PRTG vs Auvik

PRTG and Auvik are not competing for the same buyer. PRTG is for teams that need depth and control: network engineers who will configure it properly, environments with IoT or industrial protocols, organizations with on-premises data requirements, and buyers who need to know the price before the conversation starts. Auvik is for teams that need speed and MSP workflow integration: onboarding new clients fast, connecting monitoring to ConnectWise or Autotask, and running a multi-client practice without a dedicated network engineer per site.

If I were an MSP managing 15 client networks with ConnectWise Manage as my PSA, I would choose Auvik without hesitation. The topology auto-discovery alone saves hours per client onboarding, the PSA integration turns alerts into billable tickets without custom scripting, and IT Glue sync keeps documentation current automatically. The per-device cost is higher than PRTG would be, but the operational time saved justifies that premium at MSP scale.

If I were an internal IT engineer at a mid-size manufacturer with a mix of Windows servers, network gear, and Modbus-connected floor equipment, I would choose PRTG. The sensor model handles the heterogeneity. Modbus and OPC UA sensors monitor equipment that no cloud tool supports. The on-premises deployment keeps monitoring data on the network. And €3,899/year for the 1,000-sensor tier is almost certainly cheaper than Auvik at the same device count. The weeks of configuration time is the cost of that depth, and it is worth it when the depth is genuinely needed.

PRTG Network Monitor is made by Paessler AG, headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany. It runs on Windows Server on your own hardware or a cloud VM, or as PRTG Hosted Monitor, a SaaS option Paessler introduced to cover cloud-first buyers. The sensor model is central to everything: you purchase a license by sensor count (100 free, 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, or unlimited), and every metric you monitor (a ping, an SNMP OID, a NetFlow interface, a custom REST API endpoint) consumes one or more sensors. PRTG supports 200+ sensor types including SNMP, WMI, NetFlow, sFlow, Packet Sniffing, MQTT, Modbus, and OPC UA, making it the tool of choice for heterogeneous environments and industrial/IoT monitoring.

Auvik is made by Auvik Networks, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is cloud-only, no on-premises option exists. A lightweight collector agent installs on a machine inside each network you want to monitor, and Auvik does the rest: automated topology mapping, device discovery, configuration backup, and alerting. Auvik targets MSPs managing multiple client networks and internal IT teams that need fast visibility without a full-time network engineer to configure it. Pricing uses an Essentials/Performance tier structure, both custom-quoted per billable device per month. Many device types (wireless access points, printers, UPS units, NAS) do not count toward billing.

The core trade-off: PRTG wins on sensor depth, on-premises control, IoT and industrial protocol support, and transparent pricing. Auvik wins on automated discovery, MSP PSA integrations, deployment speed, and topological visibility. Teams that need to be monitoring by Friday choose Auvik. Teams that need to monitor a Modbus RTU device, keep data on-premises, or know exactly what they will pay before the sales call choose PRTG.

PRTG publishes its pricing in euros on paessler.com, which is unusual in this market and makes budgeting straightforward. The free tier covers 100 sensors permanently, enough for a small office network of 8-10 devices monitored at basic depth. Paid tiers scale by sensor count: 500 sensors at €1,799/year, 1,000 sensors at €3,899/year, 2,500 sensors at €7,899/year, 5,000 sensors at €12,899/year, and the XL1 unlimited tier at €15,899/year. A 30-day trial with unlimited sensors lets you measure your real sensor consumption before buying.

The sensor math matters. PRTG counts sensors, not devices. A single router monitored at basic depth might consume 3-5 sensors (ping, interface traffic x2, CPU, memory). A heavily monitored server running 20 checks consumes 20 sensors. A network with 200 devices monitored at 8 sensors per device on average requires ~1,600 sensors: landing in the 2,500-sensor tier at €7,899/year (approximately $8,700/year at current exchange rates). Underestimating sensor consumption is one of the most common PRTG purchasing mistakes.

Auvik does not publish pricing. MSPs in the r/msp community consistently report approximately $3-5/billable device/month for the Essentials tier and $5-8/billable device/month for the Performance tier. Crucially, many device types do not count toward billing. Wireless access points, printers, UPS units, and NAS devices are typically excluded. This means a site with 80 total devices might have only 30-40 billable devices. The billing model is friendlier than raw device count suggests, but you cannot calculate cost without a vendor quote.

At scale, PRTG's economics typically favor pure network monitoring over Auvik. At 50 billable devices, Auvik Essentials runs roughly $150-250/month ($1,800-3,000/year). PRTG's 500-sensor tier at €1,799/year is cheaper and covers more metric depth. As device count grows, Auvik's per-device cost accumulates while PRTG's cost only jumps when you cross a sensor tier threshold. The caveat: Auvik's speed advantage and MSP workflow value are real. The question is whether that value justifies the premium at your specific scale. All pricing figures as of March 2026.

Choose PRTG when on-premises deployment is a requirement, not a preference. Regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government, utilities) sometimes mandate that monitoring data stays on internal infrastructure. PRTG runs on a Windows Server you control. Auvik has no on-premises option at all. If your security team, compliance auditor, or client contract specifies that network telemetry cannot leave the building, PRTG is your only option in this comparison. PRTG Hosted Monitor exists for teams that want cloud delivery, but the on-premises version is what you need for data residency requirements.

Choose PRTG when you need to monitor IoT devices, industrial equipment, or anything using Modbus RTU/TCP, OPC UA, or MQTT. PRTG has purpose-built sensors for these protocols. Auvik monitors standard IT network gear (switches, routers, firewalls) but stops there. If your environment includes building management systems, SCADA controllers, PLCs, industrial sensors, or smart energy meters, Auvik simply cannot monitor them. PRTG's industrial protocol support is a genuine differentiator that no cloud-only tool in this category matches.

Choose PRTG when pricing transparency is required before the sales process begins. PRTG publishes every tier price in euros on its website. You can calculate exactly what your monitoring will cost before talking to anyone. Auvik requires a custom quote, and MSP community reports suggest pricing varies significantly by negotiation. If your procurement process requires a fixed price in a purchase order before approval, PRTG's published pricing removes weeks of back-and-forth.

Choose PRTG when your team has a dedicated network engineer who will spend time configuring the platform properly. PRTG rewards investment. A network engineer who builds out well-structured sensor groups, proper alert thresholds, detailed maps, and custom reports gets a monitoring platform that surfaces problems faster than most alternatives. The effort ceiling is high, but so is the ceiling on what PRTG can show you. If your team does not have someone to own that configuration work, you are better served by Auvik's automated approach.

Choose PRTG when you need deep metric customization: custom REST API sensors, SSH-polled scripts, Windows Management Instrumentation counters, or custom HTTP checks. PRTG allows virtually unlimited metric creation via PowerShell, Python, shell scripts, and REST API calls. You can monitor anything that has an API, responds to SSH commands, or can be queried via SNMP. Auvik collects what it collects. You cannot extend it with custom scripts or arbitrary API calls.

Choose Auvik when you are an MSP onboarding new client networks and need topology visibility before your first on-site visit is over. Auvik's automated discovery maps the network, identifies devices, and starts sending alerts within hours of the collector install, sometimes under an hour on a well-structured network. For MSPs taking on a new client where no documentation exists and no one knows what is on the network, Auvik's first-boot topology map is genuinely valuable. PRTG at the same site would show you a blank canvas.

Choose Auvik when ConnectWise Manage or Autotask PSA is central to your MSP workflow and you need alert-to-ticket creation to work without custom scripting. Auvik's PSA integrations with ConnectWise Manage and Autotask are production-tested and two-way. A network alert creates a ticket, the ticket tracks time, the time rolls into billing. PRTG has no native PSA integration: connecting PRTG to a PSA requires webhook configuration or third-party middleware. For MSPs where PSA integration is table stakes, not optional, this difference alone often decides the comparison.

Choose Auvik when your team does not include a dedicated network engineer and cannot afford weeks of configuration work. Auvik requires minimal ongoing configuration. Devices appear in the topology as they are discovered. Alerts fire based on sensible defaults. Configuration backup and drift detection work without setup. A team of generalist IT techs or help desk staff can operate Auvik productively from day one. Operating PRTG well requires understanding sensor types, alert dependencies, probe architecture, and sensor count management: a different skill set.

Choose Auvik when your MSP tool stack already includes IT Glue, NinjaOne, ConnectWise Automate, or Cisco Meraki and you want native integrations rather than custom webhook work. Auvik's integration list targets the MSP ecosystem directly. Configuration backup data syncs to IT Glue. Alerts flow to ConnectWise Manage or Autotask. Network discovery surfaces into NinjaOne device records. PRTG integrates with almost nothing natively. Its strength is data collection, not tool stack connectivity.

Choose Auvik when you need monitoring live by a specific date and have no runway for configuration work. New client onboarding, a rapid deployment contract, a proof-of-concept that needs to show network visibility to a client by the end of the week. These scenarios favor Auvik unconditionally. PRTG can be stood up quickly for basic SNMP monitoring, but doing it well (with proper alerting, maps, and sensor grouping) takes days at minimum and often weeks for complex environments.

Neither PRTG nor Auvik is a server performance monitoring or application performance monitoring tool. Both cover network-layer metrics well: interface utilization, device availability, latency, packet loss. PRTG covers Windows server metrics reasonably via WMI sensors. But neither tool is a substitute for Datadog, New Relic, or Dynatrace if your actual need is tracking application response times, distributed traces, container metrics, or code-level performance. If you arrived at this comparison because something is slow and you are not sure whether it is the network or the application, the answer is probably a dedicated APM tool.

If you want open-source network monitoring without license costs, Checkmk and Zabbix are the leading alternatives. Checkmk's free Raw Edition is built on Nagios but adds a modern UI, auto-discovery, and a large plugin library. Zabbix is fully open-source with strong SNMP and agent-based monitoring: steeper learning curve than PRTG but zero licensing cost at scale. Both require Linux installation and more setup time than even PRTG, but for teams with the technical depth and a budget ceiling, they eliminate the sensor-license math entirely.

If you need network monitoring that is simpler and cheaper than Auvik but does not require Windows Server infrastructure like PRTG, Domotz is worth evaluating. Domotz is cloud-delivered like Auvik, publishes pricing, and targets smaller MSPs and IT teams. Its topology mapping and remote device access are comparable to Auvik's Essentials tier at a lower price point, though it lacks Auvik's PSA integrations with ConnectWise and Autotask.

Integration compatibility is where the MSP vs. internal IT divide in this comparison becomes most concrete. Auvik's integration list was built for the MSP tool stack. PRTG's integration architecture was built for data collection and notification. Everything else requires custom configuration.

PSA integrations are Auvik's clearest advantage. Auvik has native, production-tested integrations with ConnectWise Manage and Autotask PSA. Alert-to-ticket creation is automated. Both are two-way integrations. Ticket status updates flow back to Auvik. For MSPs, this is not a nice-to-have feature; it is how billing gets tied to monitoring events. PRTG has no native PSA integration. You can fire webhook notifications from PRTG alerts, but building a ConnectWise Manage integration from PRTG webhooks requires custom development and ongoing maintenance.

Documentation and asset management: Auvik integrates natively with IT Glue. Device records, configuration backups, and topology data flow into IT Glue client documentation automatically. PRTG has no IT Glue integration. PRTG does produce a device inventory that can be exported, but the IT Glue sync that MSPs expect does not exist.

Other MSP platform integrations: Auvik integrates with ConnectWise Automate (for cross-platform automation), NinjaOne (device sync), Cisco Meraki (extending Meraki visibility into Auvik's topology), and Pax8 (marketplace). These integrations are purpose-built for the MSP channel. PRTG integrates with none of these natively.

Notification channels: PRTG is stronger here. It supports email, SMS, push notifications, HTTP webhooks, Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, and custom scripts for alerting. Auvik supports email, PSA ticket creation, and webhook. For teams that route alerts to chat channels, PagerDuty, or custom notification pipelines, PRTG's notification flexibility is a genuine advantage.

Network traffic analysis: PRTG includes native NetFlow, sFlow, jFlow, and IPFIX sensors at no additional cost. Auvik's traffic analysis is available only in the Performance tier. If you are on Essentials, you get device availability and basic SNMP metrics but not traffic flow data. This is a meaningful limitation for teams whose primary monitoring use case is bandwidth analysis.

Setup time is the biggest practical difference between these two tools, and it affects daily operations, not only the first week. Understanding what each deployment looks like changes how you evaluate the trade-off.

Deploying PRTG: PRTG requires a Windows Server to run the core server software, Windows Server 2016, 2019, or 2022. For remote sites, additional Windows machines run Remote Probe software that reports back to the core. Initial auto-discovery finds devices on the network, but then the real work begins: creating sensor groups, assigning sensors to each device, configuring alert thresholds per sensor, building maps, setting notification rules, and deciding how to handle sensor count limits. A competent network engineer can stand up a basic PRTG deployment for a single-site network in one day. Getting to a fully tuned installation with meaningful alerting, accurate dashboards, and sensor count discipline takes 1-3 weeks for a 100-device network. Multi-site environments with remote probes multiply that effort.

Deploying Auvik: Auvik requires installing a lightweight collector, available as a VM appliance or a Docker container, on a machine inside each network segment. The collector scans the network, identifies devices, builds the topology map, and starts monitoring. For a typical SMB network, the collector is installed and the topology is live within 1-4 hours. For an MSP onboarding a new client, Auvik is commonly live before the on-site visit is complete. No sensor planning, no alert threshold configuration from scratch, no Windows Server infrastructure at the client site.

Switching from Auvik to PRTG: The migration is a full rebuild. There is no export from Auvik that imports into PRTG. You start PRTG fresh: running auto-discovery, creating sensor groups, configuring alerts from scratch. The upside is that after using Auvik's topology maps, you have a clearer picture of the network than you did before, which speeds PRTG configuration. Plan 2-4 weeks for a 100-device migration where PRTG is configured to real production quality rather than minimally standing.

Switching from PRTG to Auvik: Simpler operationally because Auvik handles its own discovery. Install the collector, let it run, and Auvik populates the topology automatically. The main configuration work is setting up PSA integration and adjusting alert thresholds. Budget 1-2 days for the Auvik side of the migration per network site. The harder part may be PSA migration if your team built custom PRTG-to-PSA webhook workflows. Those need to be decommissioned and Auvik's native PSA integrations configured in their place.

PRTG licensing has no contract exit fee, but licenses are annual. PRTG Hosted Monitor is billed as a subscription and can be cancelled. Auvik contracts are annual: confirm terms at signing. Neither platform locks you in technically; the migration cost is engineering time, not contractual penalties.