Paessler PRTG – The powerful alternative to Centreon

Choosing between Paessler PRTG and Centreon depends on several factors, such as your specific network monitoring needs, budget, and technical resources available in your organization.

PRTG is ideal:

• If you prefer an all-in-one, easy-to-use solution with minimal setup time.
• If you need sophisticated, customizable visualizations like dashboards and network maps.
• If you want to monitor an unlimited number of remote locations and networks at no extra cost.
• If you prefer high scalability and a software tailored to large, complex environments.
• If you want to get real-time alerting, custom notifications, and automated reporting.
• If you want to have the choice between an on-premises or cloud-based solution.
• If you want a straightforward licensing model at a comparatively low price.

Centreon might be your choice:

• If you prefer an open-source monitoring tool but are willing to invest significant time in configuration and maintenance.
• If you have Linux expertise and don't mind a steeper learning curve for your monitoring setup.
• If you have dedicated IT staff with specialized monitoring expertise to handle complex configurations.
• If you're willing to pay for additional modules and extensions as your monitoring needs grow.
• If you specifically need specialized OT/IoT monitoring capabilities and are willing to accept the additional complexity.

PRTG is highly adaptable with custom sensors and a robust API that allows for tailored monitoring (similar to Centreon's capabilities), but with significantly better cost efficiency. While Centreon offers extensibility through plugins and modules, PRTG's custom sensors and scripting options achieve the same monitoring setups with less complexity and without requiring expert Linux expertise or DevOps knowledge. From a cost perspective, Centreon's total ownership expenses can be significantly higher than expected—personnel costs for managing plugins, configuring modules, and ongoing maintenance add up quickly, plus commercial editions require purchasing multiple modules for complete functionality. PRTG's transparent, sensor-based pricing includes comprehensive monitoring capabilities, expert support, and integrated visualization.

No, PRTG includes cloud monitoring and application monitoring as part of its standard functionality, supporting services like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud without additional plugins or costs. Centreon, by comparison, often requires separate modules and extensive configuration for comparable monitoring capabilities. PRTG's out-of-the-box sensors for cloud services, databases, web applications, and virtual infrastructure provide immediate visibility across your entire IT ecosystem without the need for additional purchases or complex integrations that might affect system performance or uptime.

Yes, PRTG excels in hybrid environments, with comprehensive observability capabilities across on-premises infrastructure, virtual machines, and cloud-native resources. Its unified dashboard provides a single pane of glass for monitoring diverse technologies, from traditional network devices and servers to containerized applications. This integrated approach makes it significantly easier to monitor and manage hybrid environments compared to Centreon's approach, which separates functionality into different modules and often requires different configurations for different infrastructure types, whether you're monitoring VMware environments or self-hosted applications. 

PRTG offers a more intuitive and flexible notification system that's easier to configure while maintaining advanced capabilities for real-time monitoring. You can set up sophisticated alert conditions, escalation procedures, and delivery methods without complex configuration, with notifications delivered via email, SMS, push notifications, or integrated with collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack for improved uptime management. Centreon's notification system typically requires more technical expertise and additional setup to achieve the same level of automation and integration with modern communication platforms. Additionally, PRTG provides superior out-of-the-box visualization capabilities with customizable dashboards and detailed graphs that require minimal setup for monitoring your IT infrastructure. 

Unlike Centreon, Prometheus, or LibreNMS, which often need additional configuration or third-party tools for comprehensive visualization, PRTG's integrated approach provides immediate access to meaningful metrics and performance data across your network monitoring environment. For MSPs and IT departments managing diverse IT environments, PRTG makes it easy to generate detailed reports on network performance, application monitoring, and resource utilization without the complexity found in other monitoring software solutions.

Yes, PRTG offers extensive monitoring capabilities for specialized infrastructure through its comprehensive sensor library and customization options. While Centreon has positioned itself strongly in the IT/OT convergence space, PRTG provides robust monitoring for industrial systems, IoT devices, and specialized equipment through SNMP, custom sensors, and API integrations. PRTG's straightforward approach to monitoring these systems often requires less configuration and technical expertise than Centreon's specialized modules, making it more accessible for teams without dedicated OT monitoring specialists. This includes monitoring network traffic, CPU usage, and other critical metrics across Cisco devices and various operating systems.

In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, for example the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, or the free space on a disk drive. On average, you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.