What it does
NetXMS is a modular network and infrastructure monitoring system for collecting performance data, managing events and alarms, reporting, and graphing across infrastructure from network devices to business applications. It can discover devices, collect through NetXMS agents and SNMP, and supports additional protocols including MQTT, Modbus/TCP, and OTLP. The Community edition is self-hosted and free; a separate commercially licensed Enterprise edition and paid support services are also available.
NetXMS is an infrastructure monitoring platform that you operate, rather than a hosted dashboard. Its administrator guide walks through installing the server and agent, selecting and configuring a database driver, and setting up a first monitored node. The quick-start then demonstrates data collection for metrics such as CPU use and interface traffic, threshold events, alarms, event-processing rules, and notification channels. Those channels can send notifications through email, SMS, messengers, or custom drivers.
For a larger estate, network discovery can run actively against configured IP ranges or passively from information learned from known devices. The server can use ICMP to find responding addresses and gather additional details through SNMP or a NetXMS agent; filters control which discovered nodes are added. Operators can build from there with data-collection items, maps and topology, log and service monitoring, and automation through the API, webhooks, or NXSL scripting. This breadth suits teams consolidating network, server, and application signals, but it also means planning the server, database, access, collection rules, and alert policies.
NetXMS Community is free software: the server, agents, and several other components use GPL version 2 or later, while most shared libraries use LGPL version 3 or later; individual third-party components can carry their own licenses. NetXMS Enterprise Edition is a separate commercially licensed build. The pricing page lists paid support tiers (Basic €3,800/year; Standard €580/month or €6,500/year; Premium €1,150/month or €12,500/year) and describes Enterprise pricing as customized. These support charges are not a required license fee for using the Community edition. The downloads page also states that the Windows server binaries are limited to 250 nodes without a valid license, except for educational and non-profit organizations; a commercial support tier or Enterprise license includes an unlimited-node license. Confirm applicable regional prices, tax, and licensing terms before budgeting.
Strengths
- Active and passive network discovery can populate monitored nodes and support topology views.
- Collection supports NetXMS agents, SNMP, and other protocols such as MQTT, Modbus/TCP, and OTLP.
- Data-collection thresholds connect to event processing, alarms, and configurable notification channels.
- The project covers network devices as well as server, application, and service monitoring.
Watch out for
- The operator must deploy and maintain the monitoring server, database configuration, device access, collection rules, and alerting workflow.
- Windows server binaries are limited to 250 nodes without a valid license, subject to the stated educational and non-profit exception.
- Enterprise Edition is separately licensed, and its price is quote-based; paid support packages have separate charges.
Best for
- Infrastructure teams monitoring network devices, servers, and applications in one self-managed system
- MSPs, ISPs, and network operators that need automatic discovery and monitoring across distributed environments
- Teams that want to define their own data collection, thresholds, event rules, and notification actions
Sources
- NetXMS — enabling networks. Highly customizable, scalable, secure. (Oct 25, 2026)
- Quick start — NetXMS Administrator Guide (7.0.0) (Oct 25, 2026)
- Network discovery — NetXMS Administrator Guide (7.0.0) (Oct 25, 2026)
- License — NetXMS (Oct 26, 2026)
- Download and install NetXMS (Oct 26, 2026)
- The prices for network monitoring (Oct 26, 2026)