Nagios XI: Monitoring Ledger 2026

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

Snapshot

Tier: Legacy enterprise
Owner: Nagios Enterprises LLC, Saint Paul, Minnesota; privately held, founder Ethan Galstad, since 2007
Licence model: Perpetual per-node licences (Standard, Enterprise, Sitewide) with one year of maintenance; free tier to 7 nodes; Nagios Core GPLv2
Products scored: Nagios XI 2026R2 on Nagios Core 4 with NCPA; Network Analyzer, Log Server and Fusion are separate licences and count half
Latest release: 2026R2, 2026-09-23
Next signal: Next-generation Nagios Fusion, late 2026 or 2027; Neptune navigation as default in 2027
Archetype: Legacy core, late modernisation
Evidence grade: A. Full XI changelog and price list read; the AI evidence's release dates for 2024R1 and 2024R2 do not match the changelog.

Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	69.4 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+8.4 points	higher is better
Credibility	18.5 / 25	higher is better
Commercial risk	7.5 / 25	lower is better
Technical lock-in	4.5 / 25	lower is better
Integrator fit	13.0 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	3.5 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	64.6 / 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
Network monitoring (12)	3	3	3	3
Application and service monitoring (10)	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5
Data collection and scale (12)	3	3.5	3.5	3.5
Alerting and event management (12)	3	3.5	3.5	3.5
Visualisation and reporting (8)	3.5	3.5	3.5	4
Logs and traces (8)	2	2	2	2
Automation and remediation (8)	3	3	3	3.5
Security and compliance (8)	2.5	2.5	2.5	3.5
New-platform support (VMware exit) (10)	1.5	2	2	4
Total / 100	56.4	61.0	61.0	69.4

Year by year: 2016: 56.4 · 2017: 56.4 · 2018: 56.4 · 2019: 61.0 · 2020: 61.0 · 2021: 61.0 · 2022: 61.0 · 2023: 61.0 · 2024: 61.0 · 2025: 62.6 · 2026: 69.4

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
2019	Alerting and event management	3 → 3.5	+1.2	5.6: acknowledge by email reply; PagerDuty, VictorOps, Opsgenie and Slack integrations; no correlation
2019	Data collection and scale	3 → 3.5	+1.2	5.6: offloaded database, documented DRBD/Pacemaker HA; today about 5,000 hosts with workers
2019	New-platform support (VMware exit)	1.5 → 2	+1.0	5.6: Docker, AWS and Azure wizards; Nutanix only through community plugins
2019	Server, virtualization and storage	3 → 3.5	+1.2	5.6: Docker wizard, Dell EMC, 3PAR and NetApp cDOT wizards, iLO/iDRAC checks
2025	Security and compliance	2.5 → 3	+0.8	2024R2: SAML SSO with Entra ID; NCC Group audit fixes in 2024R1; ModSecurity WAF support
2025	Visualisation and reporting	3.5 → 4	+0.8	2026R1: Smart Dashboards with treemaps; Neptune UI and Chromium reports since 2024R1.1
2026	Automation and remediation	3 → 3.5	+0.8	2026R2: declarative wizard builder; nagios.nagios_xi Ansible collection; no ITSM connector named
2026	New-platform support (VMware exit)	2 → 4	+4.0	2026R1.3 Proxmox VE and 2026R1.5 XCP-ng wizards, Kubernetes wizard, AWS, Azure, GCP; no AHV
2026	Security and compliance	3 → 3.5	+0.8	2026R2: custom RBAC roles; SSO for XI Mobile; KEV entries all listed before 2023, no deduction
2026	Server, virtualization and storage	3.5 → 4	+1.2	2026R1.3-R1.5: Proxmox and XCP-ng wizards; Kubernetes wizard; Pure and PowerStore REST plugins

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
2023-05	5.10: REST API mass checks and CSV output; dashboard export	D10 Automation and remediation	C
2023-06	5.11: Windows SSH wizard replaces WMI wizard	D1 Server and virtualization	C
2023-12	2024R1: year-based versions; NCC Group security audit fixes	D9 Security	C
2024-03	2024R1.1: Neptune UI and Chromium report engine	D6 Visualisation and reporting	C
2024-03	Premium features tied to active maintenance	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2024-08	2024R1.2: ModSecurity WAF support	D9 Security	C
2025-01	New list prices: 100-node Standard 2,595 dollars	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2025-07	2024R2: SAML SSO with Entra ID	D9 Security	C
2025-09	2026R1: Smart Dashboards and host treemap	D6 Visualisation and reporting	C
2026-03	2026R1.3: Proxmox VE wizard	D1 Server and virtualization	M
2026-04	2026R1.4: distributed switch and router wizard	D2 Network	C
2026-05	2026R1.5: XCP-ng wizard	D1 Server and virtualization	M
2026-08	2026R1.7: compiled C check_ncpa	D4 Collection and scale	C
2026-09	2026R2: custom RBAC roles and declarative wizard builder	D9 Security	C

Centre of gravity: Security (4), Server and virtualization (3), Packaging and licensing (2)
Driver mix: Vision 0%, Customer need 71%, Market window 14%, Upstream 0%, Portfolio 14%

Credibility: 18.5 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	4	Point releases every one to three months; year-based versions since 2023-12, though 2024R2 shipped in 2025-07
Roadmap transparency	3	Full public changelog; direction only through Nagios World Conference and blogs, no written roadmap
Say-do	4.5	26 of 27 items shipped, two slips of 2 and 4 months; 1 pending
Velocity	3.5	Mostly one or two features per point release; 2026 added Proxmox, XCP-ng and RBAC
Lifecycle stability	3.5	Perpetual licences with in-place upgrades; premium features tied to maintenance since 2024

Say-do record, 2023 to 2026: 27 tracked items 2023-2026: 26 shipped, 1 pending (next-generation Fusion, late 2026 or 2027), none dropped. Slips: Modern Dark default about 2 months, Entra ID SSO about 4 months.

Commercial risk: 7.5 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Price and licence volatility	2.5	Premium features need active maintenance from 2024; 100-node Standard list rose from 1,995 to 2,595 dollars
Purchase constraints	1	Perpetual licences in node tiers from 100, free 7-node tier, public list prices
Channel and access	1	Open download and free tier; resellers, integrators and distributors listed publicly
Owner stability	1	Founder-owned private company since 2007; small, with key-person dependence
Cost of staying supported	2	Premium wizards and SSO stop updating without maintenance renewal after year one

Security record of the product itself: Four KEV entries, all before 2023 (the security record, 06): CVE-2019-15949 (KEV 2021-11, fixed 5.6.6 in 2019-08) and CVE-2021-25296/25297/25298 (KEV 2022-01, fixed 2020-11 to 2021-01; sources give 5.7.5 or 5.8.0). No KEV date in 2023-2026, so no deduction.

Technical lock-in: 4.5 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	1	Configuration written out as plain Nagios .cfg files; RRD metrics; standard plugin output format
Export path	1	backup_xi.sh full archives, REST export in JSON or CSV; .cfg files load into Icinga, Naemon, Checkmk
Stack coupling	1.5	Requires Nagios Core, MySQL/MariaDB and PHP; agents are open (NCPA Apache 2.0, NRPE, SNMP, WMI)
Hardware / cloud coupling	0	Any x86_64 Linux or VM appliance; fully air-gapped
Skills and tooling coupling	1	Nagios skills are widespread; standard plugin API

Integrator fit: 13.0 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Partner programme openness	3.5	Resellers, system integrators and distributors with portal and deal registration
Multi-tenancy and self-service	2.5	Contact-group authorisation within one instance; Fusion aggregates instances; no MSP portal or billing
API and infrastructure-as-code	3.5	Documented REST API; Ansible modules and a nagios_xi collection; Terraform and Chef community only
Skills and certification	3.5	NCP and NCA certifications (Core), large Exchange community with 4,000+ plugins

AI leverage: 3.5 / 20

Strand	Today	Latest step
AIOps on monitoring data	1	2024: 2024R1: NVIDIA GPU wizard via NCPA; no anomaly detection or correlation
AI platform stack	0	none
AI-assisted operations	1	2017: 5.4: rule-based capacity forecasts; 2024R2 trend-based predictive alerts
Agent openness	1.5	2016: 5.x: documented REST API with per-user keys; no MCP server

AI say-do: 2 announced, 2 GA (about 1 month late each), 0 preview, 0 pending, 0 dropped. Nagios XI has no machine learning or generative AI; forecasting is regression and trend extrapolation.

Reading

Nagios XI is modernising a 2009-era LAMP product around the Nagios Core engine: a new UI, Smart Dashboards, SSO, custom roles and, in 2026, Proxmox and XCP-ng wizards. Point releases arrive every few months and nearly every announced item shipped, but most are incremental and machine learning is absent. Buyers get open formats, perpetual licences and easy exit, against modest scale per server and flow and log analysis sold as separate products.

Open questions and evidence caveats

Release dates in the AI evidence (2024R1 in 2024-04, 2024R2 in 2024-10) conflict with the changelog (2023-12 and 2025-07); the changelog was used.
Security record and research give different fixed versions (5.7.5 vs 5.8.0) for the 2021 KEV flaws.
Say-do items are mostly small and announced shortly before release, which flatters the ratio.
Scale figures (about 5,000 hosts with workers) are vendor guidance, not benchmarks.