This comprehensive guide covers the best hardware monitoring software based on scores from G2 and Capterra and ranked according to a unique formula.
Benefit from centralized visibility and control over your entire IT environment with NinjaOne.
Table of Contents:
What is hardware monitoring software?
Hardware monitoring software is exactly as it sounds. It is a tool that helps IT professionals locate and mitigate issues caused by inefficient or compromised hardware operating conditions. Good hardware monitoring software can detect CPU, RAM and storage usage on any computer system, and changes, such as rising temperature, fan failures, and voltage drops as well as other hardware failures on mission critical computers.
Creating our list of best computer hardware monitoring software
When searching for the question, “What is the best hardware monitoring software?”, you’ll likely find HWMonitor, arguably the simplest and most popular hardware monitoring tool. However, its simplicity is also its biggest weakness, as modern IT environments need additional features to meet ever-evolving demands.
We chose software solutions that go beyond the fundamentals and provide monitoring, customizable alerts, and in-depth hardware inventory reporting capabilities. By prioritizing user experience and expanding functioning, our selection of the best PC hardware monitoring software tracks hardware issues while helping IT administrators seamlessly monitor and manage their entire IT estate.
Types of hardware monitoring software
Good hardware monitoring software proactively monitors and anticipates potential issues. That said, computer hardware monitoring software can be categorized into several types, each serving distinct purposes and offering unique features. Let’s look at some of them.
Computer hardware monitoring tools
These tools monitor the performance and usage of individual computers. A hardware monitoring tool provides insights into CPU usage, memory and disk usage, and overall system stability. Some of its common features include real-time alerts and logging capabilities.
Network monitoring tools
These tools monitor network performance and identify common network issues such as bottlenecks, outages, and unauthorized access. They provide real-time insights into traffic patterns, network bandwidth usage, and network device status.
Cloud-based hardware monitoring tools
These tools operate entirely in the cloud, eliminating the need for on-premises servers. Think of a cloud-based hardware monitoring tool as a tool that “lives” in the cloud, monitoring cloud environments, as well as on-premises environments, like NinjaOne. They provide insights into virtual machines, storage, and networking resources. They enable users to manage resources more efficiently and optimize their performance.
Unified IT management tools
These tools combine hardware monitoring with other IT management features, such as IT asset management and configuration management. Tools like NinjaOne provide a holistic view of your IT infrastructure in a single pane of glass.
Specialized monitoring tools
These monitoring tools focus on specific hardware components or scenarios, such as graphics card monitoring and solely CPU performance. Because of their limited use case, we have not included any of these tools in our list.
What is the importance of hardware monitoring software?
Good hardware monitoring software minimizes the risk of hardware failures, which can result in lost productivity and expensive repairs. From the Kansas Department of Revenue recently experiencing intermittent connectivity problems due to hardware failure, to the recent string of downtime at Verizon caused by compromised mobile switching centers, poor hardware monitoring can clearly cause extensive disruption to organizations and their end-users. Compromised hardware can also lead to:
- Data breach: Hardware monitoring solutions, especially unified IT management tools, can minimize the risk of data breach disruptions, which cost $4.48 million in 2024, according to the latest IBM Cost of Data Breach Report.
- Data loss: Hardware failures can contribute to data loss. While percentages vary (some experts say hardware failures cause 43% of data losses, while others suggest 67%), compromised hardware can undoubtedly increase the risk of data loss.
- Weakened security: An NIST Internal Report, “Hardware Security Failure Scenarios,” states that hardware failures can considerably undermine security frameworks. The authors state that while hardware is “assumed to be inherently secure, chips are both created with and contain complex software (firmware), and firmware is known to have bugs.”
- Employee inefficiencies. On average, US employees waste around 22 minutes a day dealing with IT-related issues, . This could significantly impact employee productivity.
- Downtime costs: According to Uptime Institute, 1 in 5 organizations experienced a “serious” or “severe” outage in the past three years, revealing an upward trend in the prevalence of significant outages. In addition, researchers found that 60% of failures resulted in at least $100,000 in total losses.
Now that we’ve detailed the most salient points of hardware monitoring software, let’s list our choice of the top solutions.
10 best hardware monitoring software
All G2 & Capterra data as of October 2024.
1. NinjaOne
NinjaOne is a trusted endpoint management company used by 17,000+ clients worldwide. Its robust endpoint management software solution automates the hardest part of IT to deliver visibility, security, and control over all endpoints. With its healthy obsession for customer success, NinjaOne remains committed to building products that help them efficiently monitor, manage, and secure their Windows, macOS, and Linux devices in a single pane of glass.
As a complete endpoint manager, it helps organizations of all sizes across all industries with their hardware monitoring, specifically with:
- Proactive problem resolution: NinjaOne empowers users to detect and address potential issues before they affect operations. Its endpoint management platform can minimize downtime and maximize overall productivity by utilizing real-time monitoring and alerting.
- Maintain compliance: NinjaOne helps you maintain IT compliance with its various tools and insights capabilities.
- Capacity planning and performance optimization: NinjaOne tracks resource utilization trends to identify capacity constraints and performance bottlenecks.
- Asset discovery and inventory: NinjaOne automatically discovers and tracks hardware and software assets, simplifying inventory management and ensuring accurate record-keeping.
- Customized reports: NinjaOne users can generate detailed and customizable reports on system performance, security, and compliance, providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making.
What users say:
Andreas Howering, IT manager at Citex Innovative Technologies, was challenged by outdated, inefficient monitoring and ticketing systems. With NinjaOne, his team achieved an outstanding 50% reduction in its mean-time-to-resolution (MTTR).
“With other solutions, we had to do a lot of configurations to get the systems up and running initially. With NinjaOne you install it and immediately reap the benefits. NinjaOne provides us with a sense of security. When we have a new device, the first step is always to install NinjaOne. It’s the most essential thing we install on new devices,” he says.
Read more NinjaOne customer stories.
NinjaOne reviews on G2
| Category | NinjaOne Rating |
| Overall | 4.8 out of 5 (1,441) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 9.6 |
| Quality of support | 9.3 |
| Ease of Admin | 9.3 |
| Ease of Use | 9.2 |
NinjaOne reviews on Capterra
| Category | NinjaOne Rating |
| Overall | 4.8 out of 5 (232) |
| Ease of Use | 4.5 |
| Customer Support | 4.4 |
| Functionality | 4.4 |
| Value for Money | 4.4 |
🥷 NinjaOne is proven to increase productivity, reduce security risk, and lower IT costs.
2. Atera
Atera is an all-in-one solution for IT departments. Its remote monitoring and management (RMM), helpdesk, and reporting platform can be used for hardware monitoring, specifically to capture critical hardware metrics, such as hard disk usage, motherboard temperatures, and fans. Performance metrics also include CPU load, memory usage, and network bandwidth.
Its integrated solution allows IT teams to streamline processes and save costs by eliminating overlapping and redundant software. Some of its key capabilities include RMM, PSA, remote access, network discovery, asset management, automated patching, scripting, and reporting.
Use cases:
- Centralized management
- Network monitoring
- Threshold-based alerts
Shortcomings:
- Better suited for more experienced IT professionals
- Ticketing feature could be improved
- Limited customization options
Atera reviews on G2
| Category | Atera Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (673) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 9.2 |
| Quality of support | 9.0 |
| Ease of Admin | 9.0 |
| Ease of Use | 9.2 |
Atera reviews on Capterra
| Category | Atera Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (389) |
| Ease of Use | 4.8 |
| Customer Support | 4.7 |
| Functionality | 4.5 |
| Value for Money | 4.7 |
See how Atera compares with NinjaOne or read a more in-depth analysis of Atera competitors.
3. PRTG
Paessler PRTG is a well-known network monitoring tool that can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. Its platform allows IT teams to monitor all their systems, devices, traffic, and applications in their IT infrastructure. Its platform can diagnose network issues by continuously monitoring endpoints like servers, firewalls, routers, switches, and Windows and Linux systems.
Its hardware monitoring tool prevents downtimes and spots any bottlenecks. PRTG helps IT teams maintain optimal hardware health and network performance, from real-time monitoring to predictive maintenance.
Use cases:
- Proactive performance management
- Diverse hardware compatibility
- Real-time monitoring
Shortcomings:
- Better suited for more experienced IT professionals
- Ticketing feature could be improved
- Limited customization options
PRTG reviews on G2
| Category | PRTG Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (89) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 8.7 |
| Quality of support | 8.3 |
| Ease of Admin | 8.5 |
| Ease of Use | 8.6 |
PRTG reviews on Capterra
| Category | PRTG Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (241) |
| Ease of Use | 4.5 |
| Customer Support | 4.2 |
| Functionality | 4.5 |
| Value for Money | 4.4 |
See how PRTG compares with NinjaOne or read a more in-depth analysis of PRTG competitors.
4. Site 24/7
ManageEngine Site 24×7 is an AI-powered observability platform for DevOps and IT operations. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution that includes server, public and private cloud, and application performance monitoring.
Its hardware monitoring tool helps IT teams gain granular visibility into their network devices by monitoring key performance metrics at the device and interface levels. Additionally, users are immediately alerted to any hardware-related event or status, such as changes in temperature, fan speeds, power supply, individual disks, and more for all device types (servers, switches, routers, firewalls, etc.)
Use cases:
- SNMP monitoring
- Real-time statistics on network traffic and bandwidth consumption
- Automated incident remediation
Shortcomings:
- Customizing reports can be complex
- Some advanced features are only available in higher-tiered plans
- Alert function can be overwhelming if not configured correctly
Site 24×7 reviews on G2
| Category | Site 24×7 Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (270) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 8.9 |
| Quality of support | 8.7 |
| Ease of Admin | 8.9 |
| Ease of Use | 8.9 |
Site 24×7 reviews on Capterra
| Category | Site 24×7 Rating |
| Overall | 4.7 out of 5 (255) |
| Ease of Use | 4.5 |
| Customer Support | 4.6 |
| Functionality | 4.6 |
| Value for Money | 4.5 |
5. Datadog
Datadog is a cloud monitoring-as-a-service that allows IT teams to see their entire IT estate in a centralized dashboard. Its platform provides end-to-end user experience visibility of your IT environment, monitoring critical user journeys captured in an easy-to-use web recorder. It can also automatically collect logs from all your services, applications, and platforms, which enables you to analyze and explore log data in context.
For hardware monitoring, Datadog offers its Hardware Sentry, a monitoring agent built into its platform capable of reporting on the physical health of servers, network switches, and storage systems. Hardware Sentry collects metrics periodically and reports on the status of each processor, controller, disk, or power supply.
Use cases:
- Centralized management
- Multi-platform capabilities
- Automatic detection
Shortcomings:
- Steep learning curve
- Documentation can be complex
- Customer service could be improved
Datadog reviews on G2
| Category | Datadog Rating |
| Overall | 4.3 out of 5 (532) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 8.5 |
| Quality of support | 8.3 |
| Ease of Admin | 8.3 |
| Ease of Use | 8.2 |
Datadog reviews on Capterra
| Category | Datadog Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (242) |
| Ease of Use | 4.3 |
| Customer Support | 4.1 |
| Functionality | 4.6 |
| Value for Money | 4.0 |
6. Zabbix
Zabbix is free and open-source monitoring software that offers a wide range of tools covering data collection, processing, alerting, and visualization in an all-in-one solution. Zabbix continuously updates and improves its tool, ensuring a better user experience and faster deployment.
Zabbix offers VMware monitoring, allowing IT teams to automatically discover their VMware clusters, data stores, hypervisors, and guest VMs. The platform also features smart problem thresholds that eliminate the need to track metrics manually. Instead, users are immediately and automatically notified of any hardware anomalies. Detected problems can further be classified using tags for smarter alerting.
Use cases:
- Widget-based multi-page dashboards
- Anomaly detection
- Root cause analysis
Shortcomings:
- Lack of official support
- Initial setup may be complex
- Support documentation resources could be improved
Zabbix reviews on G2
| Category | Zabbix Rating |
| Overall | 4.3 out of 5 (188) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 7.9 |
| Quality of support | 7.9 |
| Ease of Admin | 7.9 |
| Ease of Use | 7.3 |
Zabbix reviews on Capterra
| Category | Zabbix Rating |
| Overall | 4.7 out of 5 (87) |
| Ease of Use | 4.4 |
| Customer Support | 4.7 |
| Functionality | 4.8 |
| Value for Money | 4.9 |
7. IBM Instana
IBM Instana is an infrastructure monitoring tool that allows IT teams to monitor the health of their backend components so they can quickly pinpoint issues and address them before they turn into bigger problems. The solution delivers AI-powered automated monitoring, alerting, and remediation capabilities and real-time visibility into complex, distributed applications, servers, and infrastructure components, including servers, containers, databases, and more.
Instana offers a simple-to-understand infrastructure map that provides an overview of all monitored systems. Each block within the pillars represents the software component and hardware device within the IT environment and will change color to reflect any incidents, events, or changes.
Use cases:
- Real-timed threat detection
- Alerting and remediation
- Automated monitoring
Shortcomings:
- Better suited for larger IT organizations
- Flexibility of custom metrics may be enhanced
- Platform could add more third-party integrations
IBM Instana reviews on G2
| Category | IBM Instana Rating |
| Overall | 4.4 out of 5 (359) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 8.4 |
| Quality of support | 8.5 |
| Ease of Admin | 8.4 |
| Ease of Use | 8.4 |
IBM Instana reviews on Capterra
| Category | IBM Instana Rating |
| Overall | 4.2 out of 5 (6) |
| Ease of Use | 4.8 |
| Customer Support | 4.3 |
| Functionality | 4.3 |
| Value for Money | 4.7 |
8. Pulseway
Pulseway is a next-generation RMM built specifically for MSPs and internal IT departments to reduce downtime and improve IT efficiency through automation. Its all-in-one IT monitoring solution gives you complete visibility across your network, including workstations, servers, VMs, and network devices. Additionally, it allows you to resolve any vulnerabilities directly from the same interface.
For hardware monitoring, Pulseway allows you to take control of your virtual infrastructure, providing real-time insights into your hypervisors and virtual machines.
Use cases:
- Asset discovery
- IT automation
- Real-time monitoring of hardware performance
Shortcomings:
- Mobile app is not as intuitive to use as its web version
- Moderate learning curve
- Support for Mac and Linux devices is limited
Pulseway reviews on G2
| Category | Pulseway Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (112) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 9.4 |
| Quality of support | 9.1 |
| Ease of Admin | 9.3 |
| Ease of Use | 9.3 |
Pulseway reviews on Capterra
| Category | Pulseway Rating |
| Overall | 4.7 out of 5 (303) |
| Ease of Use | 4.6 |
| Customer Support | 4.8 |
| Functionality | 4.6 |
| Value for Money | 4.7 |
See how Pulseway compares with NinjaOne or read a more in-depth analysis of Pulseway competitors.
9. checkmk
checkmk is a scalable server monitoring for Sysadmins and DevOps. Its flexible platform can monitor any server through over 2,000 smart checks. checkmk features easy-to-use configuration, auto-discovery, and network mapping.
In addition to conventional monitoring, checmk includes its hardware/software inventory (HW/SW Inventory) that automatically identifies elements of your hosts, such as RAM components, serial numbers of installed hard disks, and whether any port on a switch has not been used for a while.
Use cases:
- Intelligent monitoring
- Easy set-up
- Centralized asset management
Shortcomings:
- Documentation could be improved
- Better suited for more experienced IT professionals
- Currently has limited support for ARM CPUs
checkmk reviews on G2
| Category | checkmk Rating |
| Overall | 4.7 out of 5 (229) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 9.1 |
| Quality of support | 8.8 |
| Ease of Admin | 8.3 |
| Ease of Use | 8.2 |
checkmk reviews on Capterra
| Category | checkmk Rating |
| Overall | 4.7 out of 5 (34) |
| Ease of Use | 4.3 |
| Customer Support | 5.0 |
| Functionality | 4.7 |
| Value for Money | 5.0 |
10. Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise enables you to quickly search, analyze, and visualize your data to act on insights from across your technology landscape. Its robust platform enables end-to-end visibility from edge to cloud, allowing you to explore data of any type and value, no matter where it lives in your data ecosystem.
Its infrastructure monitoring tool is built to support open-source and open standards-based instrumentation, so you have full control of your data. You can use the tool to monitor time series (MTS) and usage analysis to identify optimization opportunities.
Use cases:
- Proactive monitoring
- Real-time alerting and reporting
- Analytics workspace
Shortcomings:
- Can slow down when generating and displaying logs
- Better suited for larger organizations
- Full functionality found in higher tiers
Splunk Enterprise reviews on G2
| Category | Splunk Enterprise Rating |
| Overall | 4.3 out of 5 (412) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 8.8 |
| Quality of support | 8.5 |
| Ease of Admin | 8.1 |
| Ease of Use | 8.1 |
Splunk Enterprise reviews on Capterra
| Category | Splunk Enterprise Rating |
| Overall | 4.6 out of 5 (235) |
| Ease of Use | 4.2 |
| Customer Support | 4.3 |
| Functionality | 4.7 |
| Value for Money | 4.5 |
Comparison of best hardware monitoring software (G2)
| Category | NinjaOne | Atera | PRTG | Site 24×7 | Datadog | Zabbix | IBM Instana | Pulseway | checkmk | Splunk Enterprise |
| Overall | 4.8 out of 5 (1,441) | 4.6 out of 5 (673) | 4.6 out of 5 (89) | 4.6 out of 5 (270) | 4.3 out of 5 (532) | 4.3 out of 5 (188) | 4.4 out of 5 (359) | 4.6 out of 5 (112) | 4.7 out of 5 (229) | 4.3 out of 5 (412) |
| Has the product been a good partner in doing business? | 9.6 | 9.2 | 8.7 | 8.9 | 8.5 | 7.9 | 8.4 | 9.4 | 9.1 | 8.8 |
| Quality of support | 9.3 | 9.0 | 8.3 | 8.7 | 8.3 | 7.9 | 8.5 | 9.1 | 8.8 | 8.5 |
| Ease of Admin | 9.3 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 8.9 | 8.3 | 7.9 | 8.4 | 9.3 | 8.3 | 8.1 |
| Ease of Use | 9.2 | 9.2 | 8.6 | 8.9 | 8.2 | 7.3 | 8.4 | 9.3 | 8.2 | 8.1 |
Comparison of best hardware monitoring software (Capterra)
| Category | NinjaOne | Atera | PRTG | Site 24×7 | Datadog | Zabbix | IBM Instana | Pulseway | checkmk | Splunk Enterprise |
| Overall | 4.8 out of 5 (232) | 4.6 out of 5 (389) | 4.6 out of 5 (241) | 4.7 out of 5 (255) | 4.6 out of 5 (242) | 4.7 out of 5 (87) | 4.2 out of 5 (6) | 4.7 out of 5 (303) | 4.7 out of 5 (34) | 4.6 out of 5 (235) |
| Ease of Use | 4.5 | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 4.3 | 4.2 |
| Customer Support | 4.4 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 4.6 | 4.1 | 4.7 | 4.3 | 4.8 | 5.0 | 4.3 |
| Functionality | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.8 | 4.3 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Value for Money | 4.4 | 4.7 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 5.0 | 4.5 |
Final scores and summaries of top hardware monitoring software solutions
| Vendor | Final Score | Summary |
| NinjaOne | 2.25 | NinjaOne simplifies work for tens of thousands of customers, automating the hardest parts of IT to deliver visibility, security, and control over all endpoints. |
| Atera | 1.62 | Atera is an all-in-one IT management platform with a built-in network monitoring tool. This tool helps IT teams monitor their hardware assets and entire IT estate. |
| Datadog | 1.30 | Datadog’s Hardware Sentry allows IT teams to monitor hundreds of systems through SNMP, WBEM, WMI, SSH, IPMI, and REST APIs in a single dashboard. |
| Splunk Enterprise | 1.18 | The Splunk platform enables end-to-end visibility from edge to cloud. Its infrastructure monitoring tool gives you full-stack observability across any environment. |
| Site 24×7 | 1.08 | Site 24×7 is a comprehensive remote monitoring and management solution, including hardware monitoring tools. To receive full functionality, users may need to apply to higher tiers. |
| Pulseway | 0.98 | Pulseway is a comprehensive RMM with many out-of-the-box features. Its platform shines in instantly alerting users to any anomalies in their IT environment. |
| IBM Instana | 0.89 | IBM Instana delivers real-time automated infrastructure monitoring with 1-second metric granularity across your IT environment. That said, its complex features and moderate learning curve make it better suited for larger organizations. |
| PRTG | 0.87 | PRTG is a robust tool for monitoring your entire IT environment; however, it may be better suited for larger organizations with more experienced IT professionals. |
| checkmk | 0.82 | checkmk is a robust tool that is easy to set up and use for monitoring your entire IT infrastructure. Its moderate learning curve may make it more suitable for mid-sized organizations. |
| Zabbix | 0.79 | Zabbix is an effective and high-performing monitoring solution, but it may be better suited for more experienced IT professionals. |
Our rankings formula
To derive the final score for each vendor, we employed a weighted formula that takes into account various metrics. Here’s how it breaks down:
Final Score = w1 * G2 Overall Star Rating + w2 * Capterra Overall Star Rating + w3 * G2 Good Partner in Doing Business + w4 * Capterra Likelihood to Recommend + w5 * G2 Total Number of Reviews (Scaled) + w6 * Capterra Total Number of Reviews (Scaled) + Other Factors
Where:
w1 = 0.15 (Weight for G2 Overall Star Rating)
w2 = 0.15 (Weight for Capterra Overall Star Rating)
w3 = 0.2 (Weight for G2 Good Partner in Doing Business)
w4 = 0.2 (Weight for Capterra Likelihood to Recommend)
w5 = 0.1 (Weight for G2 Total Number of Reviews, Scaled)
w6 = 0.1 (Weight for Capterra Total Number of Reviews, Scaled)
Other Factors include additional metrics like ease of use, each multiplied by their corresponding weights:
w7 = 0.05 (Weight for G2 Ease of Use)
w8 = 0.05 (Weight for Capterra Ease of Use)
NinjaOne is the best hardware monitoring software
NinjaOne, the automated endpoint management company, was founded on the simple idea of simplifying the complexity of IT software. Since it started in 2013, the platform has become a multi-awarded tool for endpoint management, relentlessly focused on product innovation. Part of its primary functions is providing robust hardware monitoring capabilities.
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