Centreon: Monitoring Ledger 2026

Part of the Infrastructure Monitoring Ledger (edition 2026-10-04). How the scores work: methodology.

Snapshot

Tier: Challenger
Owner: Centreon SAS (Paris), founder-led; majority growth investment from a European private-equity sponsor in 2024 (grade B; security record names Swiss Post)
Licence model: GPLv2 and Apache 2.0 core; IT and Business Editions by annual subscription per monitored-host pack
Products scored: Centreon 2.8 to 26.04 (Web, Engine, Broker, Gorgone) with the paid Plugin Packs, auto-discovery, BAM, MAP and MBI; Centreon Cloud not scored
Latest release: 26.04.0, 2026-04-21
Next signal: 26.10 expected October 2026 on the twice-yearly cadence; no feature list in the research
Archetype: Sovereign open-core challenger
Evidence grade: B. What's-new pages and GitHub cited, but the release record's logs cell for today is a copy of the apps cell, ownership is grade B and the AHV date conflicts.

Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	78.6 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+13.2 points	higher is better
Credibility	20.5 / 25	higher is better
Commercial risk	11.5 / 25	lower is better
Technical lock-in	7.0 / 25	lower is better
Integrator fit	13.5 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	13.5 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	73.3 / 100	balanced weights

Capability by domain

Scores 0 to 5 against fixed anchors; total is weighted to 100.

Domain (weight)	2016	2019	2022	Today
Server, virtualization and storage (12)	3	3.5	3.5	4.5
Network monitoring (12)	3	3	3	3.5
Application and service monitoring (10)	3.5	3.5	3.5	4
Data collection and scale (12)	3.5	4	4	4.5
Alerting and event management (12)	3	3	3.5	3.5
Visualisation and reporting (8)	3.5	3.5	4	4
Logs and traces (8)	1	1	1	2
Automation and remediation (8)	3	3.5	4	4
Security and compliance (8)	2.5	2.5	4	4.5
New-platform support (VMware exit) (10)	1	2	2	4.5
Total / 100	55.0	60.2	65.4	78.6

Year by year: 2016: 55.0 · 2017: 55.0 · 2018: 55.0 · 2019: 60.2 · 2020: 63.0 · 2021: 64.6 · 2022: 65.4 · 2023: 67.4 · 2024: 75.2 · 2025: 77.4 · 2026: 78.6

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
2019	Automation and remediation	3 → 3.5	+0.8	19.10: auto-discovery onboarding; Ansible playbooks for central and pollers
2019	Data collection and scale	3.5 → 4	+1.2	19.10: central HA with DRBD and Pacemaker; pollers buffer during outages
2019	New-platform support (VMware exit)	1 → 2	+2.0	19.10: Docker and Kubernetes packs; AHV only via community SNMP plugins
2019	Server, virtualization and storage	3 → 3.5	+1.2	18.10 and 19.10: auto-discovery (IT Edition); IPMI and Redfish packs; Docker
2020	Alerting and event management	3 → 3.5	+1.2	20.04: Resource Status triage; webhooks to Teams, Slack, PagerDuty; flapping detection
2020	Security and compliance	2.5 → 3.5	+1.6	20.04: SAML 2.0; audit logs; automatic poller certificates
2021	Security and compliance	3.5 → 4	+0.8	21.10: OpenID Connect SSO; HashiCorp Vault credential storage
2021	Visualisation and reporting	3.5 → 4	+0.8	21.10: MAP HTML5 editor; NOC dashboards and scheduled PDF reports
2022	Automation and remediation	3.5 → 4	+0.8	REST API v2 (GA 20.04); Open Tickets to ServiceNow and Jira; community Terraform provider at half
2023	New-platform support (VMware exit)	2 → 3	+2.0	23.04: Nutanix AHV auto-discovery pack
2024	Application and service monitoring	3.5 → 4	+1.0	24.10: headless-browser user journeys; OpenTelemetry trace links to Tempo and Jaeger
2024	Logs and traces	1 → 2	+1.6	24.10: OpenTelemetry logs ingestion connector; events streamed to Elasticsearch, Splunk, Kafka
2024	New-platform support (VMware exit)	3 → 4	+2.0	24.04: native Proxmox VE pack GA with VM, LXC and Ceph discovery
2024	Security and compliance	4 → 4.5	+0.8	24.10: MSP tenant isolation; MFA, FIPS 140-3 ciphers, offline repositories; no KEV entries
2024	Server, virtualization and storage	3.5 → 4.5	+2.4	24.04: Proxmox VE pack GA; AHV and storage packs; Kubernetes via Prometheus scraping
2025	Data collection and scale	4 → 4.5	+1.2	25.10: MariaDB Galera optimisations; Gorgone coordinating 250+ pollers
2025	New-platform support (VMware exit)	4 → 4.5	+1.0	25.04: Kubernetes and OpenShift Virtualization packs; KubeVirt and OpenStack; no XCP-ng
2026	Network monitoring	3 → 3.5	+1.2	26.04: gNMI streaming telemetry connector; SD-WAN packs; still no flow or config backup

Direction, 2023 to 2026

Each item carries one theme and one driver (V vision, C customer need, M market window, U upstream, P portfolio).

Date	Item	Theme	Driver
2023-04	23.04: Nutanix AHV discovery pack; SD-WAN packs	D1 Server and virtualization	M
2023-10	23.10: ML anomaly detection GA	D7 AI-assisted operations	V
2023-10	Anomaly detection reserved to Business Edition	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2024-04	24.04: NVIDIA SMI pack; Kafka and OpenSearch stream connectors	D4 Collection and scale	C
2024-04	24.04: native Proxmox VE pack; vSphere-to-Proxmox conversion helper	D1 Server and virtualization	M
2024-05	Majority growth investment from a European private-equity sponsor	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2024-10	24.10: GenAI incident summaries (preview); MSP tenant isolation; OpenTelemetry logs connector	D8 Logs and traces	C
2025-04	25.04: topology incident clustering; Kubernetes and OpenShift Virtualization packs	D5 Alerting and events	V
2025-11	25.10: sovereign AI assistant; Grafana datasource plugin v2	D7 AI-assisted operations	V
2026-04	26.04: official MCP server; gNMI telemetry connector	D11 Ecosystem openness	M

Centre of gravity: Server and virtualization (2), AI-assisted operations (2), Packaging and licensing (2)
Driver mix: Vision 30%, Customer need 20%, Market window 30%, Upstream 0%, Portfolio 20%

Credibility: 20.5 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	4.5	Two releases a year, April and October, since 18.10; 26.04 on schedule
Roadmap transparency	3.5	Public what's-new pages, lifecycle policy and GitHub monorepo; roadmap shown at Summit and blog
Say-do	5	7 of 7 items 2023-2026 shipped in the stated release with 0 month lag
Velocity	4	Several capabilities per release: Proxmox, anomaly detection, OpenTelemetry, MCP
Lifecycle stability	3.5	Published support windows; moved from CentOS to AlmaLinux 8, 9 and 10; in-place upgrades

Say-do record, 2023 to 2026: 7 items 2023-2026, all shipped in the named release with 0 month lag: anomaly detection, Proxmox pack, Kafka and OpenSearch connectors, GenAI summaries (as preview), incident clustering, AI assistant, MCP server.

Commercial risk: 11.5 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Price and licence volatility	2	Anomaly detection reserved to Business Edition in 2023; no metric change documented
Purchase constraints	2	Free GPL core; IT Edition from about EUR 4,500 a year in host packs; paid editions subscription only
Channel and access	1	Open download, public docs and GitHub; paid packs need a subscription
Owner stability	3.5	Majority private-equity growth investment in 2024 (grade B source)
Cost of staying supported	3	BAM, MAP and MBI stop working when the subscription ends; Plugin Pack library gated

Security record of the product itself: No Centreon flaw on the CISA KEV list (the security record). Context: ANSSI CERTFR-2021-CTI-005 on Sandworm compromises of internet-exposed Centreon 2.5.x servers, 2017-2020; CVE-2023-46261 and CVE-2024-23161 fixed, not on KEV.

Technical lock-in: 7.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	1.5	Configuration in MariaDB, exportable as JSON or CLAPI files; metrics in RRD; Nagios plugin format
Export path	1.5	REST API v2 and CLAPI export; stream connectors; BAM trees must be rebuilt elsewhere
Stack coupling	2	Own engine, broker and Gorgone, but standard Monitoring Plugins and MariaDB
Hardware / cloud coupling	0.5	Any Linux server; offline repositories for air-gapped installs
Skills and tooling coupling	1.5	Nagios-style skills, widely available

Integrator fit: 13.5 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Partner programme openness	3	Strong with European MSPs; partner programme terms not documented
Multi-tenancy and self-service	3.5	ACL scoping and MSP tenant isolation since 24.10; no billing portal documented
API and infrastructure-as-code	3.5	OpenAPI REST v2 covering all functions; Ansible playbooks; Terraform only community
Skills and certification	3.5	Centreon Certified Administrator and Expert via Centreon Academy

AI leverage: 13.5 / 20

Strand	Today	Latest step
AIOps on monitoring data	3.5	2025: 25.04: incident clustering by MAP topology; root-cause scoring
AI platform stack	3	2025: 25.10: sovereign AI assistant answers natural-language questions on configuration and alert history
AI-assisted operations	3	2025: 25.10: natural-language assistant GA
Agent openness	4	2026: 26.04: official MCP server GA; governance controls not documented

AI say-do: 2 tracked, 2 GA (anomaly detection 23.10, NVIDIA pack 24.04), 0-1 month lag, 0 dropped. The AI is ML anomaly detection in Business Edition, topology-based incident clustering and a natural-language assistant; GenAI incident summaries are still preview.

Reading

Centreon is building a European open-core platform, keeping the engine open source while adding Proxmox, OpenShift Virtualization, AI features and an MCP server to its paid editions. Since 2023 it has released twice a year on schedule and delivered every tracked promise in the stated release. Buyers get low lock-in and strong VMware-exit coverage, but no flow analysis, config backup or native log store, and the useful packs, maps and AI need a subscription.

Open questions and evidence caveats

The release record's today logs cell repeats the apps cell, so logs rests only on the 24.10 OpenTelemetry logs connector.
Ownership is grade B: a 2024 private-equity investment per the release record, while the security record names Swiss Post.
Nutanix AHV pack is dated end-2022 in the snapshot but 23.04 in the release table; 23.04 used. The 2020 cloud ML connector appears only in the AI evidence.
Auto-discovery, Plugin Packs, BAM, MAP and anomaly detection are paid; the open-source edition alone would score lower.