19 Best Server Monitoring Software For Webmasters And Administrators

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Whether you're using a shared hosting server or using a dedicated server for running your company's intranet, uptime and responsiveness are two of the most critical factors to keep your websites and custom software running in a healthy state. A robust server monitoring system is essential for professional hosting solutions to avoid any business loss in the absence of timely alerts of downtime or excessive server load. There are several types of server monitoring software. Some are hosted on the same web server, while others are installed separately on a remote system. Whatever is the case, the primary concern of the website's owner is to get timely information of any mishap to minimize the damage. I've compiled a list of 20 best server monitoring software for professional webmasters and IT administrators that can help you in keeping watch on the health of your web server round the clock.

PA Server MonitorPA Server Monitor: This powerful server monitoring system is capable of watching Windows and Linux based systems. It can also monitor a wide range of network devices installed in a cluster. This software keeps an eye on various critical parameters of the web server and keeps the statistics in a secure database. You can visualize all the monitoring details through user-friendly reports. You can also access this software on iPhone and Android through specialized apps made for these two mobile platforms. This application also employs smart algorithms to predict disk usage and other parameters to warn you ahead of any catastrophic event.

Hyperic Server MonitorHyperic Server Monitor: This is a complete monitoring suite that supports wide range of system and servers. Freelancers and individuals can use the open source edition to try all the powerful features of this application. You can monitor different types of operating systems, web servers, database servers, application servers, network devices and much more. This application is used by several big brands and is well known for its reliable and robust monitoring modules. It measures the health, performance and resource utilization for each critical component of the server under its surveillance. You also get custom reports for better assessment of each web server's condition.

WhatsUp Gold Network ManagementWhatsUp Gold Network Management: A good server monitoring system is a combination of several dedicated modules for different tasks. This intuitive software provides the same functionality with multiple monitoring modules to keep your web or application server up and running. You can create custom monitors with various set of rules apart from the standard system monitors available in the application. This application is ideal for monitoring multiple system resources in a large network. You can exclude selective components within a network from monitoring modules so that you can concentrate on the most important applications and web servers.

ServerAssist MonitorServerAssist Monitor: This excellent software can be used even by a layman. It's user-friendly and is loaded with tons of server monitoring features. You can customize and activate different types of monitors simultaneously with each one having their own set of rules. There are several alert options along with handy GSM modem integration for keeping a check on organization's mobile connections. You also get various standard and custom reporting modules to analyze the collected data through various active monitors. A centralized dashboard gives you quick access to all the active modules for easy management of the entire monitoring system.

Nagios MonitorNagios: This is an award-winning server monitoring software packed with loads of features. Apart from regular monitoring functionality, its intelligent alert modules also detect various kinds of security breaches to keep your systems clean and in a healthy state. It can also repair certain types of problems automatically without human intervention for quick recovery. It also includes intelligent reporting module that presents trending reports for critical parameters to help you in keeping your servers in good condition throughout the year. You can also configure scheduled maintenance time frames so that its monitoring modules do not give false alarms while you're upgrading or repairing your web servers.

up.time Enterprise Monitorup.time Enterprise: This software is made for professionals and large organizations to monitor their large and complex network of servers and network devices. It can monitor from a single web server up to a large cluster of cloud storage. It supports almost all major software and hardware platforms to give you a custom monitoring solution that suits your requirements. It also has a large number of pre-made custom alerts, reports and monitoring templates to get you started in no time. It also has an intelligent self-healing module that proactively detects common problems and repairs them with minimum intervention. This ensures that you servers experience minimum down times.

Server Nanny MonitorServer Nanny: This software is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses using multiple application and web servers for their business needs. It lets you configure an unlimited number of custom actions for a single monitor. Its flexible notification and the alert system gives you multiple channels to get the critical information as per your convenience. It has a user-friendly interface and stores all the monitoring information in its own database system. It also lets you write your own custom scripts or executables to create custom monitors. Server Nanny includes over 50 different types of custom monitoring templates for easy deployment in different server configurations.

PRTG Network MonitorPRTG Network Monitor: You can monitor different kinds of servers through this useful software. It can keep a check on application servers, web servers, mail servers, FTP servers, database servers and much more. You can create a large number of custom rules for each monitor and can configure custom actions based on the outcomes of various conditions. It can not only monitor server's availability but can also collect a large amount of data related to utilization of different resources on the server. This software is very easy to deploy and configure. It also has a free edition that can be used by small businesses to monitor their limited number of web and application servers.

Tembria Server MonitorTembria Server Monitor: This is an extremely flexible all-purpose server monitoring software for IT professionals. It supports the creation of graphical layouts of servers and network devices for better planning of monitoring routines. This software also includes a large number of custom monitoring templates for quick deployment. Since it a web-based system, multiple team members can work on it from different locations. What I liked most is the types of notification supported by this software. It has also a very easy installation process compared to other products in its category. It also has multiple security modules for maximum protection of your hardware and software assets.

OpManager MonitorOpManager: This is a perfect solution for monitoring server resource utilization and availability. You can monitor different services and processes on a web server every easily through this software. It can also monitor event logs and various ports on a web server giving you details statistics about every single activity happening during peak hours. This much extensive monitoring generates a massive amount of data and to better visualize and understand this data OpManager provides an excellent reporting module. You can create tons of custom reports to drill down into the mine of information gathered through this excellent software. It's must-have monitoring software for Windows-based web servers.

Monitor ScoutMonitor Scout: It's a robust monitoring system ideal for keeping watch on large number of web servers. You can configure over 50 different types of monitoring systems through this service. It not only monitors server downtime but also keeps check on various internal parameters to assess' web server's health. You can choose different methods for notifications and can configure them easily for each active monitor. You can also configure an unlimited number of custom monitors for a single web server or a network device. Its feature-packed reporting module gives you time-based and parameter-based in-depth reports of important monitoring information as per your needs.

Simple Server MonitorSimple Server Monitor: As the name implies, this monitoring software provides simple yet extremely reliable web server monitoring functionality. You can monitor different applications on a single web server and can receive different types of notifications on different communication channels. You can also monitor FTP and mail servers through this software. A master log gives you all the monitoring details at one location. You can also create custom reports for detailed analysis of web server's health and performance. It also lets you enable or disable custom monitors with a click of a button without any need to shutdown or reboot the system.

ProtoMon MonitorProtoMon: You can monitor wide range of servers through this reliable server monitoring software. It has a flexible notification system and supports different types of checks. It also has a Telnet and SSH monitor for monitoring connections of secure file transfers. It also has a powerful script execution module including support for boolean expression filter for maximum flexibility in creating complex actions. You can also launch an external application based on the alert notification to trigger a desired chain of events. I tested this software on a Linux server and found that it is extremely effective and reliable in reporting down times and unavailability of system resources.

FrameFlow MonitorFrameFlow: This is yet another free and powerful server monitoring software with a gorgeous interface. It has a strong support for multiple-users with the flexible reporting system. This enables large teams to work seamlessly on a complex network of servers, switches, and routers. You can create custom threshold levels for different system resources to get notified whenever your web server experience excessive load. You can also switch it to full screen to see the network of monitored assets. It uses graphical nodes with different color schemes for better visualization. You can also schedule emails containing custom reports to multiple team members for timely distribution of vital server statistics.

GSX Server GuardGSX Server Guard: If you've deployed different types of Windows-based servers, then this software is ideal for you. It is specially made to keep a check on multiple Windows servers having different popular applications like Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint. You can also monitor IBM servers through this software. It has a soothing interface with tons of options to get your own customized monitoring system. It has an integrated dashboard to monitor and control all your web servers from a single pane. Its powerful reporting module generates tons of different kinds of reports for system administrators as well as for the senior management.

Big Brother Pro MonitorBig Brother Pro: One can monitor any kind of digital device with an IP address through this software. You can also use a large number of useful plugins with this software to deploy a custom monitoring solution. It has a powerful wizard-based configuration system to create custom monitors and alerts. It also uses the flash-based graphing engine to show you server statistics for better analysis. You can also use its Map SDK to visualize your servers and other resources on a realistic earth map. This software is ideal for businesses having multiple Windows and Linux servers at multiple locations across the globe. It also has a large and active community of users to help you in understanding its usage.

Ganglia Monitoring SystemGanglia: This open-source and free monitoring system is used by large companies like Twitter, Microsoft, Dell and many more. It is extremely powerful and can monitor a wide array of hardware and software platforms. It has a live dashboard that gives you real-time data collected from all the monitored assets. It is made for large and complex network deployments and is able to generate a large amount of useful data to refine existing infrastructure. It is also ideal for computer science students to understand the concepts of server monitoring by examining its source code. Needless to say, it has a large community of active developers and users who can help you correctly deploy it in your organization.

Scout Server MonitoringScout Monitor: This is a reliable hosted server monitoring solution for professionals. You can run it on a typical LAMP stack and can configure it extensively through a web interface. It has a good collection of plugins to configure different kinds of monitoring system easily. This software automatically updates itself without affecting the monitoring routines. It also has a powerful API for power users to take full advantage of all its features. It also has real-time graphs to pick incidents in time. It also works seamlessly with popular cloud services. You can also replicate alerts and triggers across different clusters with a single click. One can also combine multiple server monitoring statistics in a single graph.

Server Density MonitorServer Density: This feature-packed server monitoring software is well-known for its ability to send notifications and alerts through different communication channels. You can either get real-time statistics or you can choose to get snapshots at regular intervals. It has interactive report graphs with colored annotations for easy analysis. New users can use its standard metrics to start monitoring their web servers in no time. This software also provides an API for easy extraction of data to use it with external applications. It can monitor both standalone as well as cloud servers without any fail. It also supports notifications on different mobile platforms like iPhone, Android, and an iPad.