Network monitoring is one of the greatest issues for network or IT managers. It is a vital IT procedure in which managers regularly monitor different networking components, including firewalls, servers, routers, virtual machines (VMs), and switches, for defects to maintain their optimal performance and availability. This monitoring task helps businesses of all sizes and industries boost their internet presence. And the best free network monitoring software helps you accomplish this role more efficiently and successfully.
You can proactively discover and resolve network problems using the best monitoring tools. In addition, it helps you prevent future downtime and failures. The top network monitoring tools, however, are sometimes prohibitively expensive. Hence, we delved deeply into network monitors and discovered several free and open source network monitor programs that are cost-effective and feature-rich. Before reviewing this monitoring tool’s list, let us look at some crucial features you should consider while selecting a tool. Understanding what to look for in network monitoring software helps you select the best option for your requirements.
Free Network Monitoring Software Features
The top free open source network monitoring tools should include essential features.
- Network monitoring is possible automatically.
- Device detection process to generate an asset inventory automatically.
- When a problem arises, it alerts.
- Shows the live status of every device using a network mapping service.
- SNMP is used to communicate with network devices.
Let’s take a rundown of the best and most free network monitoring tools, including all or most of the features listed above.
Best 6 Free Network Monitoring Software To Use
When selecting the best free network monitoring software, the following are our top choices.
1. SolarWinds ipMonitor
With SolarWinds ipMonitor, you may get the best free network monitoring software. If you want to monitor up to 50 interfaces, it is a highly desirable option. Suitable for small enterprises, SolarWinds ipMonitor provides a top-notch user experience through its top-notch visuals. The following features make it one of the best network monitoring tools available.
Features
- Fast, lightweight, and simple to use.
- The Network devices and server monitoring from a centralized place.
- System problem alerts.
- Network device tracking.
- Devices connected to your network are discovered.
- Creates a network topology map automatically based on gathered devices.
2. ManageEngine OpManager
ManageEngine OpManager is one of the best network monitoring tools since it monitors real-time multi-vendor network device performance. In addition, it has several exceptional features, such as active administration of real servers, storage arrays, RAID, virtual machines, etc. The following features of this software support its position on our list.
Features
- More than 9500 templates for network device monitoring.
- Sends advanced notifications and alerts by SMS and email.
- Personalized dashboard through more than 100 performance widgets.
- A smartphone app for simple network administration.
- Network infrastructure monitoring in its whole through contextual integrations.
- Monitoring latency, packet loss, and WAN/VoIP effectiveness.
- Automatic troubleshooting is available.
- SSL offload and multi-user cooperation.
3. Network Bandwidth Analyzer
One of the top network monitoring tools, the Network Bandwidth Analyzer, is next on our list. It helps decrease network outages by swiftly identifying, diagnosing, and resolving network performance problems. Features like quick IPv6 and IPv4 flow record reading are another reason for placing this software on our list. The following are some additional notable features of this software.
Features
- Simple to monitor Juniper J-Flow, IPFIX flow data, Huawei NetStream, and Cisco NetFlow to discover bandwidth-intensive apps and protocols.
- Notifies you of changes in app traffic.
- Sends an alarm if the network monitor software is not providing network performance statistics.
- Collects and transforms the traffic data into a useful format.
- Supports VMware vSphere switch.
- Support for Cisco NBAR2 is included.
- Simple schedule creation, in-depth bandwidth report delivery, and network traffic analysis.
- Support for wireless network administration and monitoring.
- CBQoS policy optimization to assess the effectiveness of pre- and post-policy traffic levels.
4. Zabbix
While reviewing the best free open source network monitor software, we must recognize Zabbix. It analyses previous data to anticipate future behavior. This software delivers essential information like network use, storage space consumption, and CPU load. An Automatic detection of device configuration changes and the features beneath make Zabbix one of the best free network monitoring tools.
Features
- Windows data collecting is versatile and extensible.
- Various metrics gathering techniques and methodologies.
- Network bandwidth utilization may be easily monitored.
- Zabbix agents’ automatic finding of networks.
- SNMP protocol and protocol agents are supported.
- A smartphone app and several templates are available.
- Device configuration updates are automatically detected.
- Predicts patterns in bandwidth utilization, network outages, and more.
- Active network connection anomaly detection.
- Custom report remediation routines are created.
- Event correlation is a feature that reduces notification noise.
- Tailored escalation scenarios.
5. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
On the list of the best free network monitoring software, Paessler PRTG Network Monitor is in the second position. You may scan connected devices by IP range with this user-friendly, feature-rich, and quick software (it saves you time from manually configuring everything). Paessler PRTG Network Monitor has the following features regarding the best network monitoring tools.
Features
- Auto-discovery of networks.
- Status error alerts.
- Capable of monitoring wireless networks.
- Monitoring of the network, app, traffic, and cloud.
- User-friendly UI with color coding.
- Monitoring of internet connections between places and remote sites.
- Create custom reports and views with ease using the drag-and-drop editor.
- Interoperability with third-party apps like Slack.
6. Nagios Core
The best free network monitoring software with open source availability is Nagios Core, which we want to mention next. The user interface of this software is its most appealing feature. It adheres to a basic design and web-based Interface to assist you in conveniently analyzing the state of your critical services and network infrastructure. Therefore, it would be best if you browsed over the following features of this software before making up your mind about downloading it.
Features
- Use the powerful Nagios Core 4 monitoring engine to assure top-notch monitoring server performance.
- Robust dashboards to monitor data and information from external parties.
- Its graphical user interface allows for layout, style, and preference customization.
- Multi-tenant capabilities.
- Allows you to view and handle network issues quickly.
- The dashboard provides a customized overview of network hosts, services, and devices.
- Graphs for capacity planning that are automated and integrated.
- There are several infrastructure management tools, including automated decommissioning and mass acknowledgment.
- Configuration snapshots allow you to store, archive, and revert your setup.
Conclusion:
The best network monitoring tools are rundown in this article. To choose the best software, review the programs mentioned above and compare their features to your own. If you believe our list of the best free network monitoring tools needs to include any suitable software, please add it in the comments area. Also, give your views on this article in the comments section.