Top 9 Open Source Synthetic Monitoring Tools

Checkly

Checkly is an API and end-to-end monitoring platform for modern stacks. It claims to be a state-of-the-art monitoring and testing solution.

Checkly gained a lot of attention in the JavaScript community. It monitors site transaction flows in a browser and checks the API.

Key Features:

• It showcases application and website performance in a single dashboard.
• It is easily set up and combined with other powerful tools.
• Its REST API automates performance checks and alerts users.

Cacti

Cacti is an open-source RRDTool-based monitoring solution. It is a front-end application that provides users with a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and out-of-the-box user management features.

Key Features:

• It displays comprehensive graphs that can be easily customized according to the requirement.
• It uses network polling and data collection features to gather insights on various devices.
• It provides an easy-to-use interface that collaborates with LAN-sized installations in complex networks with multiple devices.

Nagios Core

Nagios Core is an open-source IT infrastructure monitoring tool. It has been in the market since 1999 and has multiple plugins written for it.

It is mainly a performance check tool that performs regular checks for networks in the infrastructure. It offers 3 major solutions which are Nagios XI, Nagios Log Server, Nagios Fusion for users.

It currently services over 1 million users globally and provides free customer support.

Key Features:

• It provides comprehensive monitoring for complete IT Infrastructure in an organization.
• It provides alerts on known issues and problems.
• It allows automatic rebooting of failed applications and services.
• It offers complete access to customizable codes for open-source software.

SolarWinds RealTime Bandwidth Monitor

SolarWinds RealTime Bandwidth Monitor helps users monitor networks and analyze traffic. It monitors traffic in a network and the user history of the bandwidth.

Key Features:

• It provides network traffic monitoring with NetFlow, J-Flow, and sFlow data.
• It monitors multiple interfaces at the same time and can record up to 60 minutes’ worth of data.
• It allows users to view traffic by conversation, app, domain, and endpoint.

Icinga

Icinga is an open-source computer system and network monitoring tool. The tool monitors complete infrastructure and tackles monitoring challenges.

The Icing Stack consists of six core strengths that cover all components of monitoring. It is integrated with multiple systems and helps users automate tasks.

Key Features:

• It allows monitoring on private, public, and hybrid clouds in one monitoring system.
• It uses the Director or other modules to automate monitoring tasks, import and synchronize data.
• It also offers clustering and zone monitoring features to gain high availability on different levels. This process allows the developer to distribute the hierarchy of monitoring systems to easily run local checks.

Zabbix

Zabbix is an enterprise-level open-source network monitoring tool. It provides monitoring solutions for networks and applications.

It has been in the industry for more than 20 years. It is completely free and open-source with more than 300,000 globally.

Key Features:

• It provides real-time monitoring of multiple metrics collected from multiple servers, virtual machines, and networks.
• Its local web interface provides widget-based dashboards, graphs, network maps, slideshows, drill-down reports.
• It is a flexible monitoring tool. It can collaborate with any system in an IT environment.
• It can be easily automated with API to retrieve and manage configuration and historical data.

LibreNMS

LibreNMS is an open-source PHP/MySQL-based network monitoring solution. It is a feature-rich monitoring system that provides an immense amount of device support.

It is an auto-discovering tool that leverages SNMP protocol to support a broad range of operating systems.

Key Features:

• It automatically discovers an entire network with SNMP protocols.
• It supports a wide range of operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD.
• It helps a number of networking devices namely Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, Foundry, HP, etc.
• It integrates support with NfSen, collected, SmokePing, RANCID, and Oxidized.
• It includes many authentication methods like MySQL, HTTP, LDAP, Radius, and Active Directory.

Prometheus

Prometheus is one of the leading open-source monitoring tools. In comparison to the other open-source monitoring tools, it was built on SoundCloud.

Its initial purpose was to act as a monitor and alert toolkit. It is now adopted by companies and works as a stand-alone open project.

In 2016, Prometheus joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation as a hosted project after Kubernetes.

Key Features:

• It provides a multi-dimensional data model with time-series data.
• It uses PromQL, a flexible query language to support the dimensionality.
• It is independent of distributed storage. It usually works with autonomous single server nodes.
• It identifies targets easily with service discovery or static configuration.

PandoraFMS

PandoraFMS is an open-source network monitoring tool. It provides network monitoring features along with Windows and Unix servers and virtual interfaces.

It comprises ICMP polling, SNMP support, network latency monitoring, and system overload features.

Key Features:

• It enables users to install agents on devices to monitor device temperature, overheating, and logfile discrepancies.
• It provides network monitoring aspects and more, in comparison to other open-source monitoring tools.
• It offers integrations and OEMs technology to collaborate with businesses and their IT requirements.
• It is built to work with a wide array of businesses that belong to a diverse range of industries.
• It is capable of working with IoT protocols as it offers easy adaptability to machines.