10 BEST Server Monitoring Tool & Software (2025)

The fast-growing business world has made the server necessary for small and large organizations. A business needs a strong network connection and powerful servers to hold, access, and transfer all data and files.

The servers, however, need constant watching and tracking. To do this, you will need to have software that monitors your server. Server monitoring software monitors your infrastructure CPU load, RAM, firewall, sensor, bandwidth, error rate, network, disk space usage, switch, router, and remote access. It is important to find a reliable server monitoring tool unless you want to face inaccuracies, security issues, limited tracking, etc.

Hence, I spent 100+ hours doing an in-depth research on 35+ best server monitoring software options and selected top 10 tools for monitoring devices, services, ports, and protocols. My comprehensive and well-researched guide includes both free and paid choices. This trusted and credible article is a must-see resource to help you find the ultimate solution. Read the full article to discover exclusive insights. Read more…

Best Server Monitoring Tools: Top Free Picks!

Monitoring Tool Name	Metric coverage	Metric Correlation	Main Features	Free Trial	Link
ManageEngine OpManager	Configurable	Metrics, traces, logs, events	• Application tracing • log management	30 Day Free Trial	Learn More
Site24x7	Configurable	Metrics, traces	• Maintenance Scheduling • Customizable Reports	30 Day Free Trial	Learn More
Better Stack	Configurable	Metrics, Logs, traces	• Single integrated interface, dashboards, livetail • Unlimited actionable alerts	Free plan available	Learn More
Atera	Configurable	Metrics	• Remote Monitoring and Management • Generate on-demand or automated reports	30-Day Free Trial	Learn More
Paessler PRTG Network Monitor	Configurable	Metrics	• Bandwidth Monitoring • Long-term data storage	Download for free	Learn More

1) ManageEngine OpManager

Best for root cause analysis & resolution

I evaluated ManageEngine OpManager and noticed that it is a remarkable server monitoring tool. It offers one of the best ways to keep business operations smooth by monitoring and managing your servers effectively. According to my review, OpManager helps you monitor servers using SNMP and WMI protocols, thus ensuring they stay in excellent health and perform at their ultimate capacity.

OpManager provides remarkable virtual server monitoring capabilities, thus making it easier for businesses to identify bottlenecks and fix critical performance issues. During the period of my assessment, I could access a sole dashboard for every ESX server. This allowed me to monitor CPU, memory, and disk usage for each guest VM occurrence. OpManager supports SMPT, POP, and IMAP on exchange servers. Hence, it offered me more than 15 key services and 50 critical variables. It also monitors hosts, VMs, and storage repositories of Citrix XenServer. This makes it a great solution for hybrid virtual environments.

Features:

• Server Health Monitoring: I could monitor server health and availability continuously to ensure seamless operation and avoid downtime.
• Proactive Monitoring: Its multiple threshold system allowed me to conduct proactive server monitoring, thus helping you detect issues before they escalate.
• Capacity Planning: It helps in effective capacity planning by utilizing the server’s system resource usage. This helps you accurately plan for future demands.
• Historical Data Analysis: Using its in-depth reports on historical data helped me determine the best strategy for the future.
• Multi-Vendor Support: Its efficient multi-vendor support is best for effortlessly monitoring crucial applications and their processes.

Pricing:

• Price: Contact sales for a Quote.
• Free Trial: 30-day free trial.

Visit OpManager >>

30 Days Free Trial

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2) Site24x7

Top pick for IT infrastructure monitoring

During my analysis, I discovered that Site 24×7 is a cloud-based tool that checks server and web endpoints throughout the day. It allowed me to manage the company’s network infrastructure efficiently. This tool monitors both on-premises and cloud-based hardware and virtual resources. I particularly liked its ability to provide round-the-clock monitoring.

Site 24×7 offers a thorough monitoring solution for your website by notifying you of any detected issues. I could access essential services like FTP, SMTP, and DNS monitoring, which helps you keep your site running smoothly. In fact, the application performance management feature is perfect for resolving issues quickly. 

Features:

• Automated Risk Alerts: It has real-time automated alerts that help manage risks, thus ensuring timely interventions to prevent potential issues.
• Data Visualization: I could visualize the entire server stack, which made it easy for me to analyze performance and pinpoint any bottlenecks.
• Customizable Maintenance Reports: Its customizable reports aim to simplify maintenance scheduling. This allowed me to tailor data to specific needs.
• Remote Monitoring: It has remote monitoring through SNMP mode. It allowed me to track system health from any location for effortless management.
• Real User Monitoring: You can analyze metrics from real user monitoring to gain insights into actual user experiences and optimize performance.
• Platform Support: It supports multiple platforms, such as Windows Servers, macOS, Linux, AWS, and Azure, to offer great flexibility across environments.
• System Requirements: For optimal performance, a system with at least 8GB RAM, 80GB hard disk space, and a 2 GHz processor is required.

Pricing:

• Price: Starts at $42/month, paid annually.
• Free Trial: 30-day free trial.

Visit Site24x7 >>

30 Days Free Trial

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3) Better Stack

Top infrastructure monitoring platform choice

Better Stack offers an enhanced observability platform. During my research, I noticed that it combines monitoring, log management, dashboards, incident management, and status pages into one integrated product. As per my review, Better Stack is great for centralizing and simplifying your stack. It is also great for real-time, synthetic, and infrastructure monitoring and log management.

Better Stack offers impressive observability dashboards that I could easily compare to Grafana, thus providing an ideal way to visualize monitoring setups or incidents. This tool combines monitoring, alerting, incident management, and communication, which allowed me to handle incidents effectively. 

Features:

• Customizable Observability Dashboards: You can easily customize observability dashboards according to your specific monitoring requirements and preferences.
• Unlimited Actionable Alerts: I received unlimited actionable alerts that helped me respond promptly to critical incidents and avoid downtime.
• Easy Setup and Maintenance: The setup and maintenance are straightforward, hence making it one of the easiest tools to implement.
• App and Server Monitoring: You can monitor your apps and servers continuously to make sure you get optimal performance and avoid potential issues.
• On-call Scheduling: Based on my research, it is great for efficiently handling on-call scheduling and incident management within a single platform.
• 30-Seconds Monitoring Frequency: It helped me monitor my system at 30-second intervals and allowed me to detect and respond to issues rapidly.

Pricing:

• Price: Starts at $29 per license per month.
• Free Trial: Free plan available.

Visit Better Stack >>

Free plan available

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4) Atera

Best all-in-one cloud IT management platform

Atera provides a comprehensive server monitoring solution that is cloud-based and perfect for MSPs and IT professionals. I found that it deploys the Atera agent and allows you to keep track of servers and applications across all networks. The agent regularly checks each server and reports the status directly to the cloud. 

It is cloud-based software that offers impressive visualization of server performance. Atera allows you to track application activity with ease. I noticed that it also covers essential server details such as software inventory, logged-in users, and virtualization configurations. Additionally, I could access Active Directory accounts and permissions for excellent system patch management and software updates. I recommend Atera for its ability to manage resource utilization effectively.

Features:

• Remote Management: You get complete remote management and monitoring utilities that allow you to manage devices seamlessly from anywhere.
• MSPs Solution: It provided me with an all-in-one MSPs solution by combining essential tools required for effective IT management.
• Automation Profiles: I could run professional service automation profiles. Thus, it helped in automating tasks and improving operational efficiency.
• Reporting & Analytics: It can generate automated reporting and analytics, thus offering valuable insights to optimize performance and decision-making.
• Autodiscovery: The network device autodiscovery typically identifies connected devices automatically, thus saving time and offering accurate monitoring.
• Real-Time Alerting: Its real-time alerting is one of the best ways to solve risk factors before problems escalate.
• Script Library: The extensive shared script library allowed me to customize and automate processes to significantly reduce manual workload.

Pricing:

• Price: Starts at $149/mo per technician, billed annually or $169/mo billed monthly.
• Free Trial: 30-day free trial. No credit card is required.

Visit Atera >>

30 Days Free Trial (No credit card required)

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5) Paessler PRTG Network Monitor

Best choice for small and enterprise IT monitoring

PRTG is a real-time monitoring tool I tested on Windows and Linux servers. As per my review, PRTG uses various trackers to monitor systems, traffic, and network devices, and it is great that no extra plugins are needed. I can confirm that PRTG is a reliable option for businesses of all sizes. PRTG ensures servers are reliable, available, and accessible and have enough capacity.

This monitoring is great for managing database servers, web servers, virtual servers, and mail. PRTG offered me a centralized cloud monitoring suite, which is perfect for overseeing PAAS, SAAS, and IAAS solutions. 

Features:

• Device Discovery: It has automatic device discovery with suitable sensors that help you efficiently monitor your network resources.
• Customizable Dashboards: I gained customizable dashboards with PRTG maps that allowed me to tailor the display according to my monitoring needs.
• User Interfaces: It offers multiple user interfaces with customizable languages to make sure the software is great for diverse teams.
• File Server Monitoring: PRTG has 20 sensors for monitoring file server activities, which are essential for tracking critical data and performance.
• Resource Monitoring: Its on-premise and cloud-based resource monitoring provides flexibility in managing and tracking infrastructure.
• Alerting: The flexible alerting through SMS, push notifications, and email helped me respond promptly to network issues.
• Bandwidth Monitoring: You can analyze network performance using PRTG’s bandwidth monitoring bandwidth to prevent bottlenecks.
• Supported Platforms: It supports Microsoft Windows 7-8.1, 10, and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2-2019.

Pricing:

• Price: Starts at $2149, paid annually.
• Free Trial: Download for free.

Visit PRTG >>

Download for free

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6) Nagios XI

Best for supporting agentless live Server Monitoring

I reviewed Nagios XI and discovered that it is an agentless network server monitoring software that also functions as an enterprise server. It offered me advanced configuration and reporting options. I particularly appreciate how it centralizes network operation and server monitoring, thus making it easier to manage and oversee these tasks.

Thanks to its integration with various third-party plugins, Nagios XI allowed me to monitor all virtual on-premises applications effectively. Its updated web interface and robust server monitoring engine offered me reliable real-time insights into infrastructure performance, operating systems, network traffic, and server system metrics. 

Features:

• Alert Delivery: I received alert delivery through SMS, pop-up notifications, and email to make sure you give prompt responses to issues.
• Auto-Discovery Configuration: The auto-discovery configuration wizards help me quickly set up and configure the system efficiently.
• Reporting Metrics: Its reporting relevant metrics for logs and databases help you monitor and analyze performance effectively.
• Performance Monitoring: I got access to performance monitoring and graphing tools that helped me visualize system performance and detect issues early.
• Proactive Planning: Its proactive planning helped me manage platform upgrades efficiently and made sure there was minimal disruption to operations.
• Cloud and Network Observability: The observability for cloud and network outages allowed me to identify and resolve issues quickly.
• Monitoring Automation: Its automation monitoring handles large amounts of data. Hence, it simplifies the management and analysis of system performance.

Pricing:

• Price: Starts at $2495 for 100 nodes.
• Free Trial: 7 nodes free.

Link: https://www.nagios.org/

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7) Dynatrace

Best for monitoring and diagnosing cloud-based applications for an organization

Dynatrace offers an excellent way to manage cloud environments, as it uses AI to monitor logs across the whole infrastructure. During the research process, I discovered that Dynatrace is available in on-premise and SaaS versions. I could monitor and diagnose server logs, metrics, and cloud-based applications efficiently. 

It provided me with detailed process-specific network metrics that were essential for understanding my system’s performance. Its artificial intelligence analyzes infrastructure remarkably. Therefore, it is suitable for those seeking advanced monitoring solutions. It supports operating systems like Ubuntu LTS and CentOS. The basic requirements of Dynatrace are 2GB RAM and 4GB hard disk space for efficient monitoring.

Features:

• Performance Analysis: I received real user performance analysis across mobile devices and browsers, thus allowing you to optimize effectively.
• AI-Powered Anomaly Detection: Its AI-powered anomaly detection with integrated vulnerability management offers robust security measures.
• Visualization and AI Capabilities: Dynatrace’s visualization capability, combined with artificial intelligence software, helps you understand complex data easily.
• Threat Intelligence and Bug Tracking: As per my review, its threat intelligence capability helps it detect errors and manage bug tracking efficiently.
• All-in-One Platform: This all-in-one platform provided me with a large set of data analytics solutions for comprehensive insights.
• Motion Event Detection: It can detect motion events in dynamic environments, which is essential for real-time monitoring and response.
• Problem Detection and Alerting: This tool helps validate problem detection and offers incident profile alerts to avoid potential issues promptly.

Pricing:

• Price: Starts at $0.04 per hour for any size host for Infrastructure Monitoring.
• Free Trial: 15-day free trial. No credit card is required.

Link: https://www.dynatrace.com/

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8) Zabbix

Best all-in-one monitoring solution

I analyzed Zabbix, and I could access its open-source features for monitoring network metrics. As per my research, it is great for IT infrastructure like web servers, networks, and cloud services. You can easily configure Zabbix through its web interface, and also it allowed me to store, manage, and analyze data efficiently.

Zabbix helps administrators detect server and system problems within a short period to minimize risks. It helps you avoid the risk of system failure and downtime. Additionally, its real-time configurable alerts allowed me to act quickly. 

Features:

• Customizable Reporting: I received customizable and predefined reporting that allowed me to tailor reports according to specific needs and preferences.
• Monitoring Templates: Its pre-packaged monitoring templates offer a great solution, thus making setup faster and more efficient.
• Cloud Observability: Its cloud observability for metric collection helped in monitoring performance across various cloud environments.
• Data Visualization: Widget-based dashboards allowed me to visualize data effectively, thus helping in the decision-making process.
• Multi-Network Monitoring: In my experience, its multi-network monitoring capability is a great option for monitoring different networks simultaneously.
• Root Cause Analysis: Its root cause analysis improves problem tracking, thus making it easier to identify and resolve issues.
• Configuration Management: This tool’s configuration change management helped me avoid errors by tracking and controlling system changes.

Pricing:

• Price: Contact sales for a Quote.
• Free Trial: Download for free.

Link: https://www.zabbix.com/

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9) Icinga

Best for proactive performance management

I reviewed Icinga and learned that it is an open-source server monitoring solution that stems from Nagios. It helped me monitor server performance and network availability effortlessly. The integrated engine allowed me to monitor large-scale infrastructure, which is suitable for complex environments.

Icinga allowed me to efficiently monitor server performance with its excellent plugin integration and support for more databases. Its responsive web interface is great for robust monitoring, and the interface’s scalability simplifies configuration complexity. This tool supports various platforms, including Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Icinga requires a system with 4GB RAM, 50GB hard disk space, and a 2-core CPU to offer reliable functionality.

Features:

• Real-time Automated Alerts: I received instant notifications about network issues, thus helping me respond quickly and avoid downtime.
• Performance Monitoring and Graphing: It offers continuous monitoring and detailed graphs of performance metrics to ensure optimal system operation.
• Monitoring Automation for Large Data: Icinga automates the monitoring process and efficiently manages large amounts of data to keep your network secure.
• Mapping and Visual Reporting for Metrics and Logs: It provides comprehensive mapping and visual reporting for various metrics and logs, thus helping you to analyze data effectively.
• Extensibility Through Plugins: It allowed me to extend its functionality with various plugins and provided a customizable monitoring solution.
• Scalable Network Mapping: Icinga enables scalable network mapping to adapt to growing infrastructure, thus ensuring your network’s integrity.

Pricing:

• Price: Contact sales for a Quote.
• Free Trial: 60-day free trial.

Link: https://icinga.com/

What is a server monitoring tool?

A server monitoring tool is software that monitors and tracks a server’s performance. These tools enable a user to analyze a server’s utilization rates continually, thus aiding in the identification of problems during performance. If you’re looking for network monitoring tools to help you manage your servers and network infrastructure, check out the list of top network monitoring tools available.

What are the Factors to consider in Server Monitoring Tools?

Web Server monitoring tools have risen in numbers on the market today. Selecting the best one for your need could be challenging for clients.

Below are the main factors to keep in mind when choosing the right tools for server monitoring:

• Metrics Correlation: There must be a correlation between the monitoring tool and the matrix you are going for. This is important when debugging a problem.
• Less Configuration Overhead: Consider getting a tool that needs minimal maintenance and is easy to set up. This is necessary, especially when running an enterprise monitoring platform. The selected tool should meet your needs by just its default dashboard and alert settings.
• Alerting features: Any monitoring tool should have the ability to notify you of any problem. This way, you can have oversight and deal with any resulting risk appropriately.
• Coverage of Metric: The tool needs to collect and analyze all metrics you would consider essential. It should configure and customize the metrics to match your preference.
• Anomaly Detection: You need to consider a monitoring solution with anomaly detection capabilities. This is because sometimes, you might not know that the server monitoring system needs to give an alert when a problem arises.
• Hardware considerations: Look into the hardware architecture used for your network monitoring. Some architecture contains particular components that need unique solutions.
• Access Control: If you are looking for smooth and secure access, then the software you select should be able to support SSO functionality identity management.

Are there any good server monitoring tools for free?

There are some good free and open-source IT infrastructure and server performance monitoring tools suitable for any environment. These tools include Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, and Icinga.

Verdict:

While creating this list, I prioritized tools that provide comprehensive features, real-time data, and reliable alerts. All of the above service providers offer reliable solutions when it comes to server and software monitoring. However, the following tools are my top picks, and here’s why:

• ManageEngine OpManager stands out as the most reliable choice for its comprehensive network management capabilities.
• Site24x7 offers a robust and reliable monitoring solution, which makes it my second top pick for users who want secure software. 
• Better Stack impressed me with its real-time monitoring and user-friendly interface, thus making it one of my top choices for streamlined operations.