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Monitoring & observability

PRTG Network Monitor

Sensor-based monitoring from Paessler for networks and infrastructure.

freemiumcloud + desktop

Reviewed by Giuseppe Tommaso Curella, Infrastructure & network engineer Updated 2026-11-05

Official site www.paessler.com

Independent reference — this page is a review. PRTG Network Monitor is downloaded from the vendor’s official site, not from here.

PlatformsWindows server + web/mobile; also SaaS (Hosted Monitor)
LicenceFreemium — free up to 100 sensors
PriceFree up to 100 sensors; paid from ~$1,750/yr (PRTG 500)
SectionMonitoring & observability
Updated2026-11-05

What it is

Everything here revolves around "sensors" — each one tracking the availability and load of a server, link, SNMP device or traffic stream. Commercial and polished, it delivers maps, dashboards and alerting from a single console, with a hosted SaaS edition sitting beside the on-prem Windows server.

Problems it closes

  • You’d rather buy packaged monitoring on Windows than assemble open-source parts.
  • Management wants polished dashboards and maps from day one.

How administrators run it

  • Point it at a subnet and let it auto-discover and build sensors per device.
  • Build NOC maps and dashboards, and route alerts by channel.
PRTG Network Monitor dashboard
Screenshot: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • Quick to deploy.
  • Dashboards and maps are polished.
  • First 100 sensors are free.

Trade-offs

  • Sensor-based pricing climbs as you scale.
  • The on-prem server is Windows only.

Common questions

How many sensors come free?

Up to 100; past that you buy a licensed tier.

Is there a cloud edition?

Yes — PRTG Hosted Monitor is the SaaS edition that runs alongside the on-prem Windows server.

Head to head

Zabbix vs PRTG Network Monitor Zabbix is free and scales as far as your hardware will take it; PRTG comes up faster on Windows with polished dashboards, at a per-sensor cost.
Zabbix Open-source monitoring across servers, network gear, VMs and applications. open sourcedesktop Linux/Unix server, web UI; agents for Windows/Linux/macOS/Unix Datadog Cloud observability for metrics, traces and logs, with nothing to host yourself. paid / trialcloud SaaS (web + mobile); agent for Windows/Linux/macOS Grafana Dashboards and visualisation layered over Prometheus, Zabbix, databases and clouds. open sourcecloud + desktop Linux/Windows/macOS/Docker, web; cloud