OpenNMS vs PRTG

In a galaxy not terribly far away, where network devices blink in silent conversation and IT departments teeter on the edge of panic, two mighty beings battle for supremacy: OpenNMS and PRTG. OpenNMS, the elder statesman of the pair, strides confidently across the vast plains of enterprise-grade network monitoring. It is open-source, scalable and capable of discovering every gadget, gizmo and widget in your infrastructure, whether you want it to or not. With the flick of a digital wrist, it can monitor performance, manage events and generate reports so comprehensive you’ll wonder if it’s secretly sentient. This colossal flexibility makes OpenNMS ideal for those who need their network tools to be as customizable as a wardrobe in a Douglas Adams universe—because why settle for monitoring when you could be tweaking it into oblivion?

Meanwhile, PRTG floats by with the breezy confidence of a network monitoring tool that has no need for such existential complexities. It’s slick, it’s commercial and it gets the job done without requiring users to journey through a labyrinth of endless configuration. With a user-friendly interface and sensors pre-built for just about everything, PRTG is the perfect companion for those who prefer their monitoring simple, fast and with as little hassle as humanly—or indeed, inhumanly—possible. It’s the tool you use when you want to spend your time sipping tea, rather than engaging in endless battles with SNMP traps and performance thresholds.

See also: Top 10 IT Monitoring software