The servers, however, need constant watching and tracking. To do this, you will need to have software that monitors your server. Server Monitoring Software monitors your infrastructure CPU load, RAM, firewall, sensor, bandwidth, error rate, network, disk space usage, switch, router, and remote access. Here is a curated list of Top 10 Server monitoring tools for monitoring devices, services, ports, protocols, and analyzing traffic on your network. This list contains open source (free) as well as paid tools.
Best Software for Server Monitoring
1) Server and Application Monitor
Best for Has a Server and Application Monitor (SAM) to oversee server usage and application metrics performance. Server and Application Monitor is a powerful agentless Server & Application Monitor (SAM) for IT management. It tracks the server and application performance, alerting and reporting any issues. SolarWinds has an integrated capability to monitor virtual servers both on-premises and across the cloud for more than 1,200 different applications. It provides an understanding of the application performance and the server usage metrics. It has features like remote server monitoring solutions, server inventory monitoring, server process monitoring, automated server network monitoring, and server health monitoring. This tool integrates with other SolarWinds IT management tools. It makes it easy to visualize, diagnose, and manage other infrastructure risks that may affect server performance.
Features:
It has over 1200+ applications for simple monitoring Single integrated web interface. Intelligent app infra dependency mapping. Monitors real-time processes. Offer instant insight for deep packet analysis. Optimized performance by AWS monitoring tools. Customizable dashboard. Real-time server monitoring software. Quick installation and easy setup. Active directory health and storage monitoring. It tracks the availability and status of servers. Supported platforms: Microsoft Windows Server, macOS 10.13 – 10.15.X, CentOS 6.5 and 7.1, Fedora 24 and 25, Java Platform, and Red Hat Linux. Licensing: Proprietary System Requirements: RAM: 4GB, Hard Disk Space: 20GB and CPU: 64-bit Dual-core Price: starts at $2,995 for 150 monitors Free trial: Yes (30 days free trial)
Visit Server Application
2) Sematext Monitoring
Best for Comprehensive real-time monitoring tool for servers, applications, and technology stacks. Sematext is a cloud-based platform capable of creating innovative On-Premises and cloud solutions. It is a real-time monitor used for log management, synthetic monitoring, application performance monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring. Multi-cloud environments use this software to monitor servers, stacks, and applications. Its monitoring system records the disk’s total capacity, load, I/O interfaces, and CPU memory, then monitors their use. Sematext server monitoring software also provides monitoring system metrics and logs auto-discovery. They make log collection, alert, and dashboard setup easy. This monitoring tool provides you with all you need in one location for quick troubleshooting, alerting, and anomaly.
Features: Visit Sematext »
3) Nagios XI
Best for: Supports agentless live server monitoring. Focuses on network traffic, server metrics, and application performance. Nagios XI is an agentless network server monitoring software and enterprise server with advanced configuration and reporting options. Nagios XI software facilitates network operation and server monitoring in a central solution. Nagios XI monitors all virtual on-premises applications due to various third-party plugins. This is because of its updated web interface and robust server monitoring engine capability. It focuses on real-time monitoring of infrastructure performance, operating systems, network traffic, server system metrics, and application performance.
Features:
Alert delivery through SMS, Pop-up notifications, and Email. Internet usage monitoring. Auto-Discovery configuration wizards. Reporting relevant metrics for logs and databases. Provides performance monitoring and graphing. Real-time monitoring and risk management. Proactive planning manages the upgrade of the platform. Cloud and network outage observability. Monitoring automation that manages a large amount of data Supported platforms: Ubuntu 16.04,18.0 & 20.04 (LTS), Oracle Linux 7/8, RHEL 7/8, and, Debian 9-11, Solaris, Unix and CentOS. Licensing: Open-source with commercial options System Requirements: RAM: 1GB. Hard Disk Space: 40GB and CPU 1 GHz Processor Price: $1,995 (Standard), $3,495 (Enterprise) Free trial: Yes (30 days free trial)
Link: https://www.nagios.org/
4) Site24x7
Best for: IT infrastructure monitoring solution to track the condition of application infrastructure. Site 24×7 is a cloud-based network monitoring tool that monitors the status of the server and web endpoints 24 hours a day. This tool oversees a company’s network infrastructure. It does so by watching over all hardware and virtual resources, both on-premises and the cloud. Site 24×7 observes your website’s health and gives you a notification when it detects a specific abnormality. The monitoring solution watches the activities of services such as the file transfer protocols (FTP), event thresholds, simple mail transfer protocols (SMTP), application performance management (APM), and domain name systems (DNS) record monitoring.
Features: Visit Site24x7 »
5) Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
Best for: Suitable both for small and enterprise environments. Can monitor any IT-related assets. PRTG is a real-time infrastructure monitoring application for Windows and Linux servers. It involves a variety of server status trackers to monitor all systems, traffic, and network devices without any extra plugins. PRTG tool is a real-time monitor perfect for any size of business. It monitors servers for reliability, availability, capacity, and accessibility. This server monitoring platform caters to database servers, web servers, virtual servers, and mail. PTRG offers a robust cloud monitoring suite, giving a centralized monitoring system for all types of PAAS, SAAS, and IAAS solutions.
Features:
Automatic device discovery with suitable sensors. Intuitive web interface. Customizable dashboards with PRTG maps. Multiple user interfaces with customizable languages. 20 sensors for monitoring file server. On-premise and cloud-based resource monitoring. Flexible alerting through SMS, Push notifications, and Email. Analyze network using bandwidth monitoring. 12 sensors for monitoring the file and mail server. Robust reporting generator. Supported platforms: Microsoft Windows 7-8.1,10, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2-2012 R2, 2016, 2019. Licensing: Proprietary System Requirements: RAM: 8GB, Hard Disk Space: 80GB and CPU: 2 GHz processor. Price: Free for 100 sensors, $1,600 (500-sensor license), $14,500 (unlimited sensors) Free trial: Yes (30 days free trial)
Visit PRTG Network »
6) Dynatrace
Best for: The best application performance management (APM). Monitors and diagnoses cloud-based applications for an organization. Dynatrace is an all-in-one performance management (APM) platform that simplifies complex clouds. It is designed to offer an intelligent AI-Assistance that performs log monitoring of the entire infrastructure. Dynatrace is found in both on-premise models and software (SaaS) software. It can monitor/diagnose server logs, metrics, and cloud-based applications. The Dynatrace software indicates process-specific network metrics. It also utilizes artificial intelligence to analyze the performance of your infrastructure.
Features: Link: https://www.dynatrace.com/
7) Atera
Best for Cloud-based, complete remote server monitoring solution and IT management platform. Atera is a SaaS-Based server monitoring tool designed for MSPs and IT professionals. It uses the Atera agent feature to oversee all servers and applications across your existing networks. This agent monitors the server regularly and then sends back signals to the cloud. This cloud-based software visualizes server performance and tracks the action of applications. It has an inventory that supports system patch management and software updates. This monitor cover server details such as software inventory, logged-in users, virtualization configurations, permissions, Active Directory accounts, application activity, and resource utilization.
Features:
Complete remote management and monitoring utilities. It provides an all-in-one MSPs solution. Run professional service automation profiles. Generates automated reporting and analytics Network device autodiscovery. Real-time alerting solves risk factors before a problem occurs. Extensive shared script library. Supported platforms: macOS, Sierra 10.13, Microsoft OS (Windows 7), Microsoft Server >2008. Licensing: Proprietary, Cloud-based System Requirements: RAM: 8GB, Hard Disk Space: 500MB and CPU: 64-bit x86 Price: $79/month (pro), $119/month (growth), $149/month (power) Free trial: Yes (30 days free trial)
Link: https://www.atera.com/
8) Zabbix
Best for: can configure straight from the web interface. Zabbix is an all-in-one open-source network monitoring tool for metrics. It monitors IT infrastructure such as web servers, networks, cloud services, devices, and other IT resources. Zabbix configures directly from the web interface. It allows clients to store, collect, and manage the information collected from IT infrastructure. This software enables administrators to detect server and system problems within a short period. It is necessary to avoid the risk of system failure and downtime.
Features:
Customizable and predefined reporting. Pre-packaged monitoring templates. Real-time configurable alerts. Improvement suggestions. Cloud observability for metric collection. Web-based configuration. Data visualization with widget-based dashboards. Multi-network monitoring capability. Root cause analysis improves problem tracking. Configuration change management. Supported platforms: Windows, Linux, IBM AIX, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Solaris: 9-11. Licensing: Open-source with commercial support options System Requirements: RAM: 1.5GB, Hard Disk Space: 8GB and CPU: 2 CPU cores/2GB Price: Free Free trial: No (Free)
Link: https://www.zabbix.com/
9) Icinga
Best for: Performance Monitoring, raising alerts, and keeping the admin informed. Icinga is a branch of Nagios that is a free, open-source server monitoring solution. It checks server performance and network availability. It also has an integrated engine with the capability to monitor extensive infrastructure. This monitoring tool provides a simpler plugin integration and supports more databases. It also has a better web interface that is responsive for robust server performance monitoring. The interface is scalable and decreases configuration complexity. Icinga can still integrate with Nagios plugins.
Features:
Real-time automated alerts. Provides performance monitoring and graphing. Monitoring automation that manages a large amount of data Mapping and visual reporting for metrics and logs. Extensibility through plugins. Scalable network mapping. Supported platforms: Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, IBM AIX, Solaris, Unix, and HP-UX. Licensing: Open source System Requirements: RAM: 4GB, Hard Disk Space: 50GBand CPU: 2 cores Price: Free Free trial: No (Free)
Link: https://icinga.com/
What are the Factors to consider in Server Monitoring Tools?
Server monitoring tools have risen in numbers on the market today. Selecting the best one for your need could be challenging for clients. Below are the main factors to keep in mind when choosing the right tool solution:
Metrics Correlation: There must be a correlation between the monitoring tool and the matrix you are going for. This is important when debugging a problem. Less Configuration Overhead: Consider getting a tool that needs minimal maintenance and is easy to set up. This is necessary, especially when running an enterprise monitoring platform. That chosen tool should meet your needs by just its default dashboard and alert settings. Alerting features: Any monitoring tool should have the ability to notify you of any problem. This way, you can have oversight and deal with any resulting risk appropriately. Coverage of Metric: The tool needs to collect and analyze all metrics you would consider essential. It should configure and customize the metrics to match your preference. Anomaly Detection: You need to consider a monitoring solution with anomaly detection capabilities. This is because sometimes, you might not know that the monitoring system needs to give an alert when a problem arises. Hardware considerations: Look into the hardware architecture used for your network monitoring. Some architecture contains particular components that need unique solutions. Access Control: If you are looking for smooth and secure access, then the solution you select should be able to support SSO functionality identity management.
FAQs
❓ What is a server monitoring tool?
A server monitoring tool is software that monitors and tracks the server’s performance. These tools enable a user to analyze a server’s utilization rates continually. These aid in the identification of problems found during the performance.
✔️ What are the Best Server Monitoring tools?
Here are the best Server Monitoring software:
Solar Winds Sematext Site 24×7 Nagios XI Dynatrace Atera
🚀 Are there any good server monitoring tools for free?
There are some good free and open-source IT infrastructure monitoring tools suitable for any environment. These tools include Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, and Icinga.
