Cacti vs Icinga
A side-by-side comparison on deployment model, data residency, licensing basis and security coverage. Structural facts are verifiable against vendor documentation; the scored dimensions are our assessment.
Cacti
The Cacti Group
6.7
Average across eight dimensions
- Deployment
- Self-hosted
- Licensing
- Free
- Time to value
- Medium
- Segment
- SMB / education
- G2
- —
Icinga
Icinga GmbH
7.6
Average across eight dimensions
- Deployment
- Self-hosted
- Licensing
- Free; paid support available
- Time to value
- Complex
- Segment
- Mid-market / enterprise
- G2
- 4.4 (22)
Score by dimension
| Dimension | CA | IC |
|---|---|---|
| Data residency control | 10 | 10 |
| Pricing value | 9.8 | 9.5 |
| Detection accuracy | 6 | 7.5 |
| Response speed | 5.5 | 7.5 |
| Ease of setup | 6 | 5.5 |
| Management UX | 5.5 | 7 |
| Integration depth | 6 | 8.5 |
| Security coverage | 4.5 | 5.5 |
What the comparison says
Both platforms are self-hosted, so deployment model is not what separates them here. Cacti is described as medium to reach value, against complex for Icinga.
Cacti licenses on free, Icinga on free; paid support available. Neither bills on data volume, so the comparison is about what each licence includes rather than how much you send it.
Icinga leads on fault detection, alerting speed, management UX, integrations and device coverage, and Cacti does not lead by a clear margin anywhere in this set.
Cacti
- +Free, stable and extremely light on resources.
- +Long-established SNMP graphing with a large body of community templates.
- +Runs happily on modest hardware in small or isolated environments.
- −Graphing-first: alerting requires plugins and is not a core strength.
- −Interface and workflow are dated, and development pace is slow.
Best for Small or isolated networks needing long-term interface graphing at no cost.
Watch out Treat this as a graphing tool rather than a monitoring and alerting platform.
Icinga
- +Free and open source with no device ceiling, and a far better interface than Nagios Core.
- +Configuration as code fits infrastructure-as-code workflows well.
- +Clustering and zones handle distributed and segmented networks properly.
- −Initial setup is genuinely involved. Expect to spend real time on it.
- −Documentation assumes a level of familiarity that newcomers often lack.
Best for Infrastructure teams who want configuration as code and no licence cost.
Watch out This rewards investment; it punishes teams looking for something quick.
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Data last verified 2026-10-06. nPro publishes this comparison. Where nPro appears as one of the platforms listed, its card is marked and its scores are our own assessment. Third-party review scores are sourced from public vendor profiles. Structural facts are verifiable against each vendor's documentation: deployment model, licensing basis and residency.