I'm not sure what's 'over the top' saying that you hardly ever see those tools in enterprise environments. That's like saying 'no offense' and then still offend :oD Neally Not being disrespectful but your statement was a little over the top. patches) is quite easy, although not perfect. It's not free, but the ROI is very good since it's competitively priced and covers a lot of functionality. They position EventSentry somewhere in the middle between open source and commercial products. We use EventSentry for most of our monitoring needs, it also offers a free (albeit somewhat limited) edition. This is particularly true for products that use sensor-based pricing. Some products may sound great at first, but their pricing can get very expensive quickly. Of course, if you can afford it, going with a paid product is almost always a good choice and more efficient.Īlways do your due diligence though. But be prepared to pay up once your needs exceed the limits of the free version. Otherwise, starting with the free version of a commercial product will sometimes get you both - a better user experience at no cost. If you never want to pay for a solution, open source is the better option. There is a difference between free and open source products, since most free products in the network monitoring field are watered down versions of their commercial big brothers (or sisters).Each product has its strengths and weaknesses. Features! You really can't say that an open source product is inferior to a paid product and vice versa.

If you're already familiar with a product (whether paid or open source), it may make sense to stick with that product - especially if ROI of the product is good. some products may run better on platform you are not that experienced with). Your expertise with a particular product and platform (e.g.If you have a lot of time, learning an open source product may be better, on the other hand if you are crunched for time and have a decent budget, going with a turn-key product makes more sense. Open source often require a lot more time. Paid product are *usually* easier to setup, maintain and support. The amount of time and energy you are willing to spend to install and configure a product (regardless whether this is paid, free or opensource).I agree with kylerobinson, which route is better really depends on several factors:

Free prtg vs lansweeper vs spiceworks