Top 10 Free network monitoring tools for network administrators

Network monitoring is the use of a system that constantly monitors a computer network for slow or failing components and that notifies the network administrator (via email, SMS or other alarms) in case of outages. It is part of network management.

NetXMS

NetXMS is an enterprise grade multi-platform open source network management and monitoring system. It provides comprehensive event management, performance monitoring, alerting, reporting and graphing for all layers of IT infrastructure — from network devices to business application layer.
The system has three-tier architecture: the information is collected by monitoring agents (either our own high-performance agents or SNMP agents) and delivered to monitoring server for processing and storing. Network administrator can access collected data using rich client application or web interface.
Having been designed with flexibility and scalability in mind, NetXMS features a wide range of supported platforms, operating systems and database engines, thus ensuring seamless integration with any infrastructure.
Feature highlights

Unified platform for management and monitoring of the entire IT infrastructure
Designed for maximum performance and scalability
Distributed network monitoring
Automated network discovery
Flexible and easy to use event processing
Business impact analysis tools
Quick deployment with minimal configuration efforts
Easy and simple integration with related products
Native support for many popular platforms and operating systems

In addition to the standard network monitoring features, NetXMS has business impact analysis tools. The NetXMS interface is a “fat” client and there is also a Web interface. Both free and paid support is available for NetXMS.Download


Zenoss

Zenoss Service Dynamics 5 utilizes a service-oriented architecture that supports fast time to value with rapid implementation of monitoring, highly elastic scale up/scale out, built-in high availability, and streamlined updates and upgrades.

Key Capabilities:

New Docker-based Control Center simplifies administration and self-monitoring
Big Data scale out and near real-time performance monitoring powered by HBase on Hadoop
Unified, event-driven, dynamic performance monitoring

Zenoss Core is the open source network management product backed by Zenoss Inc. It manages the configuration, health, performance of networks, servers and applications in one system.
Zenoss has an integrated CMDB and it is controlled by a Web-based GUI. Custom devices like temperature sensors can also be monitored. In addition to the standard uptime and performance monitoring features, Zenoss supports monitoring templates dubbed “ZenPacks”.Download





Hyperic

An open source network management suite that targets itself as being suitable for Web application and virtual machine management. The commercial Hyperic was acquired by SpringSource, which was then acquired by VMware. Hyperic features automatic discovery and records some 50,000 metrics across 75 application stacks. An Enterprise edition is available for Hyperic which includes more features than the open source edition and commercial support.Download



Nagios

Nagios monitors your entire IT infrastructure to ensure systems, applications, services, and business processes are functioning properly. In the event of a failure, Nagios can alert technical staff of the problem, allowing them to begin remediation processes before outages affect business processes, end-users, or customers. With Nagios you’ll never be left having to explain why an unseen infrastructure outage hurt your organization’s bottom line.

One of the most popular open source network management tools and is widely deployed amongst Linux users. It began life as “NetSaint” before being renamed Nagios. The central application is called Nagios Core, with additional functionality available through Nagios Plugins, Frontends and Config Tools. Regarding the third-party applications and plug-ins for Nagios, there is the Nagios Exchange portal that categorises extensions across various genres.Download





PRTG Network Monitor 12.4.5.3164

PRTG Network Monitor is a handy and professional network montoring utility. The software’s features include: up/downtime monitoring, traffic and usage monitoring, packet sniffing, in-depth analysis and concise reporting. A user-friendly web-based interface allows users to quickly configure the network devices and sensors they wish to monitor. All common methods for network usage data acquisition are supported: SNMP and WMI, Packet Sniffing, and NetFlow.
PRTG Network Monitor includes more than 30 sensor types for all common network services (e.g. PING, HTTP, SMTP, POP3, FTP, etc.), allowing users to monitor networks for speed and failures. As soon as an outage occurs, alerts are sent via email, SMS, pager messages and other means. Download


OpenNMS

A network management application written in Java. It claims to be the world’s first enterprise network management developed under an open source model. The project was registered on SourceForge on July 2000. Designed to scale to thousands of notes from one installation, OpenNMS can automatically discover network services and has an API for integration with bug tracking systems.Download





NetTraffic 1.19.2

NetTraffic is a network data rate monitoring tool. NetTraffic show data rates on chart and as text label. The application logs traffic and system time during the various periods of activity. Its statistics module presents prognosis, average rates and information about the current state. The tables and charts present statistical information from selected period. Download



CyD Network Utilities 2011

A useful application which helps users in diagnosing networks and monitor their computer’s network connections. Its capabilities include: check open ports (checking running services), scanning for open resources, ARP table manage, Web site analyzer, Test connection etc.Download



NETGEAR Genie 2.2.27.1

NETGEAR Genie allows you to easily monitor your network and view the status of your Internet connection. The application automatically generates the network map and enables you to test the download speed of any website. It lets you configure the router settings, set high traffic threshold and use AirPrint to access any printer in your network. Download



Etherwatch 2.0.1.0

Etherwatch monitors Ethernet traffic, looking for images, and Google™ search terms, and displays these on screen in a mosaic format. It's a cool way to see what's going on over your network.
It is a simple, small and Open Source tool that can manage to monitor your network traffic, search for images and Google search terms. It displays all the activity parameters on on your computer screen in the form of a mosaic. Download