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27 Top Free Server Monitoring Tools & Software for Optimal Performance

Are you tired of servers crashing unannounced, disrupting your workflow and productivity? Free server monitoring is the solution you need to keep your systems running smoothly. This article will help you find the best tools to suit your needs, especially if you're looking for free server monitoring tools to stay on top of your application performance monitoring game.

Looking for free server monitoring tools? Alerty's solution, free APM, is just what you need! It's a valuable tool to help you meet your goals and ensure your business operations run smoothly.

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Table of Contents

What Is Server Monitoring?

Server monitoring is the continuous process of tracking a server's performance, health, and availability, irrespective of whether these servers are hosted on physical machines, virtual machines, or cloud instances. It involves collecting and analyzing data on various aspects, such as:

  • CPU usage
  • Memory utilization
  • Disk activity
  • Network performance and more

The primary goal is to ensure servers operate optimally, preventing downtime and performance bottlenecks. Enterprise-grade monitoring tools can provide real-time alerts and historical data, enabling IT administrators to proactively identify issues, plan capacity upgrades, and troubleshoot problems efficiently.

Server Monitoring in a Growing Network

As administrators provision new servers and virtual machines (VMs) either in the cloud or on-premise, every additional server must be monitored for health and security to ensure the safety and performance of the network. It’s increasingly important for administrators to monitor servers as they continue to add more to the network, as these servers must eventually be maintained, patched, and retired. 

Server Monitoring for Administrators

Without server monitoring, administrators would be unaware of issues such as resource exhaustion (e.g., low storage or spikes in CPU utilization) or possible security breaches. Server monitoring collects data and statistics from servers and their logs and provides administrators with the information they need to make informed decisions for server support.

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The Important Role of Server Monitoring

Servers are critical components of a network. They perform:

  • Authentication
  • Authorization
  • Security
  • Network functionality
  • Store data
  • Provide a platform for running applications

The health and security of these network components is critical for business productivity. Depending on its function, a compromised server could allow an attacker to exfiltrate sensitive data containing information about customers and employees. If it crashes, the same critical server could affect organizational productivity. Monitoring can give administrators the information they need to be proactive about cybersecurity and hardware and software maintenance.

Server monitoring can help administrators track:

Accessibility

Pinging the server to ensure it’s powered on and responding ensures that users can connect to the server and use its resources.

CPU and memory usage

Ensure the server has enough CPU power and RAM to process requests. If resource usage spikes, performance can drop.

Performance

If servers do not respond quickly, it could create lag in critical applications and response time will increase.

Low storage capacity

Data-storing servers must be monitored for low storage space to avoid unknown consequences if there is no remaining storage space.

Processes

If a background process fails randomly or during a server reboot, it could mean the server fails to execute requested functions. For example, if the process used to run web services fails, the server may no longer respond to web requests.

Security

Monitoring failed and successful authentication attempts can alert administrators to a potential compromise.

Comprehensive Monitoring for Modern Applications

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

  • Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
  • It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
  • Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring. 

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

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27 Top Free Server Monitoring Tools & Software for Optimal Performance

1. Alerty

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

  • Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
  • It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
  • Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring.

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today! 

2. New Relic

New Relic gives you complete insight into your entire infrastructure in one location. One of the newer monitoring tools introduced with a greater focus on container and server monitoring, New Relic combines all of your correlated metrics into one data plane, enabling you to pursue a line of inquiry with just a few clicks and to see precisely how everything connects. It has an open and flexible integration framework enables it to integrate and support various systems, including:

  • Prometheus
  • Kubernetes
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • GCP
  • MySQL
  • NGINX
  • Apache Kafka
  • Apache Cassandra

Setting up New Relic’s server monitoring software takes less than five minutes, and you can gain immediate insights into your system. Customization is straightforward with its out-of-the-box integrations with other systems and easy-to-use SDK. New Relic is an excellent choice to monitor your infrastructure if most of your workloads are related to Kubernetes and containers.

3. ManageEngine OpManager

ManageEngine OpManager is an easy and economical server performance monitoring software focusing on the network. It includes sophisticated server and network monitoring capabilities, such as:

  • Network traffic flow visualization
  • End-to-end server network monitoring

One exciting feature is that if your organization uses VoIP, ManageEngine OpManager can monitor and report on VoIP performance on your servers, providing insights on how to enhance it. You also get monitoring support for any physical device with a network connection and an IP address, such as:

  • Servers
  • Switches
  • Routers
  • Load balancers
  • Firewalls
  • Printers
  • Storage devices

ManageEngine OpManager constantly monitors your network and gives comprehensive insights into and control over it. If your organization strongly emphasizes network monitoring, especially if it is telco-based, ManageEngine OpManager is a great fit.

4. AppDynamics

AppDynamics is a business-first observability platform that accelerates your digital transformation with the insights you need most for server performance and application monitoring. It enables you to identify application server performance issues that may impact business performance and correlate server and application metrics to view the full picture of how your cloud investments facilitate business. 

With a comprehensive set of dashboards and metrics, AppDynamics supports fine-grained alerts, which can be integrated with third-party alerting and incident management tools such as:

  • ServiceNow
  • PagerDuty
  • Jira

Aligning IT with Business Goals

If your company is more business-driven, AppDynamics is a good solution. Most stakeholders are always searching for economic value in every digital infrastructure investment they make. AppDynamics’ business-first mentality allows stakeholders to see how their cloud infrastructure investments impact business KPIs like revenue with correlated application and server performance metrics.

5. Sensu Go

Sensu Go is an observability platform that supports server performance metrics and allows you to address gaps in monitoring the visibility of correlations between the following:

  • Metrics
  • Logging
  • Tracing

Sensu integrates with existing monitoring technologies, such as:

  • Nagios
  • StatsD
  • Telegraf
  • Prometheus

Sensu Go's key feature is its ability to support monitoring as code. It lets you perform the following:

  • Define monitoring workflows using declarative configuration files shared with team members
  • Write tests
  • Perform version control
  • Edit
  • Review in a proper GitOps manner

Supporting multiple clouds and all their related infrastructure, Sensu is one of the best server monitoring solutions if your organization observes GitOps principles and treats everything as code.

6. Nagios XI

Nagios XI is a comprehensive software that monitors enterprise servers and networks. The business version was created on top of the open-source version, has more functionality, and requires less administration time. Nagios focuses primarily on:

  • Server metrics
  • Application performance
  • Network traffic

Data Collection Methods

Nagios collects data using agents placed on the network elements and the components it monitors. It can also connect to network switches or other components by querying their status using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

System Requirements and Installation

Nagios communicates with and collects data from Windows-based products using the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) protocol. Nagios is a downloadable bundle with specific packages for each product running on Windows or Linux.

Scalability and Complexity

Following the tool’s download and installation, you must undergo a series of initial setups. Once the agents have been deployed, data should come into Nagios and its standard dashboards. The solution is highly customizable and can scale out of the box, making it a perfect fit for many enterprises. Still, this high customizability does come with additional complexity and maintenance overhead.

7. Dotcom-Monitor

Dotcom-Monitor is a complete performance monitoring solution that gives you full visibility into the functionality of your:

  • Website
  • App
  • API

Monitor server availability and user experience from an easy-to-understand, customizable dashboard. Fully automate your projects’ email and FTP server monitoring so your team can do what they do best: fix problems and create a great user experience for all your users at scale.

8. Site 24×7

Site 24×7 is a cloud-based infrastructure monitoring system that provides various performance testing and monitoring services. Because it’s cloud-based, there’s no need to install anything on-site. Users sign up and get to work. 

Site 24×7 server monitoring supports monitoring:

  • Windows
  • Mac Os
  • Linux
  • FreeBSD

Platform Compatibility and Pricing

Virtualization platforms like Microsoft Hyper-V and VMWare are also supported. The dashboard is intuitive and easy for developers of all skill levels and can support cloud servers maintained on other platforms. There is an option for yearly or monthly subscriptions. After your 30-day free trial, you can monitor up to 10 monthly servers for $9.

9. NinjaOne

NinjaOne is a user-friendly and powerful IT monitoring service. Servers based on Windows and Mac OS are supported. Monitor all your systems with ease using a tool loved by pros and amateurs:

  • Servers
  • Workstations
  • Firewalls
  • Routers

NinjaOne allows you to fully automate all of your monitoring needs so you can get to work fixing critical issues. You can also remotely manage all servers and get updates on their health and functionality. NinjaOne provides an all-features-offered free trial on their website.

10. Datadog

Datadog is a popular performance monitoring tool that monitors all of the following:

  • Devices
  • Applications
  • Servers

It features a drag-and-drop dashboard, allowing you to monitor your servers’ performance metrics side-by-side.

11. Anturis

Anturis is an online monitoring system that monitors CPU load, RAM, disk usage, and more. It helps you monitor server performance and connectivity between devices, check open ports, and analyze your server’s performance history. Anturis is easy to use, provides a comprehensive dashboard, and allows for customizable notifications via text or email. After your free trial, get a quote on Anturis’ website.

12.  Prometheus and Grafana

Prometheus and Grafana are two of the most well-known open-source monitoring tools currently available, and they are very popular for server monitoring needs. To send metrics to Prometheus, you’ll need to install a slew of data-gathering agents known as exporters.

Building a Powerful Monitoring Stack with Prometheus and Grafana

Grafana lets you create stunning dashboards using those metrics. Setting up a full-fledged server monitoring system using Prometheus and Grafana requires much configuration and complexity because this is a DIY solution. Still, if you have the right skills, it can be a piece of cake. One of the key benefits is that Prometheus will be running on your infrastructure, meaning you won’t be shipping your metrics to a third-party vendor.

Server monitoring alerts are supported by both Grafana and Prometheus, with multiple channel integrations, including:

  • Slack
  • PagerDuty
  • Microsoft Teams 

Prometheus and Grafana are potent open-source combinations that give you significant flexibility with a backend that provides excellent server performance monitoring.

13. SolarWinds Server & Application Manager

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a reliable monitoring service for virtual servers across:

  • Cloud
  • On-premise
  • Hybrid environments

Depending on your environment, it offers an understanding of your server usage metrics and application performance metrics. The solution is a fantastic candidate for monitoring your servers and entire infrastructure. Capabilities include:

  • Automatic server services monitoring
  • Remote server monitoring
  • Server health monitoring
  • Server application monitoring
  • Server inventory monitoring
  • Server process monitoring

You get coverage for containers, databases, and applications with alerts and 1,200+ dashboards out of the box.

14. Dynatrace

Dynatrace is a full-fledged server performance monitoring tool in software-as-a-service (SaaS) and on-site models. It can monitor server metrics and logs and should meet most of your monitoring needs. 

Setting up Dynatrace is relatively easy, as it takes just a few minutes to stream your metrics into beautiful dashboards to gain insights into your servers’:

  • CPU
  • Memory
  • Network health down to the process level

15. CollectD

Collectd is a C++ monitoring solution that helps you stay updated on server changes. It collects systems and application performance data and stores it in RDD files. 

Benefits of CollectD

  • Performs systems analysis
  • Monitors performance bottlenecks
  • Identifies server overload
  • Helps provide users with the best possible experience

CollectD is free and open source, so get monitoring today.

16. Pandora FMS

Pandora Flexible Monitoring System (FMS) is a powerful server monitoring solution that provides all the data you need in one convenient window. It provides comprehensive server monitoring and full network monitoring to detect and alert you to any issues as they arise.

Cloud-Based Solution

Pandora FMS is an aSaaS-based solution that can store large amounts of data, so there is no need to implement software or hardware. After your free trial, you can request a quote on Pandora FMS’ site.

17. Ganglia

Ganglia is an open-source server monitoring system designed for grids and clusters. It has a distributed architecture and uses XML for data representation and XDR for data transport. Ganglia compares and contacts hosts to see if anything looks off and alerts you when an error is detected. As we said, Ganglia is open-source, i.e., free, so get monitoring immediately.

18. Icinga

Icinga is a branch of Nagios and shares many functionalities as a server monitoring solution. It works on checking your server availability and alerts you when any server experiences downtime. You’ll get an instant notification when something is wrong, so you can head back to the comprehensive dashboard to fix it. Monitor hardware like switchers and routers and HTTPS and SMTP status.

19. Monitis

Monitis is an open-source performance monitoring solution that keeps track of the overall health of your server infrastructure. It is a cloud-based tool that allows you to monitor your server remotely so you can download and get monitoring. Cloud-based solutions are an easy way to save time and money. Monitis supports Windows and Linux servers. It is a free and open-source tool.

20. PRTG Network Monitor

PRTG Network Monitor is an all-in-one monitoring solution for enterprises of any size. It allows you to monitor many servers and get real-time:

  • Availability
  • Capacity
  • Reliability information

You can monitor your entire IT infrastructure from one comprehensive dashboard. PRTG offers several paid monitoring options, so after your 30-day free trial, you can get a quote on their website.

21. Monit

It is promoted as a small tool and claims to be ready and working in 15 minutes because it is oriented to monitoring processes, even restarting them if necessary. It interferes with security by promising to track and control the change of files by MD5 and SHA1 and keep track of its CPU consumption on the server to be monitored precisely using itself, which also monitors memory usage and workload.

Basic Network Monitoring and Visualization

Monit performs basic network tests, and the visualization of states can be centralized by command line or one by one by web interface (M/Monit is a separate tool that centralizes web interfaces).

22. Munin

With over 500 add-ons (300 of which make up the system itself), this work by Jimmy Olsen has stabilized its development. Written in Perl 5.10 and RRDtool for web interface graphics, it has a very dominant master/slave scheme: it only asks the nodes occasionally for new data. Such nodes can use software agents in:

  • Perl (even older versions)
  • Python
  • OpenWRT (basic Perl)
  • Shell scripts
  • Minimal form: inetd/xinetd! 

This is convenient for our servers, which have few hardware resources, and we can reuse our shell scripts.

23. ScienceLogic

ScienceLogic is a monitoring tool that contextualizes performance data from your servers. Using a customizable dashboard and virtualization monitoring, you can view key metrics and understand what they mean for the health of your IT infrastructure. ScienceLogic alerts you when problems arise in your network so you can fix them ASAP.

24. Zabbix

Zabbix is a performance monitoring tool for enterprises of all sizes that monitors:

  • Servers
  • Network services
  • Other hardware

It monitors key metrics and server availability to manage your IT infrastructure optimally. It is a highly scalable tool suitable for projects of all sizes. Zabbix is open source, so download it today and try it out.

25. WhatsUp Gold

WhatsUp Gold is an IT infrastructure management solution that provides visibility into key performance metrics. It provides an out-of-the-box dashboard for analyzing data from your servers. 

Comprehensive Server Monitoring with WhatsUp Gold

Proactively monitor your servers with WhatsUp Gold for comprehensive,e simple server monitoring. WhatsUp Gold pricing is calculated by the number of servers/devices and features used, so use their calculator to get a quote on their website.

26. eG Innovations

eG Innovations provides centralized server monitoring on over 10 operating systems:

Windows

  • Linux
  • Solaris
  • AIX and more

It helps you gain visibility into your performance metrics by letting you set baseline metrics and alerting you when anything goes wrong. You’ll receive a console to monitor your enterprise’s performance and get accurate diagnostics and reports. 

eG Innovations is a cloud-based, on-premises, and hybrid solution. After your free trial on the Easy Evaluation plan, you can get a quote on their website to see if eG Innovations meets your needs.

27. Cacti

Cacti is mainly a front-end graphing tool for system data but can also handle data collection. Data gathering happens in a cron job via an external script that feeds metrics, which Cacti stores in a MySQL® database. 

Cacti leverages RRDTool, an open-source data logging and graphing system for storing polled data, and can generate any graph for any dataset. You can create various graphs displayed and organized by collecting data from almost any infrastructure element, including:

  • Load balancers
  • Servers

Cacti's graphing is the standard used by many open-source and commercial tools. It also works with user permissions, allowing certain users access to specific charts or graphs. Its strength lies in its community of developers who have contributed many:

  • Plug-ins
  • Scripts
  • Templates

These resources can be used to monitor almost every type of device.

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Why Is There a Need for Server Monitoring Tools?

Performing server monitoring tasks doesn't require an out-of-the-box approach. All it takes is structure. When performed manually, this process is highly dreadful, as it requires much time and a high level of resource utilization that could, otherwise, be put to more valuable use.

Identifying performance issues this way leaves plenty of room for human errors and delays in incident detection and response time. System administrators need server monitoring tools that support them in this complex task. Otherwise, the manual effort required for server monitoring is far too high and risky.

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What Type of Servers Can Be Monitored?

Monitoring tools can be used on any server, including the cloud. Cloud providers have monitoring tools that may not fit an organization's needs. Fortunately, many third-party tools can monitor the entire environment, including cloud servers. 

Web Servers

Web servers run any number of applications available either on the public Internet or internally. They offer services on ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS), but they could also host other applications available to employees or Internet users. Monitoring tools can be used to ensure the web server’s performance, uptime, hosting processes, CPU and memory usage, and unusual traffic patterns.

Application Servers

Servers often host applications that are available to employees or other users. For example, you might run a database on a server, which is available to your web application and internal employee desktop tools. Monitoring uptime on this server ensures that the web application stays functional. 

Network Servers

A standard TCP/IP network uses several protocols and services running on servers. For example, a DNS (Domain Name System) server will resolve friendly names to IP addresses. A DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server assigns IP addresses to network resources. If these services fail, productivity on the network could be stopped. Monitoring uptime and performance on these servers ensures that critical network functions are operational.

File Storage Servers

The primary purpose of file servers is to store data. Should storage space run out, it could affect productivity and any applications using the server to save data. Monitoring tools can ensure that there is plenty of storage space. 

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Choosing the Best Server Monitoring Tool for Your Needs

When considering a server monitoring tool, you must assess several key server monitoring capabilities to ensure you choose the right option for your business. 

Breadth of Coverage

It is essential to consider whether the tool supports all the server types your enterprise uses and whether it is prepared for future server types that your enterprise may implement.

Intelligent Alert Management

Ensure it is easy to set up alerts by configuring thresholds that trigger them. You should also consider how alerts are delivered and whether mobile users are catered to.

Root Cause Investigation Intelligence

Determine if the tool includes logic or AI algorithms to help you understand why a problem has occurred rather than just notifying you that something has gone wrong without context. 

Ease of Use

Look for a system that includes an intuitive dashboard that makes it easy to monitor events, perform triage, and react to problems quickly.

Support Policy

Consider how easy it is to contact technical support if you need assistance.

Cost Effective

The tool should offer cost-effective solutions. For instance, Alerty utilizes AI to simplify the monitoring setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to other competitors in the market. This streamlined setup allows developers to get up and running quickly, ensuring minimal downtime and maximum efficiency.

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Catch Issues Before They Affect Your Users With Alerty's Free APM Solution

Alerty is a cutting-edge cloud monitoring service tailored to the needs of developers and early-stage startups. Alerty boasts a suite of powerful tools to ensure your application's performance is optimized, your databases are running smoothly, and incidents are swiftly managed.

Alerty's Core Offerings

Alerty provides a comprehensive suite of features, including application performance monitoring, database monitoring, and incident management. Focusing on cutting-edge technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, Alerty is designed to help developers identify and fix issues quickly and effectively.

Monitoring Capabilities 

Alerty's monitoring capabilities extend beyond just applications to cover databases, such as:

  • Supabase
  • PostgreSQL
  • RDS

Alerty ensures your databases are operating at peak performance by tracking essential metrics like CPU and memory usage.

Incident Management & Real User Monitoring (RUM)

Alerty offers quick incident management tools to promptly address any issues that may arise. The Real User Monitoring (RUM) feature provides valuable insights to optimize user experience and enhance overall performance.

Universal Service Monitoring

Alerty's Universal Service Monitoring is a game-changer. It offers insights into dependencies such as Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel. By monitoring these dependencies, Alerty ensures your application remains stable and performs optimally.

AI-Powered Simplified Setup

Alerty utilizes AI to simplify the monitoring setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to other competitors in the market. This streamlined setup allows developers to get up and running quickly, ensuring minimal downtime and maximum efficiency.

Easy Integration & Affordable Monitoring

Alerty integrates with popular tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams. Its affordability and ease of use also set it apart, making it a top pick for those needing efficient and cost-effective monitoring solutions.

Alerty offers a powerful, easy-to-use, cost-effective monitoring solution to help developers catch issues before they impact users. With its free APM solution, Alerty is the go-to choice for enhancing application performance and optimizing user experience.

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