Nagios XI vs Visual Sentinel
Nagios XI
nagios.comVisual Sentinel
visualsentinel.comSide by side
| Figure | Nagios XI | Visual Sentinel |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $4.50/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 9 | 15 |
| Spec score · DNS Monitoring Software | 9.0 (#3) | 8.5 (#7) |
| API | The built-in REST API uses API-key authentication and returns JSON for reading, creating, updating and deleting system data. | The public REST API uses scoped organization keys and exposes monitors, incidents, status pages, maintenance windows, reports, notification channels and servers. |
| Integrations | Nagios XI supports authentication with Active Directory or LDAP over SSL, Single Sign-On with Microsoft Entra ID, and two-factor authentication through Duo. | The pricing comparison lists Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Cloudflare import and proxy bypass, and server-to-site correlation. |
| Rating on Capterra | 4.5 out of 5 from 46 reviews. | 5.0 out of 5 from 1 review |
| Rating on G2 | 4.5 out of 5 from 59 reviews. | 5.0 out of 5 from 1 review |
| Self-hosting | The product runs on a Linux server controlled by the customer rather than as a vendor-hosted service. | The security page describes Visual Sentinel as a continuously deployed service rather than a downloadable, versioned product. |
| Support | A paid license includes the first year of Maintenance & Support, version upgrades, up to ten support cases, Support Portal access, Premium features, and an assigned Customer Success Manager. | The company says human support replies typically within 24 hours by email. |
| What it does | Nagios XI is commercial infrastructure monitoring software that executes threshold-based checks on servers, network devices, applications and services, records results and sends notifications. | Visual Sentinel monitors uptime, performance, SSL, DNS, rendered visual changes and configured content changes from one service. |
Plans
Nagios XI
- Standard — 100 Nodes$2,595, paid once
- Enterprise — 100 Nodes$4,690, paid once
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- Standard$2,595, paid once
- Standard (100-Node)$2,595, paid once
- Enterprise$4,690, paid once
- Enterprise (100-Node)$4,690, paid once
- SitewidePriced on request
Visual Sentinel
- Solo$6 a month
- Solo$54 a year
- Starter$12 a month
- Starter$108 a year
- Business$39 a month
- Business$351 a year
- FreeFree
- Agency$149 a month
- Agency$1,341 a year
- FreeFree
In their own words
Nagios XI
Nagios XI monitors servers, network devices, applications and services from a Linux server you manage. It checks configured thresholds, records results and sends notifications. Standard includes more than 90 configuration wizards, auto-discovery, dashboards, performance graphs, an open REST API, automation, configuration rollback and snapshots. Enterprise adds SLA and capacity-planning reports, scheduled reports and pages, business process intelligence, bulk changes and an audit log. Users can be restricted to assigned host and service groups, with authentication options including Active Directory or LDAP over SSL, Microsoft Entra ID single sign-on and Duo two-factor authentication. It is self-hosted on Linux, with virtual machine images for several hypervisors and offline installation on Red Hat and CentOS Stream. A 30-day trial provides unlimited monitoring, Enterprise features and direct support without a credit card. The free plan is limited to 7 nodes or 100 services, whichever comes first. Paid perpetual licenses are priced by monitored nodes: Standard is $2,595.00 once and Enterprise is $4,690.00 once, each shown for 100 nodes.
Visual Sentinel
Visual Sentinel monitors websites and servers, including page changes that ordinary uptime checks may miss. Its monitoring covers uptime, screenshot-based visual comparison, SSL, DNS, performance, content, APIs, endpoints, and servers. For visual checks, it captures a page in a browser and compares the screenshot with a prior baseline. Users can exclude changing page elements with CSS selectors and set the amount of change needed to flag a capture. Failed uptime checks are repeated; a site is marked down only if it fails from all selected regions. Alerts can go to email, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, webhooks, Prometheus, and browser push. The REST API manages monitors, incidents, status pages, maintenance windows, reports, and notification channels; API access is listed for Business and Agency. The Free plan costs nothing and includes three monitors, 10-minute checks, and one status page. Solo costs $6 a month. Visual Sentinel is built and operated by Acefina LLC and is intended for small teams, agencies, and site owners.