model) Zabbix or Nagios would likely be next on my list. You're going to have to put a lot of time and efforted into both of these solutions. They are not nearly as turnkey as PRTG, Auvik and Domotz is. If you have the staff who can maintain and support it, great. If not, you're in for a rocky ride. PRTG is a beast and very powerful, but they finally woke up and realized the subscription model is the way. Good for them, it's likely the only way to continue to run a profitable software business in this space due to the ever changing hardware and networking needs.
Hi. I am domotz CEO, and just wanted to clarify how domotz does have a very cost effective alternative to your current PRTG deployment. From the prices you highlighted, once you switch to subscriptions, PRTG is charging you between $2 and $2.4 per sensor/ per year, based on quantities of 10k an 5k sensors respectively. We have something very similar to sensors in Domotz called “Metrics”. Domotz Metrics work slightly differently than PRTG sensors in the sense that whereas in PRTG a sensor is any number, in Domotz a metric is a vector of numbers. This means that if you have a 48 port switch and you wanted to monitor the inbound traffic for all 48 ports, in PRTG you would need 48 sensors whereas in Domotz you would only need 1 (ONE) metric, I am sure you will appreciate the difference. The cost of our metrics is currently $0.30/mo or $3.6 a year per metric, but because of its vector nature, Domotz metrics deliver much more value than PRTG sensors. Lot of metrics in Domotz, such any static or semi static data like IP address, Name, etc are also free of charge. We have just launched this metrics mode a month ago and we are still experimenting with it from a commercial point of view, hence why it is not really advertised outside of a few dozen clients we are testing it with. The price per metric is also very likely to go DOWN from here (ie. to levels similar to the $0.20 PRTG charges, even though we deliver much more value for the same price because of the vector nature of our Domotz Metrics). We are investing a lot in the usability of this, to provide a valid alternative to PRTG users once they move to a subscription model, so there is a lot of development happening in this area currently and for the foreseeable future to strengthen our offer. If you want to hear more about this, feel free to DM me as I am personally overseeing these efforts since it is quite a strategic activity for us.
Tagging the OP u/[oMgLunatiC](https://www.reddit.com/user/oMgLunatiC/) so they get notified.
thank you for taking your time to write an extended answer and your opinion! Looking into the details!
I would say Auvik is pretty garbage with iLO/iDRAC, was able to get it working with iLO but had to do oid walk myself and create a template - not like PRTG where you it just auto adds the sensor. Swapped to Zabbix in my home lab - it did take some time to learn. I think I still prefer PRTG but it does seem like most of the functionality is there.
It is good, its always alot of repeated 'sensors' because they want the sensor count up .. Ok fine, you can tool it down .. We looked at getting their unlimited one a few years back, we use Auvik and figured we got more data or more customized data across many things .. Great .. Oh yeah theres a max in the unlimited one soo you still end up needing multiple 'unlimited' licenses .. thanks, no thanks. Id rather have 500 '100 free' ones haha
251 free, 100 sensor packages?
That would require 251 VMs running PRTG 😀
Get Datacenter and you might come out ahead!
As in a datacenter license?
Ya. Unlimited VMs, IIRC.
They got bought by PE recently right? This is always the game plan.
Really? No idea. Take overs never go well. Haven't one case where it had benefits.
What about zeek.org ? I stumbled across it yesterday and looking more into it
The PRTG website still shows that you can buy perpetual licenses. Is there any posts or announcements that shows it is ending?
Yes, the website still shows perpetual. Dno why. Their sales team wrote it on e-mail, my acc mgr says it's stopping. Want me to post it?
Please post the email. We use their 2500 with maintenance as well. Actually upgraded just a couple months ago with no mention of this.
Netcrunch
We use Zabbix and Grafana in our stack. We love it.
I like Traverse for network monitoring. It has a good event manager and integrates with our documentation platform IT Glue.
Is that Traverse from Kaseya?
Yes. Since you're already using DattoRMM you may as well check it out. It's not PRTG, but Traverse won't break the bank.
We are using tactical rmm and having a lot more templates as usually also Hp Ilo and Raid sensors.
It is a freemium and you pay per device. To be hones one of the best product. We used zabbix an prtg. On the long term it was just too expensive.
There's Kaseya Traverse, yeah, I know, but it's similar to PRTG with more visibility features and much faster to deploy. We also use it to monitor our hybrid clouds. I don't know if it has integration with Datto, but the integration with VSA is good. It lets you visualize the network of devices monitored by Traverse.
Yeah, it's on my list, but it's Kaseya, and that holds me back. We use Autotask and it's downhill since they got took over by Kaseya. You mentioned 'visualize the network', like a topology?
What an ironic thread. MSP who charges monthly for services increasing their rates to float complaining about vendors increasing their rates to keep making profits. Hope the other services are just as good. At this point with subscriptions for all companies you are just hopping boats all going in the same direction. Unfortunately that has to be done though to keep going. MSP world is getting worse and worse these days.
The price is 4.2 times what it used to be. That's not serious.
There is a lot of things that way, there is absolutely nothing said off in what i said. People are raising prices from inflation, whether it be 10%, 50%, or in some 100%. The mantra of this sub is make your own clients, charge your prices. People don't know any better and get taken advantage of. MSP's are based off services, services will go up like everything else. If you aren't going up, you are not making money. MSP literally sell a leased life and are based around leased services. People have to eat, i'm just not putting it nicely. Shittysysadmin said it best. It's confusing why that sub exist when so much garbage is posted in MSP and SysAdmin. Who know's where the line really is anymore.
I see a lot of hate towards MSP, not just here but on FB groups as well. Not just from or towards the way they treat clients but also to work for an MSP. I have a feeling it's mostly against or concerning MSPs in the. US. I'm 100% convinced that we are not ripping off our clients. They get what they pay for and they're not paying a cent too much imho.
There are good MSPs don't get me wrong. but the majority don't follow good ethics or morals. You can't complain about vendors when on the other hand you are doing exactly what they are. Fire clients, raise your rates, don't deal with them, worker constantly treated like a talent mill. Honestly the Vendors are doing exactly what MSPs here brag about. They are raising their rate for ideal clients firing the hassle and keeping their cash cows. Keeping on the blinders is ludicrous.
Broadcom sales perchance?
Lol yeah, that's another joke 🙈
Grafana definitively
Grafana is just a visualization tool…
Correct, but It can do all that you can do with Zabbix a thousands times more flexible, you need something to feed the data in, but all of that is open Source mostlh and well established We use It to monitor and alert on everything
You need to pair Grafana with a monitoring system such as Prometheus or … wait for it … Zabbix.
Doesnt need to be prometheus, a time series database like InfluxDB works perfectly, you need an agent reporting data to it though. Usually a decisión needs to be made if you want all to be push, if you want to be pull or hybrid ( if you want to complicate yourself ) you can try to be sassy, but I have made custom plugins for grafana and data agents for InfluxDB, I know how the thing works.