Alternatives to Observium
Autodiscovering network monitoring platform with a clean interface. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Observium
Autodiscovering network monitoring platform with a clean interface.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Observium.
LibreNMS
Discover and monitor network equipment from a central server.
LibreNMS is free under GPL-3.0, so discovery, alerting and historical graphs are available without a subscription edition, though device visibility depends on supported protocols and credentials.
Zabbix
Enterprise-scale open-source monitoring for networks and applications.
Zabbix is open source under AGPL-3.0 and scales to tens of thousands of devices with a large template library, at the cost of extensive configuration and a denser interface.
PRTG Network Monitor
Sensor-based network monitoring, free for the first 100 sensors.
PRTG runs on a Windows server with autodiscovery, maps and alerting in one interface, free up to 100 sensors, but per-sensor licensing grows expensive quickly.
OpenNMS
Carrier-grade open-source network monitoring platform with event correlation.
OpenNMS is open source with event correlation and Grafana integration, designed for large carrier-grade networks, which can make it overkill for small setups.
Cacti
RRDtool-based graphing and monitoring for network devices.
Cacti is free under GPL-2.0 and stores years of RRDtool graphs in a fixed amount of disk, but its interface feels dated and alerting needs plugins.
NetXMS
Monitor network devices, servers and infrastructure through a central platform.
NetXMS is open source and monitors network devices and servers through a central platform with agent data, while enterprise editions and services have separate terms.
Checkmk
Hybrid open-source and commercial monitoring with agent-based and SNMP auto-discovery.
Checkmk offers agent-based and SNMP auto-discovery with an open-source core, while advanced features and scaling require its paid commercial editions.
ManageEngine OpManager
Zoho's network monitoring software for routers, switches and hybrid infrastructure.
ManageEngine OpManager is proprietary like Observium and adds configuration management alongside fault and performance monitoring, with paid tiers needed for larger networks.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Observium as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor
Industry-standard self-hosted network performance monitor with intelligent maps.
Observium autodiscovers devices with graphs and inventory in a clean interface, is not open source, and keeps alerting and faster releases in its subscription edition.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
SmokePing
Latency measurement and visualisation over time.
Grafana
Dashboard and visualization front end for metrics, logs and traces.
Prometheus
Metrics database that scrapes targets and evaluates alerting rules.
Nagios Core
Monitor hosts and services with a configurable alerting engine.
Icinga 2
Monitor infrastructure availability with a configurable checking and alerting system.
Ralph
Self-hosted data centre inventory and asset management system.
