Monitoring Tools Comprehensive Comparison
Executive Summary
This document provides a comprehensive analysis of server and service monitoring solutions for MDHOSTING LTD infrastructure. It compares open-source and commercial options across infrastructure monitoring, log management, and security monitoring categories.
Current Context: - 3 servers (EU1 hosting, NS1/NS2 DNS) at Hetzner Germany - ~30 active hosting accounts - cPanel environment (migrating to ApisCP) - Budget-conscious operation (£792/year total infrastructure) - Existing security: Imunify360 FREE, CSF, Fail2Ban, KernelCare
Current Plan: - Phase 1 (Q1 2026): Grafana + Prometheus + Loki for infrastructure monitoring - Phase 2 (Q3-Q4 2026): Wazuh SIEM for security monitoring (post-ApisCP migration)
This analysis evaluates alternatives and validates the current strategy.
Comparison Categories
We evaluate solutions across three primary categories:
- Infrastructure Monitoring - Server metrics, resource utilization, performance
- Log Management - Log aggregation, search, analysis
- Security Monitoring - Threat detection, intrusion detection, compliance
Solution Comparison Matrix
Overview Table
| Solution | Type | Infrastructure Monitoring | Log Management | Security Monitoring | Annual Cost (Est.) | Complexity | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana + Prometheus + Loki | Open Source | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | ⭐⭐ Basic | £144 | Medium | Infrastructure metrics and logs |
| Wazuh | Open Source | ⭐⭐ Basic | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | £43 | Medium-High | Security-focused SIEM |
| Elastic Stack (ELK) | Open Source/Commercial | ⭐⭐⭐ Good | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | £0-£300+ | High | Large-scale log analytics |
| Zabbix | Open Source | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐ Basic | ⭐⭐⭐ Good | £0 (shared server) | Medium-High | Traditional infrastructure monitoring |
| Netdata | Open Source | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐ Poor | ⭐⭐ Basic | £0 (agent-only) | Low | Real-time per-server metrics |
| Datadog | Commercial SaaS | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | £600-£2,400+ | Low | Teams with budget, all-in-one |
| New Relic | Commercial SaaS | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | ⭐⭐⭐ Good | £500-£2,000+ | Low | Application performance monitoring |
| Splunk | Commercial | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | £1,200-£5,000+ | High | Enterprise security operations |
| Icinga2 | Open Source | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | ⭐⭐ Basic | ⭐⭐ Basic | £0 (shared server) | Medium | Nagios-style host/service checks |
| Checkmk | Open Source/Commercial | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐ Good | ⭐⭐⭐ Good | £0-£500+ | Medium | All-in-one infrastructure monitoring |
Detailed Analysis
1. Grafana + Prometheus + Loki (Current Plan - Phase 1)
Architecture: - Prometheus: Time-series metrics database with pull-based collection - Loki: Log aggregation system optimized for Kubernetes and cloud-native - Grafana: Unified visualization and dashboarding platform - Node Exporter: System metrics collector (CPU, memory, disk, network) - Promtail: Log shipping agent
Strengths: - ⭐ Best-in-class visualization - Grafana is industry standard for dashboards - ⭐ Excellent for infrastructure metrics - Prometheus designed for this purpose - ⭐ Highly scalable - Proven at organizations with thousands of servers - ⭐ Strong community - Massive ecosystem of exporters and integrations - ⭐ Flexible alerting - Multi-channel alerts (email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks) - ⭐ Cost-effective - £144/year for dedicated CPX31 server - ⭐ Modern architecture - Cloud-native, container-friendly - ⭐ Easy to extend - Add more data sources (Wazuh, MySQL, etc.)
Weaknesses: - ❌ Not security-focused - No built-in threat detection rules - ❌ Limited log search - Loki optimized for labels, not full-text search - ❌ Steeper learning curve - PromQL query language required - ❌ No file integrity monitoring - Not designed for security use cases - ❌ Manual rule creation - Security alerts require custom PromQL/LogQL
Infrastructure Requirements: - Hetzner CPX31: 4 vCPU, 8GB RAM, 80GB SSD - Annual cost: £144 (€13.79/month)
Use Cases: - Server resource monitoring (CPU, RAM, disk, network) - Application performance metrics - Infrastructure capacity planning - Service availability monitoring - Log aggregation and correlation
Deployment Complexity: Medium (2-3 weeks full deployment)
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ✅ Excellent choice for Phase 1 - Best infrastructure monitoring solution for the budget. Provides immediate value for resource monitoring and system health.
2. Wazuh SIEM (Current Plan - Phase 2)
Architecture: - Wazuh Manager: OSSEC-based security event processing and correlation - Wazuh Indexer: OpenSearch backend for event storage - Wazuh Dashboard: Web UI for security visualization - Wazuh Agents: Lightweight agents on monitored servers
Strengths: - ⭐ Comprehensive security focus - Purpose-built SIEM with threat detection - ⭐ File integrity monitoring - Real-time FIM with file diff reporting - ⭐ Vulnerability detection - Automated CVE scanning against National Vulnerability Database - ⭐ Compliance reporting - GDPR, PCI DSS, CIS Benchmarks out-of-the-box - ⭐ Pre-built rules - 3,000+ detection rules maintained by community - ⭐ Very cost-effective - £43/year for all-in-one deployment - ⭐ Active development - Backed by commercial company (Wazuh Inc.) - ⭐ Integrates with Grafana - Can use Grafana as unified dashboard
Weaknesses: - ❌ OSSEC conflict - Cannot coexist with Imunify360 on cPanel servers - ❌ Resource intensive - Requires 2GB+ RAM minimum - ❌ Complex deployment - 3 components (manager, indexer, dashboard) - ❌ Limited infrastructure metrics - Not designed for performance monitoring - ❌ Alert fatigue risk - Many rules may generate noise without tuning
Infrastructure Requirements: - Option 1: Hetzner CPX11 (2 vCPU, 2GB RAM) - £43/year - All-in-one - Option 2: Reuse Grafana monitoring server - £0 additional - Option 3: Separate components - £210/year (scalable for growth)
Use Cases: - Security event correlation and threat detection - File integrity monitoring (critical system files) - Vulnerability scanning and patch management - Compliance reporting (GDPR, PCI DSS) - Incident investigation and forensics
Deployment Complexity: Medium-High (8-11 weeks)
Critical Constraint:
⚠️ Cannot deploy on current cPanel servers - Both Imunify360 and Wazuh use /var/ossec directory. Must deploy on new ApisCP servers or separate monitoring infrastructure.
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ✅ Essential for security monitoring - Deploy after ApisCP migration. Provides security capabilities that Grafana stack lacks. Combined cost of £187/year (Grafana + Wazuh) is excellent value.
3. Elastic Stack (ELK/Elastic)
Architecture: - Elasticsearch: Distributed search and analytics engine - Logstash: Server-side data processing pipeline (ETL) - Kibana: Visualization and exploration platform - Beats: Lightweight data shippers (Filebeat, Metricbeat, etc.)
Strengths: - ⭐ Best-in-class log search - Elasticsearch is the gold standard for full-text search - ⭐ Massive scalability - Proven at organizations with petabytes of data - ⭐ Extremely flexible - Can ingest any data type - ⭐ Rich ecosystem - Thousands of integrations and plugins - ⭐ Security features - Elastic Security (formerly SIEM) for threat detection - ⭐ Machine learning - Anomaly detection and forecasting (paid tier) - ⭐ APM capabilities - Application performance monitoring built-in
Weaknesses: - ❌ Very resource intensive - Requires 4GB+ RAM minimum, 8GB+ recommended - ❌ Complex to operate - Cluster management, index lifecycle, heap tuning - ❌ Expensive at scale - Open source free, but commercial features £££ - ❌ Java-based - High memory overhead, garbage collection pauses - ❌ Licensing changes - No longer true open source (SSPL license since 2021) - ❌ Overkill for small deployments - Designed for enterprise scale
Infrastructure Requirements: - Minimum: Single node with 4GB RAM (not recommended for production) - Recommended: 3-node cluster, 8GB+ RAM each - Cost estimate: - Self-hosted: £0-£300+/year (depending on server size) - Elastic Cloud: £600-£2,400+/year (commercial SaaS)
Use Cases: - Large-scale log aggregation (100GB+/day) - Complex log analytics and correlation - Security operations center (SOC) - Application performance monitoring - Business intelligence and analytics
Deployment Complexity: High (4-6 weeks + ongoing operations)
Comparison to Current Plan: - vs. Grafana/Loki: ELK better for log search, but much heavier and more complex - vs. Wazuh: ELK more flexible, Wazuh more security-focused with better detection rules - Cost: ELK requires larger servers (£300+/year) vs. £187/year (Grafana + Wazuh)
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ⚠️ Not recommended - Significant overkill for 3-server infrastructure. Loki provides sufficient log aggregation with much lower overhead. Only consider if you need advanced log analytics that Loki cannot provide.
When to reconsider: - If you grow to 50+ servers - If you need to process 50GB+/day of logs - If you hire dedicated operations staff - If you need advanced machine learning features
4. Zabbix
Architecture: - Zabbix Server: Central monitoring and alerting engine - Zabbix Database: MySQL/PostgreSQL for metrics storage - Zabbix Web UI: PHP-based web interface - Zabbix Agent: Lightweight monitoring agent (active/passive modes)
Strengths: - ⭐ Mature and proven - 20+ years of development - ⭐ Comprehensive monitoring - Network, servers, applications, services - ⭐ Powerful templating - Create templates for consistent monitoring - ⭐ Advanced alerting - Escalations, dependencies, maintenance windows - ⭐ Network discovery - Auto-discovery of hosts and services - ⭐ Low agent overhead - Very lightweight agents - ⭐ Cost-effective - Completely free and open source
Weaknesses: - ❌ Dated UI/UX - Interface feels old compared to Grafana - ❌ Steep learning curve - Complex configuration for advanced features - ❌ Limited log management - Not designed for log aggregation - ❌ Poor visualization - Graphs are functional but not beautiful - ❌ Monolithic architecture - Less flexible than modern microservices
Infrastructure Requirements: - Can share existing server (lightweight) or dedicated server - Minimum: 2GB RAM for small deployments - Cost: £0 (can share Grafana monitoring server)
Use Cases: - Traditional infrastructure monitoring (SNMP, ICMP, agents) - Network device monitoring (switches, routers, firewalls) - Service availability monitoring with SLA reporting - Distributed monitoring across many locations - Trigger-based alerting with complex dependencies
Deployment Complexity: Medium-High (3-4 weeks)
Comparison to Current Plan: - vs. Prometheus: Zabbix uses push/pull hybrid, Prometheus pure pull - vs. Grafana: Zabbix has built-in dashboards, but Grafana is much more flexible - Integration: Zabbix data source available for Grafana
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ⚠️ Consider as alternative to Prometheus - Zabbix is more traditional monitoring, Prometheus is modern cloud-native. Prometheus + Grafana provides better visualization and flexibility for your use case.
When to reconsider: - If you have many network devices to monitor (switches, routers) - If you prefer traditional monitoring paradigm - If you need built-in SLA reporting
5. Netdata
Architecture: - Netdata Agent: Real-time monitoring agent per server (standalone) - Netdata Cloud (optional): SaaS for centralized dashboards - Web UI: Built-in web interface on each server (port 19999)
Strengths: - ⭐ Real-time metrics - 1-second granularity, no lag - ⭐ Beautiful UI - Modern, interactive dashboards out-of-the-box - ⭐ Zero configuration - Auto-detects everything, works immediately - ⭐ Extremely lightweight - Minimal CPU/RAM overhead - ⭐ Per-server detail - Deep visibility into every metric - ⭐ No central server needed - Distributed by design - ⭐ Free forever - No paid tiers for core functionality
Weaknesses: - ❌ No centralization - Each server has separate dashboard (unless using Cloud) - ❌ Limited historical data - Default 1-hour retention per server - ❌ No log management - Metrics only, no logs - ❌ Limited alerting - Basic alerting, not as robust as Prometheus - ❌ No correlation - Cannot see cross-server metrics easily
Infrastructure Requirements: - No central server needed (agent-only on each host) - Cost: £0 (Netdata Cloud free tier: 5 nodes, 14-day retention)
Use Cases: - Real-time troubleshooting on individual servers - Quick health checks without logging into SSH - Supplemental to centralized monitoring - Development and staging environments
Deployment Complexity: Very Low (15 minutes per server)
Comparison to Current Plan: - vs. Prometheus/Grafana: Netdata is per-server real-time, Prometheus is centralized long-term - Complementary: Can use both - Netdata for real-time, Prometheus for trends
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ✅ Excellent supplement - Deploy alongside Grafana/Prometheus. Netdata provides instant real-time visibility when troubleshooting, while Prometheus provides centralized trends and alerting.
Deployment suggestion: - Install Netdata on EU1, NS1, NS2 for real-time visibility - Keep Prometheus for centralized monitoring and alerting - Total additional cost: £0
6. Datadog
Architecture: - Datadog Agent: Monitoring agent on each server - Datadog SaaS: Fully managed cloud platform (metrics, logs, APM, security) - Datadog Web UI: Comprehensive dashboards and analytics
Strengths: - ⭐ All-in-one solution - Metrics, logs, APM, security, RUM in one platform - ⭐ Zero operations - Fully managed SaaS, no servers to maintain - ⭐ Best-in-class UX - Polished, intuitive interface - ⭐ Powerful integrations - 600+ pre-built integrations - ⭐ Advanced features - Machine learning, anomaly detection, forecasting - ⭐ Rapid deployment - Agent install and you're done - ⭐ Excellent documentation - Comprehensive guides and tutorials
Weaknesses: - ❌ Very expensive - Pricing scales with hosts, metrics, logs ingested - ❌ Vendor lock-in - Proprietary platform, difficult to migrate away - ❌ Data sovereignty - Data stored in Datadog cloud (GDPR considerations) - ❌ Limited customization - Cannot modify core platform - ❌ Unpredictable costs - Easy to exceed budget with custom metrics
Pricing (2026 Estimates): - Infrastructure Monitoring: £18/host/month = £648/year (3 hosts) - Log Management: £0.10/GB ingested = £120-£600/year (depends on volume) - Security Monitoring: £10/host/month = £360/year (3 hosts) - Total estimate: £600-£2,400/year
Use Cases: - Teams without operations expertise - Organizations with budget for best-in-class tools - Multi-cloud deployments - Application performance monitoring (APM) - Teams that value time-to-value over cost
Deployment Complexity: Very Low (1 day)
Comparison to Current Plan: - vs. Grafana + Wazuh: Datadog £600-£2,400/year vs. £187/year (3-13x more expensive) - Advantages: Zero operations, faster deployment, better UX - Disadvantages: Much higher cost, vendor lock-in, data sovereignty
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ❌ Not recommended - Excellent product but 3-13x more expensive than open-source stack. Does not fit cost-conscious operation model. Your current plan provides 80% of the value at 10% of the cost.
When to reconsider: - If your hosting business grows to 100+ servers - If you hire dedicated operations team - If you can pass monitoring costs to clients - If time-to-value is more important than cost
7. New Relic
Architecture: - New Relic Agent: Application and infrastructure monitoring agent - New Relic SaaS: Fully managed cloud platform - New Relic One: Unified observability platform
Strengths: - ⭐ Application-focused - Excellent APM and code-level insights - ⭐ Full-stack observability - Infrastructure, applications, logs, traces - ⭐ Generous free tier - 100GB/month data ingest free - ⭐ Easy to use - Simple setup and configuration - ⭐ Query language - NRQL for powerful data analysis
Weaknesses: - ❌ Application-centric - Less focused on infrastructure than Datadog - ❌ Limited security features - Not a SIEM replacement - ❌ Data retention - Free tier only 8 days retention - ❌ Cost scales quickly - Expensive for high data volumes - ❌ Vendor lock-in - Proprietary platform
Pricing (2026 Estimates): - Free tier: 1 user, 100GB/month ingest, 8-day retention - £0/year - Paid tier: £60-£120/month = £720-£1,440/year (typical for 3 servers)
Use Cases: - Application performance monitoring - Developer teams troubleshooting application issues - Full-stack web application monitoring - SaaS businesses needing customer experience insights
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ⚠️ Limited value - New Relic excels at application monitoring (PHP, databases, etc.), but you need infrastructure and security monitoring more urgently. Grafana + Wazuh better fit your requirements.
8. Splunk
Architecture: - Splunk Indexer: Search and indexing engine - Splunk Forwarder: Log collection agent - Splunk Web UI: Search, dashboards, alerts, and reports
Strengths: - ⭐ Most powerful log search - Industry-leading search capabilities - ⭐ Security operations - Splunk Enterprise Security (SIEM) is best-in-class - ⭐ Regulatory compliance - GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA reporting - ⭐ Mature platform - 20+ years of development - ⭐ Extensive marketplace - Thousands of apps and integrations
Weaknesses: - ❌ Extremely expensive - Pricing based on data volume ingested per day - ❌ Complex licensing - Multiple SKUs, difficult to predict costs - ❌ Resource intensive - Requires significant infrastructure - ❌ Enterprise-focused - Features and pricing for large organizations
Pricing (2026 Estimates): - Splunk Cloud: £1,200-£5,000+/year (depends on data volume) - Splunk Enterprise: £2,000-£10,000+/year (perpetual license + maintenance)
Use Cases: - Enterprise security operations centers (SOC) - Large organizations with compliance requirements - Companies with dedicated security analysts - Investigations requiring powerful log search
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ❌ Not recommended - Massive overkill and 10-50x more expensive than your current plan. Splunk is designed for enterprise security operations with teams of analysts. Wazuh provides 80% of the SIEM functionality at £43/year vs. £1,200+/year.
9. Icinga2
Architecture: - Icinga2 Server: Monitoring engine (fork of Nagios) - Icinga2 Database: MySQL/PostgreSQL for state storage - Icingaweb2: Modern web interface - Icinga2 Agents/NRPE: Monitoring agents
Strengths: - ⭐ Nagios-compatible - Can use existing Nagios plugins - ⭐ Powerful configuration - DSL for complex monitoring logic - ⭐ Modern UI - Icingaweb2 much better than Nagios - ⭐ Distributed monitoring - Master/satellite architecture - ⭐ Flexible alerting - Complex notification logic
Weaknesses: - ❌ Configuration complexity - DSL has steep learning curve - ❌ Limited metrics storage - Not designed for long-term trends - ❌ Check-based paradigm - Less efficient than metrics-based - ❌ Smaller community - Less adoption than Zabbix or Prometheus
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ⚠️ Not recommended - Icinga2 is a modernized Nagios, but Prometheus + Grafana provides better metrics collection and visualization for modern infrastructure.
10. Checkmk
Architecture: - Checkmk Server: Unified monitoring platform (based on Nagios core) - Checkmk Agent: Smart agents with local checks - Checkmk GUI: Comprehensive web interface
Strengths: - ⭐ All-in-one solution - Metrics, logs, events in one platform - ⭐ Auto-discovery - Automatically finds services and configures checks - ⭐ Hybrid approach - Combines Nagios-style checks with metrics - ⭐ Excellent documentation - Comprehensive guides - ⭐ Commercial support - Paid editions with enterprise features
Weaknesses: - ❌ Raw edition limitations - Free version lacks many features - ❌ Commercial pricing - £500+/year for enterprise features - ❌ Complex installation - Many dependencies - ❌ Dated architecture - Built on Nagios core
Recommendation for MDHOSTING: ⚠️ Consider as alternative - Checkmk Raw (free) could replace Grafana + Prometheus, but Grafana provides better visualization. Checkmk is good all-in-one but your phased approach (Grafana then Wazuh) is more flexible.
Cost Comparison Summary
| Solution | Annual Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Grafana + Prometheus + Loki | £144 | Dedicated CPX31 monitoring server |
| Wazuh | £43 | Dedicated CPX11 SIEM server |
| Combined (Current Plan) | £187 | Best value for comprehensive monitoring |
| Elastic Stack (self-hosted) | £0-£300+ | Requires larger server or cluster |
| Elastic Cloud (SaaS) | £600-£2,400+ | Fully managed service |
| Zabbix | £0 | Can share existing server |
| Netdata | £0 | Agent-only, no central server (optional Cloud) |
| Datadog | £600-£2,400+ | Per-host pricing + data volume |
| New Relic | £0-£1,440+ | Free tier available, paid for more data |
| Splunk | £1,200-£5,000+ | Enterprise pricing, data volume-based |
| Checkmk | £0-£500+ | Raw (free) or Enterprise editions |
Cost Efficiency Winner: Grafana + Wazuh at £187/year provides enterprise-grade infrastructure and security monitoring at 10% of commercial SaaS costs.
Feature Comparison Matrix
Infrastructure Monitoring
| Solution | CPU/RAM/Disk | Network Traffic | Service Checks | Performance Trends | Real-time Alerts | Agent Overhead |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prometheus + Grafana | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Very Low |
| Wazuh | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | Low |
| Elastic Stack | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Medium |
| Zabbix | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Very Low |
| Netdata | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | Very Low |
| Datadog | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Low |
Log Management
| Solution | Log Collection | Full-text Search | Log Retention | Parsing/Enrichment | Alerting on Logs | Storage Efficiency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loki | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Wazuh | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| Elasticsearch | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ |
| Zabbix | ⭐⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| Netdata | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | N/A |
| Datadog | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| Splunk | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ |
Security Monitoring
| Solution | Threat Detection | File Integrity | Vulnerability Scanning | Compliance Reporting | Incident Response | SIEM Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana/Prometheus | ⭐⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐ |
| Wazuh | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Elastic Security | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Zabbix | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐ |
| Netdata | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ |
| Datadog Security | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Splunk Enterprise Security | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Operational Complexity Comparison
| Solution | Initial Setup | Day-to-Day Operations | Upgrades/Maintenance | Troubleshooting | Learning Curve | Staff Time Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana + Prometheus | Medium (2-3 weeks) | Low (30 min/week) | Low (quarterly) | Medium | Medium (PromQL) | 2-4 hours/month |
| Wazuh | Medium-High (8-11 weeks) | Medium (1 hour/week) | Medium (quarterly) | Medium | Medium-High | 4-6 hours/month |
| Elastic Stack | High (4-6 weeks) | High (2+ hours/week) | High (monthly) | High | High | 8-12 hours/month |
| Zabbix | Medium-High (3-4 weeks) | Medium (1 hour/week) | Low (quarterly) | Medium | Medium-High | 4-6 hours/month |
| Netdata | Very Low (15 min) | Very Low (none) | Very Low (auto) | Low | Low | <1 hour/month |
| Datadog | Very Low (1 day) | Very Low (15 min/week) | None (SaaS) | Low | Low | 1-2 hours/month |
| Splunk | High (4-8 weeks) | High (2+ hours/week) | Medium (quarterly) | High | High | 8-16 hours/month |
Best for Limited Staff: Netdata (supplemental) and Datadog (primary, if budget allows)
Best Balance: Grafana + Prometheus + Wazuh (current plan) - Medium complexity with excellent capabilities
Scalability Analysis
Current Infrastructure (3 servers)
| Solution | Suitable for 3 Servers? | Resource Overhead | Cost Efficiency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana + Prometheus | ✅ Perfect | Very Low | Excellent |
| Wazuh | ✅ Perfect | Low | Excellent |
| Elastic Stack | ⚠️ Overkill | High | Poor (too small) |
| Zabbix | ✅ Good | Low | Excellent |
| Netdata | ✅ Perfect (supplement) | Very Low | Excellent |
| Datadog | ✅ Works | Low | Poor (expensive) |
| Splunk | ❌ Massive overkill | Very High | Very Poor |
Future Growth (10-50 servers)
| Solution | Scales to 10-50 Servers? | Additional Cost | Configuration Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana + Prometheus | ✅ Excellent | £0-£72/year (larger server) | Low (auto-discovery) |
| Wazuh | ✅ Good | £0-£150/year (larger server) | Medium (more agents) |
| Elastic Stack | ✅ Good | £300-£600/year | High (cluster management) |
| Zabbix | ✅ Excellent | £0-£144/year | Medium (templates help) |
| Netdata | ⚠️ Decentralized only | £0 (or Netdata Cloud) | Very Low |
| Datadog | ✅ Excellent | £2,000-£10,000+/year | Very Low (auto-scales) |
Scalability Winner: Grafana + Prometheus + Wazuh scales efficiently from 3 to 500+ servers without architectural changes.
Decision Framework
Choose Grafana + Prometheus + Loki if:
- ✅ You need excellent infrastructure metrics and visualization
- ✅ You want industry-standard tools with large community
- ✅ You need flexibility to add more data sources later
- ✅ You want cost-effective solution with low operational overhead
- ✅ You plan to scale beyond 10 servers in future
Choose Wazuh if:
- ✅ You need security-focused monitoring (SIEM capabilities)
- ✅ You need file integrity monitoring (FIM)
- ✅ You need vulnerability detection and compliance reporting
- ✅ You want pre-built threat detection rules
- ✅ You want cost-effective SIEM (vs. Splunk at 50x the price)
Choose Elastic Stack if:
- ⚠️ You need the absolute best log search capabilities
- ⚠️ You have complex log analysis requirements
- ⚠️ You have staff to manage cluster operations
- ⚠️ You're willing to pay for increased complexity and cost
- ⚠️ Your infrastructure grows to 50+ servers
Choose Zabbix if:
- ⚠️ You prefer traditional monitoring paradigm
- ⚠️ You need extensive network device monitoring (SNMP)
- ⚠️ You need built-in SLA reporting
- ⚠️ You want mature, proven technology
Choose Netdata if:
- ✅ You want real-time per-server visibility
- ✅ You want zero-configuration monitoring
- ✅ You want to supplement centralized monitoring
- ✅ You need troubleshooting tools for individual servers
- ✅ Cost is zero (install alongside anything else)
Choose Datadog if:
- ⚠️ You have £600-£2,400+/year budget
- ⚠️ You want zero operational overhead (SaaS)
- ⚠️ You value time-to-value over cost
- ⚠️ You need best-in-class UX and support
- ❌ Not recommended for MDHOSTING - Cost too high for value
Choose Splunk if:
- ❌ You're an enterprise with dedicated security operations center
- ❌ You have £1,200-£5,000+/year budget
- ❌ You have security analysts who need powerful investigation tools
- ❌ Not recommended for MDHOSTING - Massive overkill
Recommendation Matrix for MDHOSTING
Immediate Deployment (Phase 1 - Q1 2026)
| Solution | Deploy? | Priority | Cost | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana + Prometheus + Loki | ✅ YES | CRITICAL | £144/year | Infrastructure monitoring and log aggregation |
| Netdata | ✅ YES (supplement) | HIGH | £0 | Real-time per-server visibility |
Total Phase 1 Cost: £144/year
Rationale: - Grafana stack provides enterprise-grade infrastructure monitoring - Centralized metrics and logs for all servers - Netdata supplements with instant real-time visibility for troubleshooting - Combined solution covers infrastructure monitoring comprehensively - Total cost well within budget constraints
Post-ApisCP Migration (Phase 2 - Q3-Q4 2026)
| Solution | Deploy? | Priority | Cost | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wazuh SIEM | ✅ YES | CRITICAL | £43/year | Security monitoring, FIM, vulnerability detection |
Total Phase 2 Cost: £43/year additional (£187/year total)
Rationale: - Essential security monitoring capabilities missing from Grafana stack - File integrity monitoring for critical system files - Automated vulnerability scanning and compliance reporting - Must deploy on new ApisCP servers (Imunify360 conflict on cPanel) - Integration with Grafana for unified dashboard
Not Recommended
| Solution | Recommendation | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Elastic Stack | ❌ Not recommended | Overkill for 3 servers, high complexity, Loki sufficient |
| Zabbix | ⚠️ Alternative to Prometheus | Good tool but Prometheus more modern/flexible |
| Datadog | ❌ Not recommended | 3-13x more expensive (£600-£2,400 vs £187), vendor lock-in |
| New Relic | ❌ Not recommended | Application-focused, doesn't meet infrastructure/security needs |
| Splunk | ❌ Not recommended | 10-50x more expensive, enterprise overkill |
| Icinga2/Checkmk | ⚠️ Alternatives | Good but Grafana stack more flexible |
Validation of Current Plan
Your current two-phase monitoring strategy is excellent and well-architected:
Phase 1: Grafana + Prometheus + Loki ✅
- Infrastructure monitoring: Best-in-class solution
- Cost: £144/year - Very cost-effective
- Scalability: Proven from 3 to 10,000+ servers
- Flexibility: Can add more data sources (Wazuh, MySQL, cPanel metrics)
- Visualization: Industry standard dashboards
- Community: Massive ecosystem and support
Phase 2: Wazuh SIEM ✅
- Security monitoring: Purpose-built SIEM with excellent detection
- Cost: £43/year - Cheapest SIEM option
- Capabilities: FIM, vulnerability scanning, compliance reporting
- Integration: Works with Grafana as unified dashboard
- Timing: Correctly planned post-ApisCP to avoid Imunify360 conflict
Combined Architecture Benefits ✅
- Comprehensive coverage: Infrastructure + Security monitoring
- Cost-effective: £187/year vs. £600-£5,000+ for commercial alternatives
- Scalable: Both solutions scale to hundreds of servers without redesign
- Complementary: Each tool focused on what it does best
- Unified dashboard: Grafana as single pane of glass
- Future-proof: Modern, cloud-native architecture
Alternative Architectures Considered
Alternative 1: Elastic Stack (ELK) for Everything - Cost: £300-£600+/year - Complexity: High (cluster management, Java tuning) - Verdict: ❌ More expensive, much more complex, worse visualization
Alternative 2: Datadog All-in-One - Cost: £600-£2,400+/year - Complexity: Very Low (SaaS) - Verdict: ❌ 3-13x more expensive, vendor lock-in, data sovereignty concerns
Alternative 3: Zabbix + Wazuh - Cost: £43/year (Wazuh only, Zabbix free on shared server) - Complexity: Medium-High - Verdict: ⚠️ Viable alternative, but Grafana has better visualization
Alternative 4: Your Current Plan (Grafana + Wazuh) - Cost: £187/year - Complexity: Medium - Verdict: ✅ Best balance of cost, capabilities, and operational complexity
Implementation Recommendations
Phase 1 Additions (Zero Cost)
Add Netdata alongside Grafana deployment:
-
Install Netdata on all servers (EU1, NS1, NS2)
-
Benefits:
- Real-time visibility when troubleshooting (1-second granularity)
- Beautiful UI accessible at
http://server-ip:19999 - Zero configuration, auto-detects everything
-
Complements Prometheus (Prometheus for trends, Netdata for real-time)
-
Security considerations:
- Bind Netdata to localhost only:
bind to = 127.0.0.1 - Access via SSH tunnel:
ssh -L 19999:localhost:19999 user@server -
Or configure Nginx reverse proxy with authentication
-
Total additional cost: £0
Export Netdata metrics to Prometheus (optional): - Netdata has Prometheus exporter built-in - Enables long-term storage of Netdata metrics in Prometheus - Best of both worlds: Real-time UI + historical trends
Phase 2 Enhancements
Integrate Wazuh with Grafana:
- Add OpenSearch data source to Grafana
- Wazuh Indexer is OpenSearch-compatible
- Create Grafana dashboards combining infrastructure and security metrics
-
Single pane of glass for all monitoring
-
Benefits:
- Correlate security events with infrastructure metrics
- Example: Server CPU spike + failed SSH attempts = brute force attack
-
Unified alerting across infrastructure and security
-
Implementation:
- Configure in Grafana UI: Add Data Source → OpenSearch
- Use Wazuh-provided Grafana dashboards as starting point
- Customize to your specific needs
Future Enhancements (When Needed)
If you grow to 50+ servers: 1. Consider Elasticsearch for advanced log analytics - Replace Loki with Elasticsearch if you need complex log queries - Cost: £300-£600/year for dedicated cluster - Benefit: More powerful log search and analytics
- Consider Thanos or Cortex for long-term Prometheus storage
- Centralized long-term metrics storage across multiple Prometheus instances
- Cost: £0 (open source) + object storage costs
-
Benefit: Query metrics across multiple Prometheus servers, unlimited retention
-
Consider Datadog if operational overhead becomes burden
- Only consider if you have budget (£2,000+/year for 50+ servers)
- Benefit: Zero operations, best-in-class UX
- Trade-off: Much higher cost, vendor lock-in
Migration Paths
From Current Plan to Alternatives
If you decide to migrate from Grafana/Wazuh:
To Elastic Stack: 1. Deploy Elasticsearch cluster (3-node minimum for production) 2. Migrate Prometheus data using Elasticsearch Exporter 3. Migrate Loki logs to Elasticsearch using Logstash 4. Rebuild dashboards in Kibana (or keep Grafana with Elasticsearch data source) 5. Timeline: 4-6 weeks 6. Cost increase: £156-£456/year additional
To Datadog: 1. Install Datadog agents on all servers 2. Configure integrations (cPanel, MySQL, Apache, etc.) 3. Set up dashboards in Datadog (similar to Grafana dashboards) 4. Migrate alerts to Datadog alerting 5. Timeline: 1-2 weeks 6. Cost increase: £413-£2,213/year additional 7. Operational savings: -2 hours/week
To Zabbix: 1. Deploy Zabbix server (can share Grafana monitoring server) 2. Install Zabbix agents on all servers 3. Create host templates for cPanel servers 4. Configure triggers and alerts 5. Timeline: 3-4 weeks 6. Cost increase: £0 (shared server) 7. Keep Grafana for visualization (Zabbix data source available)
Exit Strategy
If you need to migrate away from Grafana/Wazuh:
Data portability: - ✅ Prometheus data: Standard OpenMetrics format, exportable - ✅ Loki logs: Can export to any log system - ✅ Wazuh events: Standard JSON format, exportable to any SIEM - ✅ Grafana dashboards: JSON export/import to other tools
No vendor lock-in: All open-source tools with standard formats
Conclusion
Your Current Two-Phase Plan is Optimal
After comprehensive analysis of all major monitoring solutions, your current plan is excellent and well-validated:
Phase 1: Grafana + Prometheus + Loki (£144/year) - Best infrastructure monitoring solution for cost and capabilities - Industry-standard tools with massive community support - Scales efficiently from 3 to 1000+ servers
Phase 2: Wazuh SIEM (£43/year) - Best security monitoring solution for cost - Purpose-built SIEM with FIM, vulnerability detection, compliance reporting - Correctly timed after ApisCP migration to avoid Imunify360 conflict
Total: £187/year for enterprise-grade monitoring
Only Recommended Addition
Netdata (£0/year) alongside Phase 1: - Real-time per-server visibility - Zero configuration, zero cost - Perfect supplement to centralized monitoring
Not Recommended
Elastic Stack: Overkill, high complexity, Loki sufficient
Datadog/New Relic: Excellent tools but 3-13x more expensive
Splunk: Enterprise overkill, 10-50x more expensive
Zabbix/Checkmk: Good alternatives but Grafana more flexible
Cost Comparison to Alternatives
| Your Plan | Alternative 1 (Datadog) | Alternative 2 (ELK) | Alternative 3 (Splunk) |
|---|---|---|---|
| £187/year | £600-£2,400/year | £300-£600/year | £1,200-£5,000/year |
| 1x | 3-13x | 1.6-3.2x | 6-27x |
You're getting 80-90% of the capabilities at 10-30% of the cost.
Final Recommendation
✅ Proceed with your current plan exactly as documented
- Q1 2026: Deploy Grafana + Prometheus + Loki + Netdata
- Q3-Q4 2026: Deploy Wazuh SIEM on new ApisCP servers
- Future: Integrate Wazuh with Grafana for unified dashboard
Your infrastructure and security monitoring will be better than 90% of companies 10x your size, at a fraction of the cost.
Last updated: January 2026