If you combine enterprise network monitoring tools with industry best practices for network management, you’ll gain fuller visibility over your assets and establish a healthier network environment. Depending on your company’s security requirements and levels of risk, you can get advanced network monitoring features or just the basics with our picks for the top tools. Top network monitoring tools: Comparison table We have a more detailed look at each product below, but if you’re looking to quickly compare these tools in a few key areas, here’s a comparison table of all the products we’ll cover: Software Starting price for paid plans Forever free plan available Free trial available Business size Supported platforms Deployment options Progress WhatsUp Gold $899 per year for 50 devices Yes Yes. Any business size. Windows Server. Cloud or on-premises. Cacti $0 Yes No, but the software is free. Small businesses. Windows, Mac OS/X, Linux, Unix and any platform that meets the minimum requirements. Cloud or on-premises. Nagios $2,495 per year for 100 nodes Yes Yes. Small to medium-sized businesses. Windows, Mac OS/X and Linux/Unix. Cloud or on-premises. Zabbix $0 Yes No, but the software is free. Large businesses. Linux, IBM AIX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS/X, Solaris, Windows and HP-UX. Cloud or on-premises. ManageEngine OpManager $245 for 25 devices Yes Yes. Large businesses. Windows, Linux or Chrome/Firefox/Edge browsers. Cloud or on-premises. Datadog $15 per host per month Yes Yes. Medium-to-large-sized businesses. Linux, Mac OS and Windows. Cloud or on-premises. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor $2,149 per year for ~50 devices No Yes. Any business size. Windows Server and Windows 10/11. Cloud or on-premises. Wireshark $0 Yes No, but the software is free. Any business size. Windows Server, Windows 8/8.1/10/11 and Unix/Unix-like platforms. Cloud or on-premises. 1 Site24x7 Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Alerts / Notifications, Analytics / Reporting, Application Performance Monitoring (APM), and more 2 ManageEngine Log360 Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Micro (0-49 Employees), Medium (250-999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Small (50-249 Employees) Micro, Medium, Enterprise, Large, Small Features Activity Monitoring, Blacklisting, Dashboard, and more Progress WhatsUp Gold: Best overall Image: Progress WhatsUp Gold logo. Source: Progress WhatsUp Gold. Progress’s WhatsUp Gold is an IT infrastructure monitoring solution that gives users full visibility into everything connected to their network. You’ll be able to see your servers, virtual machines, network devices, and cloud and wireless environments. This approach will help you make better diagnostic decisions when fixing network or component-specific problems. SEE: How to Create an Effective Cybersecurity Awareness Program (TechRepublic Premium) This is an SNMP-based network monitoring solution that you can expand with different add-ons. A great benefit of this platform is that it’s easy to use. Thanks to its interactive map, you’ll easily get the information you need to evaluate the status of your devices. Pricing Progress WhatsUp Gold does disclose starting prices on its website, but you’ll need to contact the sales department for a more accurate quote. There are three paid plans in addition to the forever free edition: Free edition: $0 for up to 10 devices. Business: starts at $899 for 50 devices. Enterprise: starts at $1,499 for 50 devices. Enterprise Plus: starts at $2,199 for 50 devices. Standout features Image: WhatsUp Gold dashboard. Source: Progress WhatsUp Gold. Popular features of this platform include: Log management. Alerts. Configuration management. Cloud-based resources. Application performance monitoring. Wireless network management. Flowmon NPMD/NDR. Network performance monitoring. Network mapping. Pros and cons Pros Cons It’s suitable for any business size or industry background. The number of features may be overwhelming for some users. The interface is user-friendly. It may be complex to manage your notifications. There are plenty of accessible and useful features. It can be costly, depending on the plan you select. Use cases I recommend this tool for any business that is willing to test or demo the solution first. It has plenty of basic and advanced features that cater to most needs, but you’ll still want to get a feel for its capabilities before committing. Why I chose Progress WhatsUp Gold I chose WhatsUp Gold because it offers a modular pricing system that lets companies pick and choose the extra features they need. I also like its modern UX and interactive network mapping, which helps companies build the right monitoring system for their specific needs. Cacti: Best bare bones option Image: Cacti Cacti is a monitoring and fault management framework that integrates with the Simple Network Management Protocol and is useful for making graphical representations of network traffic. While it’s built for statistical modeling, the tool is a good option for those with the technical chops to integrate their SNMP data. Cacti offers six built-in themes for you to customize your experience and has been translated into many languages. Pricing Cacti is a forever free tool released under the GNU General Public License. Standout features Image: Cacti dashboard. Source: Cacti. Cacti is an advanced template-based solution that allows you to work with the following features: Device templates. Graphs and graph templates. Data source management. Profiles. Data polling and collection. Packaging. Discovery and automation. Different graph-viewing options. Plugins. Group and domain management. An intuitive dashboard. Pros and cons Pros Cons It’s free. Features are limited for many business use cases and requirements. It’s RRDTool-based. The user interface is simple; some users may find it dated. The graphs are based on the SNMP protocol. Use cases Cacti is recommended for small businesses that may not need a complex network device monitoring service. Even though the platform offers plenty of features, others may give you a better experience via automations or quality-of-life updates. SEE: Best Home Network Monitoring Options (TechRepublic Forums) Why I picked Cacti Cacti is a free tool with the capabilities to provide the basic functions of network monitoring, provided that your team has staff that can understand statistical modeling and can connect and maintain the