PRTG Network Monitor Freeware
Paessler GmbHExternal reviews
194 reviews
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Reliable, Scalable, and Smart Monitoring for Modern IT Infrastructures.
What do you like best about the product?
PRTG stands out for its ability to bring clarity to even the most complex networks. Its sensor-based monitoring lets me tailor exactly what I need to track, from traffic flows to application uptime, without bloating the system with unnecessary checks. The ability to create custom views for different teams—whether for helpdesk, DevOps, or management—means everyone gets what they need from a single platform. Also, the dynamic maps with live data make it incredibly easy to visualize our environment and detect anomalies in real-time.
What do you dislike about the product?
Although PRTG offers immense flexibility, the configuration for advanced use cases—like distributed deployments or integration with third-party alerting systems—can require deeper technical understanding and time investment. Also, while licensing by sensor makes sense in theory, it sometimes forces tough decisions on what to monitor when scaling up.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Before PRTG, we were reactive—often hearing about issues from end users. Now, with proactive alerts and data-driven visibility, we stay ahead of potential failures. It has significantly reduced our troubleshooting time, especially with intermittent network glitches. More importantly, the reporting tools help us forecast capacity and justify infrastructure investments with confidence. PRTG isn't just a monitoring tool—it's become a strategic asset for our IT planning and risk management.
Transforming Network Visibility and Reliability with PRTG
What do you like best about the product?
PRTG has transformed the way we oversee our IT environment. The platform gives us a single, clear view of everything that matters — from servers and switches to applications, cloud services, and traffic flows. The dashboard is both clean and customizable, allowing me to set up different views for different teams, so everyone sees the metrics most relevant to their responsibilities.
The variety of sensors is impressive, making it possible to monitor virtually any device or service with minimal setup effort. Alerts are highly configurable and reliable — they notify us instantly when thresholds are crossed, and the escalation rules ensure critical issues never get ignored. This proactive approach has saved us from unexpected outages and given the team more confidence in day-to-day operations.
The variety of sensors is impressive, making it possible to monitor virtually any device or service with minimal setup effort. Alerts are highly configurable and reliable — they notify us instantly when thresholds are crossed, and the escalation rules ensure critical issues never get ignored. This proactive approach has saved us from unexpected outages and given the team more confidence in day-to-day operations.
What do you dislike about the product?
The learning curve is noticeable, particularly for those who are new to network monitoring or managing large infrastructures. While everyday usage feels intuitive, more advanced features like custom dashboards or detailed reporting require additional time to master. For larger environments, the sensor-based licensing model can become costly, which is worth considering when planning for scale. That said, the overall value outweighs these challenges.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Before adopting PRTG, we relied on multiple tools to piece together a view of our systems, which often left gaps. Now, with a unified platform, troubleshooting has become faster and more accurate. Our mean time to resolution has improved significantly, and we’re now able to address issues before they affect end users.
The historical reporting has been equally valuable, allowing us to spot trends, anticipate bottlenecks, and plan capacity with confidence. For leadership, the ability to present clear and data-backed reports has improved IT’s alignment with business strategy. For our IT staff, the shift from reactive firefighting to proactive monitoring has not only saved time but also reduced stress.
The historical reporting has been equally valuable, allowing us to spot trends, anticipate bottlenecks, and plan capacity with confidence. For leadership, the ability to present clear and data-backed reports has improved IT’s alignment with business strategy. For our IT staff, the shift from reactive firefighting to proactive monitoring has not only saved time but also reduced stress.
Dependable backbone monitoring with a few practical tradeoffs
What do you like best about the product?
PRTG makes it straightforward to bring new devices and services under monitoring with minimal effort, which significantly shortens the time to get value out of the platform. Its wide sensor library covers most infrastructure needs, and the customization options allow us to tailor monitoring to unique use cases. The interface is intuitive, making day-to-day operations seamless even for new team members. In addition, the vendor’s support team has consistently provided fast and knowledgeable assistance whenever needed.
What do you dislike about the product?
Managing very large environments can become resource-intensive, and the licensing structure based on sensors requires careful planning to avoid overspending. Advanced reporting and visualization are functional but less refined compared to specialized tools, which can slow down more complex analysis.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The platform provides a unified view of our entire infrastructure—network links, VPN connections, servers, and applications—so issues are detected before they disrupt operations. With automated alerts and historical insights, our team can act quickly, reduce downtime, and allocate IT resources more efficiently. By consolidating multiple monitoring needs into a single tool, PRTG has streamlined our processes and improved service availability across the organization.
PRTG made our monitoring predictable — keep a clean sensor hygiene and automate onboarding.
What do you like best about the product?
1. Pragmatic, appliance-style monitoring that our NOC used every day — discovery and device templates let me onboard a new site in under an hour.
2. Remote probes use encrypted tunnels and worked reliably across poor WAN links, so we collected accurate metrics without huge central load.
3. The API is solid: I automated device provisioning and deprovisioning from our CMDB, which eliminated manual mistakes and saved several hours per week.
4. Notifications are flexible — email, webhook, scripts — so we could push structured incidents to Slack and trigger safe remediation steps automatically.
5. Maps and live dashboards turned into our operational status board; engineers and managers alike knew where to look during incidents.
2. Remote probes use encrypted tunnels and worked reliably across poor WAN links, so we collected accurate metrics without huge central load.
3. The API is solid: I automated device provisioning and deprovisioning from our CMDB, which eliminated manual mistakes and saved several hours per week.
4. Notifications are flexible — email, webhook, scripts — so we could push structured incidents to Slack and trigger safe remediation steps automatically.
5. Maps and live dashboards turned into our operational status board; engineers and managers alike knew where to look during incidents.
What do you dislike about the product?
1. Sensor licensing forces discipline. If you don’t consolidate metrics into useful KPIs, license consumption spikes quickly.
2. Out-of-the-box retention management is basic; we had to implement down sampling/archive scripts to manage long-term storage and keep UI snappy.
3. When many people open large dashboards simultaneously the web UI can lag; role-based focused dashboards helped but take design effort.
4. Some custom sensors (REST/script) needed hardening and retries for production reliability — they work, but expect to test thoroughly.
5. Support times varied based on region — proactive testing of HA and upgrades in our lab was necessary before production changes.
2. Out-of-the-box retention management is basic; we had to implement down sampling/archive scripts to manage long-term storage and keep UI snappy.
3. When many people open large dashboards simultaneously the web UI can lag; role-based focused dashboards helped but take design effort.
4. Some custom sensors (REST/script) needed hardening and retries for production reliability — they work, but expect to test thoroughly.
5. Support times varied based on region — proactive testing of HA and upgrades in our lab was necessary before production changes.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
1. Reduced mean time to repair: single-pane view of network, server and service signals let us find root cause faster (link vs server vs application).
2. Cut repetitive work: automated onboarding and a handful of safe remediation scripts removed recurring manual tasks and reduced on-call noise.
3. Clear, defensible SLA evidence: historical graphs and reports made it straightforward to show vendor/ISP breaches and secure corrective action.
4. Predictable operations: templates, RBAC and retention rules turned monitoring from “something that grows wildly” into a governed service.
2. Cut repetitive work: automated onboarding and a handful of safe remediation scripts removed recurring manual tasks and reduced on-call noise.
3. Clear, defensible SLA evidence: historical graphs and reports made it straightforward to show vendor/ISP breaches and secure corrective action.
4. Predictable operations: templates, RBAC and retention rules turned monitoring from “something that grows wildly” into a governed service.
Renowned for network monitoring
What do you like best about the product?
PRTG has made network monitoring far more efficient for us. The clean and customizable dashboard lets me keep an eye on all critical devices, services, and bandwidth usage in one place. Real-time alerts ensure I’m aware of potential issues before they escalate, which has saved us from several outages. I also appreciate the variety of sensor options, which makes it adaptable to different infrastructure needs.
What do you dislike about the product?
For someone new to network monitoring, the depth of features can feel a bit overwhelming at first. The initial setup and fine-tuning of sensors require a bit of a learning curve. Additionally, while the interface is intuitive, some advanced reporting and customization features take time to master.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
PRTG gives us complete visibility into the health and performance of our network, from hardware devices to applications and traffic flows. Having all this data in a single pane of glass means faster root cause analysis and reduced downtime. It also supports capacity planning by helping us spot trends in resource usage. The automated alerts and historical data reports have improved both our responsiveness and long-term decision-making.
Marvelous
What do you like best about the product?
What I like best about Paessler PRTG is the graph presentation.
What do you dislike about the product?
PRTG can not customize individual dashboards
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Troubleshooting, server health and problem isolation.
Perfect hands-off monitoring system
What do you like best about the product?
It's very easy to get started. Agentless, scans machines for services, etc. Just give it a network name or IP and it will return more monitors than you need. It's crucial for us on a daily basis.
What do you dislike about the product?
They haven't significantly updated the app since we came onboard and pricing as of late has been extremely predatory.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Monitoring servers and services and generating tickets before the end user sees a problem.
A product that has been reliable for years
What do you like best about the product?
We have been using PRTG for over 6 years for successful monitoring of network and other hardware. Hardware from different manufacturers can be easily integrated into PRTG. Changes to probes can be implemented quickly and easily. PRTG regularly informs us about failures and interruptions of components. Due to good documentation on the internet, we have not needed customer support so far.
What do you dislike about the product?
The price for PRTG has recently increased significantly, and PRTG is now only available as a subscription license.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Hardware failures are detected more quickly and problems can be resolved more easily.
Ease of use and maintain
What do you like best about the product?
Once I have configured the sensors I want to monitor for a specific device I can always clone it. What is a very user-friendly task before, it is even more easy since I have learned to use the new API. It provides me with the information I need from sensors covering up to 365 days, making daily analysis easy.
What do you dislike about the product?
The new interface is faster, but it still doesn't have all the features of the old one. So I work with both at the same time.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It allows me to monitor a variety of field terminal servers, radio devices, servers, and other network devices. Especially when there are communication issues, it is the first place I go to analyze the sensors I have configured. The maps are also very useful, both in the event of a massive failure and for monitoring devices on a day-to-day basis.
PRTG detects problems before they are noticed by employees.
What do you like best about the product?
PRTG raises an alarm before problems affect our ongoing operations. This helps to avoid outages, shorten response times, and use IT resources more efficiently.
By centrally monitoring network devices, servers, services, and applications, outages can be avoided and response times significantly reduced.
The setup is easy and quick thanks to auto-discovery sensors!
We use the solution at multiple locations and are extremely satisfied!
Customer support has always been able to help so far and is quickly reachable for all questions.
By centrally monitoring network devices, servers, services, and applications, outages can be avoided and response times significantly reduced.
The setup is easy and quick thanks to auto-discovery sensors!
We use the solution at multiple locations and are extremely satisfied!
Customer support has always been able to help so far and is quickly reachable for all questions.
What do you dislike about the product?
The least helpful are the internal tickets (we already use a third-party tool here to create tickets due to the email notification from PRTG)
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We repeatedly have network problems due to rural locations without their own connection. For this purpose, VPN tunnels have been set up, which are monitored and controlled using PRTG.
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