Best Server Monitoring Software
Server monitoring software facilitates the monitoring and tracking of a server’s performance. This enables users to identify and solve any application hosting and performance issues as well as track changes in the server’s function. This is made possible through monitoring elements such as CPU usage, memory allocation, and more, and then comparing the monitored items to performance benchmarks set either by the software itself or by server administrators.
Server monitoring tools are used by server administrators to optimize server performance and pinpoint issues to prevent downtime. These tools will often integrate with IT alerting software, log analysis software, and other IT issue resolution products to more aptly flesh out the IT infrastructure maintenance ecosystem.
To qualify for inclusion in the Server Monitoring category, a product must:
Best Server Monitoring Software At A Glance
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- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
New Relic invented cloud APM for application engineers. Today it is a leader in observability and source of truth for all engineers to make decisions with data across their entire software stack and t
- Software Engineer
- Senior Software Engineer
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer Software
- 45% Mid-Market
- 30% Small-Business
- Reviewers appreciate the ability to monitor performance and reliability of all their various application with New Relic
- Reviewers mention the quantity and frequent addition of helpful features, but some noted that features feel incomplete or overwhelming
- Reviewers like the ability to easily customize alerts, and the automated alerts the tool provides
68,174 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- User Satisfaction
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Datadog is the monitoring, security and analytics platform for developers, IT operations teams, security engineers and business users in the cloud age. The SaaS platform integrates and automates infra
- Software Engineer
- DevOps Engineer
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer Software
- 48% Mid-Market
- 32% Enterprise
- Reviewers like the way that Datadog provides a centralized view of their entire organizational infrastructure
- Reviewers often highlight the ability to view specific logs in realtime, and pinpoint issues that may be occurring
- Reviewers like the ability to ingest, monitor, and analyze many types of data in the platform
49,771 Twitter followers
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ManageEngine OpManager is a holistic blend of network monitoring tools that help you manage your entire network in minutes. Along with network monitoring, be able to analyse bandwidth, manage configur
- IT Manager
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 59% Mid-Market
- 34% Enterprise
7,686 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- User Satisfaction
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Checkmk is a comprehensive IT monitoring system that enables system administrators, IT managers, and DevOps teams to identify issues across their entire IT infrastructure (servers, applications, netwo
- IT Engineer
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 43% Enterprise
- 39% Mid-Market
1,760 Twitter followers
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With more than 50,000 customer installations across the five continents, Pandora FMS is an out-of-the-box monitoring solution. Pandora FMS gives you the agility to find and solve problems quickly,
- Data Analyst
- Information Technology and Services
- Telecommunications
- 48% Mid-Market
- 36% Small-Business
5,579 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- User Satisfaction
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ManageEngine Applications Manager is an application performance & IT infrastructure monitoring solution that is designed to combat modern infrastructure problems and ensure that your business and
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer Software
- 46% Enterprise
- 44% Mid-Market
7,686 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
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Progress WhatsUp Gold, the IT infrastructure monitoring software, lets you find and fix network problems fast – usually before end users notice. Its unique, interactive mapping interface lets you intu
- Network Engineer
- Network Administrator
- Information Technology and Services
- Hospital & Health Care
- 59% Mid-Market
- 26% Enterprise
- Reviewers like the centralized network, application, and virtual machine monitoring that Progress WhatsUp Gold provides
- Reviewers like the detailed information about all network devices, but some wish there was better automatic discovery of devices
- Reviewers like the ability to receive quick alerts, but wish there was more default alerts that don’t require setup
50,056 Twitter followers
- Overview
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Pulseway is RMM software, built to help MSPs and IT teams reduce downtime, take control and become more efficient. Pulseway provides all-in-one IT monitoring and management software, filled with featu
- IT Manager
- Owner
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 54% Small-Business
- 40% Mid-Market
- Reviewers often mention the quality of support teams and product teams at Pulseway with helpful support and innovations
- Reviewers appreciate the competitive pricing of the tool, but some have mentioned features are lacking compared to other solutions
- Reviewers appreciate the ability to monitor important data points using the mobile app
6,210 Twitter followers
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SolarWinds® Observability is a full-stack observability solution that addresses the needs of modern organizations of all sizes by providing deep visibility into their hybrid ecosystems while affording
- Network Engineer
- Network Administrator
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer Software
- 46% Enterprise
- 37% Mid-Market
19,990 Twitter followers
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Netdata is a high-performance, open-source observability platform designed for real-time monitoring of modern infrastructures. It delivers per-second insights into your systems, containers, and applic
- Information Technology and Services
- 53% Mid-Market
- 44% Small-Business
4,103 Twitter followers
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- What G2 Users Think
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Paessler PRTG is a real-time unified infrastructure monitoring solution that enables IT Pros to locate problems throughout their entire network and resolve them before they escalate and become busines
- System Administrator
- Network Administrator
- Information Technology and Services
- Telecommunications
- 65% Mid-Market
- 22% Enterprise
- Reviewers like PRTG Network Monitor’s ability to deploy sensors across their network, but noted that setup process can be time consuming
- Reviewers appreciate the ability to monitor internal and external services and servers in one place
- Reviewers find the bandwidth monitoring features of PRTG Network Monitor helpful
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cPanel & WHM is the industry-standard software solution for Webhosting Automation and Server Management. Web hosts love cPanel & WHM because it reduces their server maintenance and user manage
- Web Developer
- Owner
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer Software
- 79% Small-Business
- 20% Mid-Market
29,122 Twitter followers
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ServerAvatar is a user-friendly server and application management platform designed to simplify the deployment, management of servers and applications. ServerAvatar allows you to easily configure and
- Information Technology and Services
- 100% Small-Business
176 Twitter followers
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Zabbix is an all-in-one, open-source monitoring solution that makes any hardware, software, service, or web application more efficient and reliable. Available on-premise and in the cloud, Zabbix c
- Information Technology and Services
- Telecommunications
- 61% Mid-Market
- 28% Enterprise
9,898 Twitter followers
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Sematext Cloud is an innovative, unified platform with all-in-one solutions for infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring, log management, real user monitoring, and synthetic monit
- Information Technology and Services
- 47% Mid-Market
- 45% Small-Business
3,858 Twitter followers
Learn More About Server Monitoring Software
What is Server Monitoring Software?
Server monitoring is the process of monitoring and tracking a physical or virtual server performance. Server monitoring software allows a user to continually assess server utilization rates (uptime and downtime) and help identify performance issues. A vital feature is its ability to monitor several server metrics in real time, which include CPU utilization, memory allocation, hardware health, and response time. Tracking server metrics lets the user analyze usage patterns and identify errors, thereby allowing more time for troubleshooting solutions instead of searching for causes. The software allows the user to collect extensive details on hardware health which is not easily available from server operating systems, and view data from a single interface. Server monitoring software has become a staple for many companies as they continue to grow and expand their data center and computing powers across the globe.
Server monitoring software is based on the server operating system that is being used, which includes Windows, Linux, Unix, and other OS deployments. The server monitoring tool is used to analyze the performance of Linux processes or Windows services which permits systems administrators to understand the load on system resources. For Windows monitoring, users will be able to gain several insights on critical Windows performance metrics such as memory, disk usage, and CPU utilization. Under Linux monitoring, users will be able to monitor server metrics such as thread count and load average.
Server monitoring software should be able to alert a user immediately when a fault occurs in order to prevent downtime. In case a fault occurs when the server passes a certain threshold limit, it immediately alerts the user by sending instant notifications via on-screen displays, email, SMS, and Slack alerts. Some server monitoring software also allows users to set up remedial actions (such as shutting down a server or offloading tasks to another server) to be taken in case of any fault.
What are the Common Features of Server Monitoring Software?
Server monitoring software is a great way to ensure that all servers are running smoothly and that there are no issues that could cause a possible downtime. The following are some core metrics within server monitoring that can help users keep track of their servers’ health:
CPU utilization: This is the key feature that the software must be able to efficiently perform. A server monitoring solution should be able to monitor the load on the CPU.
Since the CPU is the processing center of the server, any fault or issues in the CPU performance could lead to a slowdown of the server which could eventually crash. In addition, heavy CPU usage will lead to poor memory utilization further decreasing the health of the server.
Disk usage: This feature allows a user to analyze how much disk space is left for usage. It helps to identify what are the applications or processes that are taking up the highest space and provides solutions to prevent complete usage of disk space. It allows the user to make simple and efficient capacity planning decisions.
In addition to disk space, server monitoring software should also be able to track RAM usage. Since the data in RAM is stored only for a short while, it only tracks the data that is being actively used. This inherently allows the software to keep track of system upgrades and cached memory (so the user knows when it’s time to clear cache if there is a system slow down).
Network monitoring and analysis: Servers are the backbone of the IT environment, which is connected to a large computer network across the globe. To do a manual network check across every single connection point is an impossible task for humans, and that is where the software plays a key role. This feature tests, collects, processes, and builds a database of network statistics that can be used to derive insights and analysis. This would also include monitoring firewalls.
Error rate detection and analysis: Error rate is the number of issues that occur relative to the total error requests. By analyzing the error rate of a server, it provides the user an opportunity to identify possible errors before they occur and prevent any downtime. Although the acceptable standard error rate is less than 1%, it would be ideal to ensure that there are little to no errors.
Bandwidth analysis: Bandwidth is the amount of information that is sent over a certain period of time. For a server that keeps processing data both inwards and outwards, it is a key feature to see which of the applications are taking up the most bandwidth. Taking up more bandwidth would lead to the server slowing down, causing reduced application performance. By being able to track the bandwidth consumed by an application, a user will be able to reduce congestion and bottlenecks and ensure the smooth running of the server.
Bandwidth monitoring can be done via three options—packet sniffing, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), and netflow. SNMP is the ideal solution for simple bandwidth monitoring requirements. SNMP-based server monitoring solution would collect information or transmit and receive values within the network device interfaces. SNMP is a great tool for making capacity planning decisions. For Windows servers, users can also opt for Windows Management Interface (WMI) which is a Microsoft protocol, specifically designed for Microsoft-based network management, servers (such as SQL servers), Azure stacks, virtualized environments, and workstations.
Another additional and interesting feature that bandwidth analysis allows is to ensure that there are no data breaches in the IT system, in which hackers would abuse the network by taking up the bandwidth. A sudden spike or increase in bandwidth usage could help identify perpetrators, and system admins can immediately take the necessary course of action.
Dashboards: Having a customizable dashboard or template as part of a server monitoring solution has become a necessity. There are several templates for server application monitoring platforms for Unix, Linux, and Windows servers. The dashboard provides powerful visualization of data in different, personalized ways. It empowers the user to analyze the data and provide data-driven recommendations and suggestions. Other inclusions consist of a suite of analysis tools and APIs that enable secure integration with other third-party applications. This software also comes with an easy web interface that allows the admin to configure and control the dashboard as per preferences.
Remote access: With working from home becoming the new norm, it has become a key feature for server monitoring software to act as a medium between the user and the server, when the user cannot go physically to the server room. Providing remote access would allow users to fix several problems by taking control of the devices attached to the network, without leaving the comfort of their homes. In addition, several enterprises have thousands of servers installed in data centers at far-off locations, which makes it physically impossible to check each and every server manually. Server monitoring systems allow the concerned team to keep track of all the servers from a single point.
Server availability: Server monitoring software also allows the user to identify which are the servers being severely over or underutilized. This will allow admins to set up a contingency plan in place in case there is a possibility of server failure. For instance, a server monitoring software would be able to track the servers that have low free disk space, if it's in a critical or warning state, if device temperature is too high or too low, fan working is in a critical state, etc., and would ideally offload few workloads to additional servers that are being underutilized.
Track configuration changes: Some server monitoring systems have additional benefits such as keeping track of any configuration changes such as new plugins, add-ons, removed or replaced components, track upgrades, etc.
What are the Benefits of Server Monitoring Software?
Measures server health: The server monitoring software tracks each metric, from CPU optimization to memory usage, disk allocation, response time, and several others. It ensures that the server is healthy and there are no issues causing a slowdown of the system. Users can keep track of all components from a vantage point.
Promptly identifying server issues: Real-time server monitoring software sends our prompts, alerting the user that there is an issue. This helps the user to be proactive. For numerous businesses that cannot afford downtime which could lead to huge monetary losses, this software helps to keep servers functional at 100% efficiency without any lapses. In addition, this leads to quicker, more effective troubleshooting.
Continuous business operations: By using server monitoring systems, companies are able to run daily functions without any issues by monitoring uptime and downtime. For example, in a situation where a company website does not work properly and faces an outage, the server monitoring software would immediately alert the user and necessary action will be taken. This allows the website to be up and running within no time, thereby preventing the company from losing website traffic.
Providing performance monitoring: Performance statistics allow a user to analyze real-time data along with historical data and pinpoint causes and reasons that could cause a failure of the system.
Seamless integration with other IT software: Server monitoring services are easily integrated with various software such as log analysis software, IT alert system software, IT issue resolution software, and others. Its data is used in collaboration with other tools for developing a solid IT infrastructure ecosystem.
Recognize security breaches: A sudden spike in data processing or bandwidth consumption could help the user to spot suspicious activity take preemptive actions.
Open-source tools: Open-source tools are software programs or tools that are free for several users to use without requiring a commercial license. Several server monitoring software are open-source tools and therefore, users do not have to face significant costs to procure. Open-source tools are also a good option to look out for since it allows the software to be highly scalable making it future ready. They also come with a series of plugins and add-ons for additional functionality.
Who Uses Server Monitoring Software?
IT teams (administration, development, and support): By using server monitoring tools, the IT team can easily be alerted in case of any errors that arise and can make quick decisions to reduce downtime. The alerts are sent to the system administrator, who then raises them with the concerned system engineers to look into. The system engineers will be able to troubleshoot and solve the application performance and hosting issues, as well as changes in the server’s function. The team can also set performance monitoring benchmarks in order to maintain server efficiency.
Executive team: Data-driven decisions allow business professionals to use verified data towards achieving business goals. By using the data that the server monitoring systems provide (via dashboards or templates, or integrating the software with various other systems), the executive team can proactively derive insights from data visualization. Executive teams can use this information to evaluate risks, analyze efficiencies, and track return on investment (ROI).
Security management specialists: The team can use the data tracked by the server monitoring services to ensure that all servers are secure and are not compromised. The team would also be able to eliminate any risks even before they occur. In addition, this is extremely helpful when there are multiple servers to be monitored at various locations.
What are the Alternatives to Server Monitoring Software?
Alternatives to server monitoring software can replace this type of software, either partially or completely:
Enterprise monitoring software: Enterprise monitoring software offers a single view approach to keep track of all IT environments within an enterprise, which includes servers, storage, networks, database management, and several others. The data can be accessed via a single dashboard. Since this approach allows complete infrastructure monitoring, various users can benefit from viewing data in a single frame rather than depending on separate server monitoring solutions.
Hardware monitoring software: Hardware monitoring software is used to track the performance of hardware components which include CPU performance, fan speeds that are core components for servers. The software sends alerts to the user in case of any potential problems. The usage of hardware monitoring software allows the user to immediately pinpoint the error source and take necessary actions such as replacement of a faulty part.
Log monitoring software: Log monitoring software scans and monitors log files generated by servers and networks. The software is used to detect unusual patterns in the log files and generate alerts to inform the user.
Challenges with Server Monitoring Software
Server monitoring software solutions can come with their own set of challenges:
Managing an increasing number of servers: Paramount importance is being given to IT infrastructure, driven by the sudden need to work from home and ensure business continuity. Companies are heavily investing in expanding their server infrastructure in order to support high-speed data processing, file transfers, and smooth operations. As the number of servers increases, it becomes difficult for server monitoring software to scale to keep up with the rate of servers being added, and therefore also need to be updated continuously.
Hardware health and environment issues: There are some issues that can happen beyond the control of the admins such as power outages, UPS failure, temperature and humidity levels in a data center, failure of the cooling system, fan breakdown which are hard to control.
Alert blindness: Alert blindness is a situation that occurs when the users receive several alerts from server monitoring tools that with time, could potentially be ignored due to its repetitiveness. In such a scenario, there is a huge challenge for users to actually identify severe issues that need immediate attention.
To solve this challenge, the ideal solution would be to set threshold notifications for different components. Recheck intervals can also be set in place to ensure that the errors are recurring or a one-time situation. In addition, situations wherein automated responses can be set in place will also help to save a lot of time. For example, if a web server fails and the website freezes, server monitoring tools could be set up automatically to do a force restart, and then check whether the issue is solved. If not, it can then alert the required system administrators to check on what is causing the errors.
Limitation with seeing the bigger picture: System administrators would use the software to answer the question “Is my server working correctly, and if not, what can I do to fix it?”. Although this is the core capability of the software, there is a challenge of not looking at the bigger picture where the data and insight pulled from the monitoring software can factor well into strategic business decisions.
How to Buy Server Monitoring Software
Server monitoring software needs to have one common goal, which is to monitor the server's health and alert the user in case of any errors. There are numerous factors that need to be considered before making the purchase of the software:
Align with business desires and budgets: The primary goal when making a purchase decision to opt for a server monitoring solution is to ensure to pick a software that is well aligned with the buyer’s business desire and budget. For instance, if a buyer has a smaller budget and only requires software to maintain server health they can opt for a free version or a basic offering with minimum features. Conversely, if a buyer requires software that can handle a gamut of operations as well as run large advanced tasks, they can opt for a more sophisticated and feature-rich server monitoring software.
Environment surveys: The buyer needs to scrutinize their company IT systems environment and applications in order to choose the right server monitoring software. This would include whether these servers are on premises or virtual servers (on the cloud), location of the servers, etc. Buyers that have several servers located physically or virtually would require server monitoring software since it would be extremely difficult to manage each one separately.
Future planning: As companies continue to grow and expand operations, it is necessary that buyers choose software that can support current server requirements and also any future upgrades. It is a good practice to check with the software vendor if the monitoring software can support the buyer in the long term as well. This is extremely important in order to ensure hardware compatibility in the future as well.
Compare the list of server monitoring software: Once the customer has decided that they require server monitoring tools to help keep track of server health and budgets have been set, the next step would be to make a long list of the best server monitoring software that are presently available in the market. Long lists help to eliminate software that does not provide critical functionality, thereby reducing the list to be more compact and precise. Once the list has been narrowed down, the customer can begin to compare different features and offerings of the server monitoring software as per the company needs. Pricing decisions are also taken to ensure that the software selected fits in the IT budget. A highly efficient method of comparing various server monitoring software would be to opt for technology review platforms such as g2.com, that provide unbiased reviews and also provide different perspectives on the benefits or issues with various server monitoring software.
Live demos or trial versions: Once the list has been further narrowed down, customers can then opt to check if the server monitoring software vendors are providing a live demo, or a free trial version (with limited functionality). This is a great way for buyers to ensure that the server monitoring software is the right choice for the customer, and can use the trial versions before finally committing to the purchase decision.
Invest in training: When opting for a new software, it is a good idea to check with the software vendor if they can provide training for the employees that would be using the software on a regular basis. Employees would face a learning curve when handling complex new server monitoring tools, and by providing training it would help the users to get acclimated to the monitoring software quicker.
