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Nagios vs Sensu: What are the differences?

Introduction

Nagios and Sensu are both open-source monitoring tools used to monitor the infrastructure and applications of an organization. While they serve a similar purpose, there are key differences between the two.

  1. Architecture: Nagios follows a centralized architecture, where a single server collects and processes monitoring data. In contrast, Sensu follows a distributed architecture, where multiple agents collect data and forward it to a central server. This distributed architecture allows for greater scalability and flexibility in deployment.

  2. Scalability: Nagios has limitations in terms of scalability, especially when monitoring a large number of devices or services. It is known to be resource-intensive and may struggle to handle high loads. Sensu, on the other hand, is designed to be highly scalable, thanks to its distributed architecture. It can handle a larger number of devices and services without sacrificing performance.

  3. Configuration Management: Nagios relies on declarative configuration files that need to be manually updated whenever changes are made. This can be cumbersome and time-consuming, especially in large environments. Sensu, however, leverages configuration management tools like Puppet or Chef, allowing for automated and dynamic configuration updates. This makes managing and maintaining monitoring configurations much easier.

  4. Flexibility: Nagios provides a predefined set of monitoring plugins and functionalities, limiting its flexibility in customization. Sensu, on the other hand, offers more flexibility by allowing users to write their own plugins in various programming languages. This flexibility enables organizations to tailor their monitoring solutions to their specific needs.

  5. Support for Modern Technologies: Nagios originated in the late 1990s and may not have native support for newer technologies like cloud infrastructure or containerization. Sensu, being a relatively newer tool, has better support for these modern technologies, including integrations with popular cloud providers and container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes.

  6. Monitoring Approach: Nagios primarily follows an active monitoring approach, where it actively checks the status of devices/services at defined intervals. Sensu, on the other hand, supports both active and passive monitoring approaches. In passive monitoring, monitored devices/services send data to Sensu whenever a specific event occurs, allowing for more reactive monitoring and alerting.

In summary, Nagios and Sensu differ in their architecture, scalability, configuration management, flexibility, support for modern technologies, and monitoring approaches. While Nagios is known for its centralized architecture and limited scalability, Sensu offers a distributed architecture, better scalability, automated configuration management, flexibility, support for modern technologies, and the ability to perform both active and passive monitoring.

Decisions about Nagios and Sensu
Matthias Fleschütz
Teamlead IT at NanoTemper Technologies · | 2 upvotes · 123.8K views
  • free open source
  • modern interface and architecture
  • large community
  • extendable I knew Nagios for decades but it was really outdated (by its architecture) at some point. That's why Icinga started first as a fork, not with Icinga2 it is completely built from scratch but backward-compatible with Nagios plugins. Now it has reached a state with which I am confident.
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Pros of Nagios
Pros of Sensu
  • 53
    It just works
  • 28
    The standard
  • 12
    Customizable
  • 8
    The Most flexible monitoring system
  • 1
    Huge stack of free checks/plugins to choose from
  • 13
    Support for almost anything
  • 11
    Easy setup
  • 9
    Message routing
  • 7
    Devs can code their own checks
  • 5
    Ease of use
  • 4
    Price
  • 3
    Nagios plugin compatibility
  • 3
    Easy configuration, scales well and performance is good
  • 1
    Written in Go

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Cons of Nagios
Cons of Sensu
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    • 1
      Plugins
    • 1
      Written in Go

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    What is Nagios?

    Nagios is a host/service/network monitoring program written in C and released under the GNU General Public License.

    What is Sensu?

    Sensu is the future-proof solution for multi-cloud monitoring at scale. The Sensu monitoring event pipeline empowers businesses to automate their monitoring workflows and gain deep visibility into their multi-cloud environments.

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    Blog Posts

    Jun 26 2018 at 3:26AM

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    What are some alternatives to Nagios and Sensu?
    Zabbix
    Zabbix is a mature and effortless enterprise-class open source monitoring solution for network monitoring and application monitoring of millions of metrics.
    Splunk
    It provides the leading platform for Operational Intelligence. Customers use it to search, monitor, analyze and visualize machine data.
    Icinga
    It monitors availability and performance, gives you simple access to relevant data and raises alerts to keep you in the loop. It was originally created as a fork of the Nagios system monitoring application.
    Solarwinds
    Developed by network and systems engineers who know what it takes to manage today's dynamic IT environments, SolarWinds has a deep connection to the IT community.
    AppDynamics
    AppDynamics develops application performance management (APM) solutions that deliver problem resolution for highly distributed applications through transaction flow monitoring and deep diagnostics.
    See all alternatives