PRTG vs Cacti

Datadog

WhatsUp Gold

Zabbix

Network Performance Monitor

ManageEngine OpManager Plus

AppNeta

Compare PRTG and Cacti based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitoring software makes it easy to quickly detect, diagnose, and resolve performance issues before outages occur. It delivers real-time views and dashboards that enable you to visually track and monitor network performance at a glance.

Zabbix offers great performance for data gathering and can be scaled to very large environments. Distributed monitoring options are available with the use of Zabbix proxies. Zabbix comes with a web-based interface, secure user authentication and a flexible user permission schema. Polling and trapping is supported, with native high performance agents gathering data from virtually any popular operating system; agent-less monitoring methods are available as well.

Progress WhatsUp Gold lets you find and fix network problems fast – usually, before end users notice. Its unique, interactive mapping interface lets you intuitively see up/down availability and performance at-a-glance for everything connected to your network, both on-premises and in the cloud.

PRTG monitors your network 24/7 to timely alert you to issues before they become emergencies.

Monitor all the systems, devices, traffic, and applications in your IT infrastructure.

Everything is included with PRTG; there is no need for additional plugins or downloads.

PRTG is a powerful and easy!

Access Controls/Permissions

Activity Dashboard

Activity Tracking

Alerts/Escalation

Alerts/Notifications

Audit Management

Bandwidth Monitoring

Baseline Manager

Bottleneck Identification

Capacity Management

Capacity Planning

Configuration Management

Connectivity Management

Container Monitoring

Continuous Monitoring

CPU Monitoring

Customizable Branding

Customizable Dashboard

Customizable Reports

Dashboard

Dashboard Creation

Data Collection

Data Connectors

Data Import/Export

Data Management

Data Storage Management

Data Visualization

Database Monitoring

Device Auto Discovery

Device Management

Diagnostic Tools

Downtime Tracking

Drag & Drop

Email Alerts

Email Monitoring

Event Analysis

Event Logs

Event Tracking

Event Triggered Actions

For MSPs

Incident Management

Inventory Management

IP Address Monitoring

Issue Auditing

Issue Management

Issue Tracking

IT Asset Management

IT Asset Tracking

IT Incident Management

IT Reporting

License Management

Maintenance Scheduling

Monitoring

Multi-Location Monitoring

Multiple Data Sources

Network Analysis

Network Monitoring

Network Resource Management

Patch Management

Performance Metrics

Performance Monitoring

Policy Management

Power Management

Prioritization

Real-time Alerts

Real-Time Analytics

Real-Time Data

Real-Time Monitoring

Real-Time Notifications

Real-Time Reporting

Real-Time Updates

Remote Access/Control

Remote Monitoring & Management

Reporting & Statistics

Reporting/Analytics

Resource Management

Risk Alerts

Role-Based Permissions

Search/Filter

Secure Data Storage

Server Monitoring

Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

SSL Security

Status Tracking

Third-Party Integrations

Threshold Alerts

Transaction Monitoring

Trend Analysis

Troubleshooting

Uptime Reporting

Usage Tracking/Analytics

User Management

Visual Analytics

Visualization

Vulnerability Scanning

Web Traffic Reporting

Workflow Management

PRTG

Android

Web-based

Windows

iPad

iPhone

They sporadically experienced strange bandwidth problems and the cable provider didn't solve the problem within months.

Information Technology

Easy to use, the free version of the software provides a good number of sensors to work with and easy to integrate.

Senior Director of IT

The customer service is fantastic. It's very configurable and once you learn the basic setup it's easy to set up new systems and services.

Systems Engineer

I love the licensing model for PRTG. I can just buy a bulk set of sensors and then I can "spend" those sensors in any way that I like.

Project Manager

Great for proactive monitoring or short term troubleshooting of network issues.

Owner

After paying them for support all this time I am done with this company, they are a scam.

Network Admin

PRTG has a lot of customization ability and can monitor almost anything with the right know how. From very simple stuff like SNMP to script based monitoring and alerting this software can do anything.

Director, Consulting Engineer

The free version software is also of high quality. Very easy to discover devices on your network.

Network Services Manager

Great Software easy to use and get up and running in minutes.

DevOps

Windows based, and sometimes it's awkward to manage lots of linux machines with it - especially when the monitoring requires scripts to run on the remote machines.

Engineer

Very good features to monitor and probe network devices for uptime and alerts. Ticketing system and Notification system.

IT Supervisor

It is software that helps simple monitoring of prtg systems. Prtg is very easy to use and install.

Director of Technology

The dashboards with clear warnings combined with email notifications give us a clear picture of trouble spots.

Initial configuration for first time user may be a little confusing. Pricing is also on the high end.

Network engineer

I work in IT and have promoted your software to many small businesses as it is so easy to integrate and give valuable information regarding local networks.

Systems Administrator

The ability to quickly create monitors and configure alarms based on those monitors.

Network Security Engineer 

Product was good but customer support is not on prompt.

If you make sure your infrastructure fits within PRTG's pricing model and you do not go over the # of sensors you buy, it can be a valuable asset in daily Sysadmin life.

PRTG screenshot: Hierarchical Management of Devices and Sensors

PRTG screenshot: Classify Bandwidth Usage by IP, Protocol or Connection

PRTG screenshot: Network-wide Monitoring of Traffic, Usage, Performance and Availability

PRTG screenshot: Device Monitoring

PRTG screenshot: Network Charting

PRTG screenshot: Network Mapping

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Public Administrations

Small Business

AppNeta is a SaaS-based application & network performance platform that allows continuous monitoring of end-user experience across any app, network or cloud

ManageEngine OpManager Plus is an AIOps software designed to help businesses monitor networks, servers, IP addresses, switch ports, bandwidth, network configurations, firewall rules, logs, policies, application usage, and storage devices. IT admins can perform an in-depth analysis of IT performance parameters, including health, availability, device utilization, and more.

Datadog is a monitoring and security platform for Dev, Sec, and Ops teams that unifies metrics, traces, and logs in one place so teams can get full visibility into their IT environment.

Cacti is an application performance management and monitoring RRDTool used to administrate network graphing functions. Cacti provides in-depth graph templating, numerous data acquisition methods all controlled through it's dashboard.

PRTG vs Cacti Comparison (2026)

PRTG

Cacti

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives