LibreNMS vs Cacti

LibreNMS vs Cacti? Which is better?

In today’s interconnected digital infrastructure, network monitoring is not just a luxury—it’s a necessity.

Whether you’re managing a small office network or a large-scale enterprise environment, having visibility into device performance, bandwidth usage, and network health is crucial for maintaining uptime, security, and performance.

With a growing number of open-source solutions available, choosing the right network monitoring tool can be a challenge.

Two widely recognized options in the open-source space are LibreNMS and Cacti.

Both tools offer robust features for network graphing and performance monitoring, but they cater to slightly different use cases and organizational needs.

LibreNMS is known for its automated network discovery, alerting capabilities, and strong SNMP support.

It’s designed to be user-friendly while offering scalability for growing environments.

On the other hand, Cacti has long been a staple in the network monitoring community, particularly appreciated for its graphing capabilities and RRDtool integration.

While more manual in its configuration, Cacti provides deep control over data collection and visualization.

In this blog post, we’ll provide a detailed comparison of LibreNMS vs Cacti, exploring their key features, strengths, limitations, and ideal use cases.

Our goal is to help IT professionals and network administrators make an informed decision based on their infrastructure needs and technical requirements.

Related Posts

• Observium vs LibreNMS – Explore how LibreNMS compares to another popular network monitoring solution.

• LibreNMS vs Grafana – Learn how LibreNMS stacks up against a leading data visualization tool.

• Prometheus vs LibreNMS – Understand how metrics-focused Prometheus differs from SNMP-based monitoring.

Additional Resources

• You can explore the official LibreNMS documentation for more insight into setup and features.

• For Cacti users, the Cacti user guide offers a comprehensive look at its graphing engine and data templates.

• Our comparison of Zabbix vs LibreNMS and Prometheus vs LibreNMS might also be helpful if you’re considering other options.

Understanding LibreNMS

LibreNMS is a robust, open-source network monitoring platform designed to provide extensive visibility into your IT infrastructure.

It’s built on PHP and MySQL, with a strong focus on simplicity, automation, and ease of integration.

As a fork of the original Observium project, LibreNMS has evolved into a community-driven solution with an active development team and frequent updates.

Overview and Primary Focus Areas

LibreNMS excels in environments where automated device discovery, SNMP-based monitoring, and custom alerting are essential.

It is particularly well-suited for organizations seeking a balance between ease of use and advanced capabilities without licensing fees.

The platform automatically discovers network devices using protocols like SNMP, LLDP, CDP, and ARP, significantly reducing the manual effort required to onboard devices.

This makes it ideal for dynamic or growing network environments.

Key Features

• Auto-Discovery: Devices are automatically detected via SNMP and other discovery protocols, streamlining setup and maintenance.

• SNMP Monitoring: Collects a wide array of performance data from switches, routers, firewalls, and servers.

• Custom Alerting Engine: Configure detailed, rule-based alerts for performance anomalies, device downtime, and threshold breaches.

• API Support: RESTful API for integration with other tools and systems.

• Grafana Integration: Supports integration with Grafana for enhanced visualizations of network data.

• Mobile-Responsive UI: Accessible from various devices, including tablets and smartphones.

• IPv4/IPv6 Support: Seamlessly handles both IP standards.

Supported Devices and Protocols

LibreNMS supports thousands of network devices out of the box, including major vendors such as:

• Cisco

• Juniper

• Ubiquiti

• HP/Aruba

• MikroTik

• Fortinet

• Dell

• Netgear

Protocols supported include SNMPv1/v2/v3, ICMP, ARP, LLDP, CDP, and syslog, among others.

Pros and Cons of LibreNMS

LibreNMS is best suited for network-centric environments that need quick deployment, minimal manual configuration, and strong SNMP monitoring capabilities.

In the next section, we’ll take a closer look at Cacti, another long-standing player in the network monitoring space.

Understanding Cacti

Cacti is a classic, open-source network graphing and monitoring tool that has been widely used in IT environments for over two decades.

Built primarily for SNMP polling and time-series data graphing, Cacti enables network administrators to visualize performance metrics with detailed and customizable graphs.

While it lacks some of the automation and modern integrations seen in newer tools, it remains a solid choice for environments where data visualization and historical analysis are priorities.

Overview and Primary Focus Areas

Cacti focuses on collecting performance data from network devices and rendering it into RRDTool-based graphs.

Its modular and extensible framework makes it a go-to for administrators who prefer granular control over what data is collected, how it’s presented, and how often it’s polled.

Unlike solutions like LibreNMS, Cacti does not natively include auto-discovery or complex alerting.

Instead, it gives users deep control over graphing and SNMP data collection, making it well-suited for static or well-documented environments where precision is more important than automation.

Key Features

• RRDTool Graphing: Uses the powerful RRDTool engine for storing and displaying time-series data.

• SNMP Polling: Retrieves performance metrics from SNMP-enabled devices on a fixed schedule.

• Custom Templates: Users can define their own data templates, graph templates, and polling intervals.

• Plugin Architecture: Extend functionality with plugins for authentication, syslog, thresholds, and more.

• User Management: Role-based access control for managing dashboard visibility and editing rights.

• Support for Multiple Data Sources: In addition to SNMP, Cacti can also collect data via scripts and external tools.

Supported Devices and Platforms

Cacti supports any device that exposes performance data via SNMP, making it compatible with most network hardware, including:

• Routers and switches (Cisco, Juniper, etc.)

• Firewalls

• Linux and Windows servers

• Storage appliances

• Printers and UPS systems

It runs on Linux/Unix-based systems, with Apache, PHP, and MySQL as core components.

Pros and Cons of Cacti

While Cacti might not offer the modern automation or intuitive UI that LibreNMS provides, it’s still a reliable and flexible tool for organizations focused on precision monitoring and historical trend analysis.

In the next section, we’ll compare LibreNMS and Cacti across several key features to help identify the best fit for your environment.

Feature Comparison: LibreNMS vs Cacti

LibreNMS and Cacti are both capable open-source tools for network monitoring, but they differ significantly in terms of features, automation, scalability, and ease of use.

This section offers a side-by-side comparison of their core capabilities to help you determine which solution aligns better with your monitoring goals.

Feature Comparison Table

• LibreNMS excels in automation, alerting, and modern integrations. It is well-suited for organizations that need out-of-the-box features for device discovery, reporting, and real-time alerting.

• Cacti, by contrast, offers fine-grained control over graphing and polling. It’s ideal for users who prefer to manually configure monitoring setups with deep customization of data templates and graphs.

If you’re looking for a tool with modern usability, automated discovery, and strong alerting, LibreNMS is likely a better fit.

On the other hand, if your focus is on historical graphing and you have the resources for manual configuration, Cacti still offers excellent value.

Next, we’ll explore how each tool handles data collection and monitoring approaches in more detail.

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Scalability and Performance

When evaluating network monitoring tools like LibreNMS and Cacti, scalability and performance are critical—especially for organizations managing large or growing infrastructures.

This section covers how each platform approaches scaling, performance optimization, and their practical limits in high-demand environments.

LibreNMS: Handling Large Networks with Ease

LibreNMS is built to scale across thousands of devices with minimal manual intervention.

It leverages multi-threaded polling and supports distributed polling nodes, allowing users to distribute the monitoring workload across multiple servers.

This is particularly useful in environments with geographically dispersed infrastructure or high device density.

Key scalability features:

• Distributed Pollers: Easily add poller nodes to monitor remote networks or balance loads.

• Auto-Discovery: Reduces admin effort in large networks by automatically detecting new devices via CDP, LLDP, OSPF, etc.

• Database optimization: LibreNMS uses MySQL/MariaDB efficiently, with options to tune performance as scale increases.

Performance best practices:

• Use RRDcached to improve graph rendering times.

• Allocate dedicated poller servers for networks exceeding 1,000+ devices.

• Enable daily database maintenance scripts to ensure speed.

Cacti: Manual but Scalable with Care

Cacti was originally designed for smaller networks, but it can scale with the right configuration and hardware.

It relies heavily on RRDTool for data collection and graphing, and uses polling intervals (typically every 5 minutes) that can be adjusted depending on network size and needs.

Scalability tactics in Cacti:

• Data Collectors: Support for Spine (a multi-threaded poller) allows better performance under load.

• Clustered Setup: Cacti 1.2+ supports remote data collectors, enabling distributed polling.

• Granular Polling Control: Fine-tuned control over polling intervals and templates helps optimize large deployments.

Performance considerations:

• Cacti’s graph rendering can slow down as the number of devices or graphs increases.

• Requires careful configuration of templates and poller load balancing.

• Not as seamless or automated in scale-out scenarios compared to LibreNMS.

Performance Benchmarks and Observations

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Summary

• LibreNMS is the better choice for large-scale environments, thanks to its distributed architecture, automated discovery, and efficient polling.

• Cacti can also scale well, but it demands more manual configuration and tuning to maintain performance as the number of devices grows.

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Extensibility and Integrations

A network monitoring tool’s long-term value is closely tied to how well it integrates with other systems and how easily it can be extended.

Both LibreNMS and Cacti offer ways to customize and expand their functionality, though they take different approaches in doing so.

LibreNMS: Built for Integration and Flexibility

LibreNMS stands out with modern extensibility features and seamless integration with a range of external platforms.

It’s designed to fit well into diverse infrastructure environments, especially where users want to centralize logs, visualize complex metrics, or manage alerts.

Notable integrations:

• Grafana: LibreNMS integrates with Grafana via plugins to provide advanced data visualization using collected metrics and time-series data.

• Graylog and ELK Stack: Supports sending syslogs and SNMP traps to Graylog or ELK for log analysis and alert correlation.

• Third-party APIs and Webhooks: Easily push or pull data between LibreNMS and external systems (e.g., Slack, Discord, PagerDuty, Microsoft Teams).

• SNMP and Syslog support: Full support for standard SNMP monitoring and syslog message collection for various devices.

LibreNMS also supports distributed polling, custom alert rules, and has an API-first design, making it suitable for DevOps and automated infrastructure workflows.

Cacti: Lightweight but Modular via Plugins

Cacti relies on a plugin architecture and template-driven design for extensibility.

While not as modern or API-heavy as LibreNMS, Cacti provides a solid foundation for customizations via community-contributed plugins and graphing templates.

Key extensibility features:

• Plugin Architecture: Cacti’s plugin framework allows users to add features like syslog integration, thresholds, report generation, and more.

• Custom Templates: Offers strong support for reusable graph templates and data input methods, ideal for consistent deployments across similar devices.

• Custom Data Sources: Users can add external scripts or SNMP OIDs to track non-standard metrics.

However, Cacti lacks built-in integrations with modern platforms like Grafana or cloud-native tools.

Users must often build or adapt plugins themselves.

Community and Ecosystem Support

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Summary

• LibreNMS offers better integration with modern platforms like Grafana, Graylog, and notification tools, making it highly suitable for hybrid and enterprise environments.

• Cacti provides a robust but more traditional plugin framework that supports customization, albeit with less integration into modern cloud and DevOps stacks.

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Community Support and Documentation

When choosing a network monitoring tool, strong community support and high-quality documentation are essential for troubleshooting, extending functionality, and onboarding new users.

Both LibreNMS and Cacti benefit from active communities, but their support ecosystems and documentation vary in scope and approach.

LibreNMS: Community-Driven Development and Support

LibreNMS thrives on its vibrant open-source community.

With contributions from developers and sysadmins around the world, the project is constantly evolving to support new devices, features, and integrations.

Key aspects of LibreNMS community support:

• Active GitHub Repository: LibreNMS maintains an active GitHub repo with regular updates, issue tracking, and community-submitted pull requests.

• Community Forum and Discord: A community forum and a Discord server provide interactive support, tips, and discussion on real-world use cases.

• Extensive Documentation: The official docs cover installation, configuration, alerting, API usage, integrations, and advanced topics like distributed polling and Docker deployment.

• Automated Testing and Dev Tools: LibreNMS includes built-in validation tools that help users check their configurations and device compatibility.

The community’s collaborative nature makes LibreNMS particularly strong for users who want rapid feedback, third-party plugins, and frequent feature releases.

Cacti: Long-Standing Community and Plugin Resources

Cacti also has a well-established community, particularly popular among users who prefer hands-on control of their graphing environments.

While the pace of development is slower compared to LibreNMS, the platform remains reliable and well-supported.

Key aspects of Cacti’s support ecosystem:

• Community Forums: The official Cacti forums have been active for over a decade, offering solutions to common configuration and performance questions.

• Plugin Architecture: Cacti supports a wide range of community-built plugins available through repositories like Cacti Plugin Architecture, which extend core functionality for things like Syslog, Thresholds, and Audit Logging.

• Documentation and Wiki: Cacti’s documentation is available through a dedicated wiki, which includes tutorials, plugin guides, and troubleshooting steps. However, some content may be outdated or fragmented across pages.

Cacti’s community is ideal for users comfortable with traditional SNMP graphing tools and who value stability over rapid iteration.

Comparison of Support and Documentation

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Summary

• LibreNMS offers a modern support experience with an active development community, robust documentation, and growing third-party integration support.

• Cacti has a reliable but slower-moving community focused on graphing stability and extensibility through plugins.

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Deployment and Setup

Choosing the right network monitoring tool involves understanding how easily it can be deployed and maintained in your environment.

Both LibreNMS and Cacti support flexible deployment models, but they differ in terms of setup complexity, hardware requirements, and scalability out of the box.

LibreNMS: Installation and Setup

LibreNMS is known for its relatively straightforward installation and modern deployment options.

It supports traditional bare-metal setups as well as virtualized and containerized environments.

Installation Methods:

• Bare-metal or VM: Supports most modern Linux distributions (Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian).

• Docker: LibreNMS provides Docker images for containerized deployment.

• Pre-built VMs: Community images and Ansible scripts are also available for rapid deployment.

Setup Process Highlights:

• Uses a web-based installer to simplify initial configuration.

• Auto-discovery features reduce manual effort for adding devices.

• Cron jobs are required for polling and alerting, and the web UI provides guidance.

System Requirements (recommended):

• CPU: 2+ cores

• RAM: 2–4 GB for small environments, scalable for larger networks

• Disk: SSD recommended; storage depends on polling intervals and number of devices

LibreNMS also supports distributed polling for large environments, improving scalability and load balancing.

Cacti: Installation and Setup

Cacti has a longer history and is somewhat more manual in terms of installation and configuration, especially when it comes to managing templates and graphs.

Installation Methods:

• Available via most Linux repositories or as a downloadable ZIP archive.

• Some Linux distributions include cacti as a package (e.g., via apt or yum).

• No official Docker support, but third-party containers exist.

Setup Process Highlights:

• Requires manual setup of Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP, and RRDtool.

• Initial configuration is done via a web-based wizard.

• Devices must be added manually unless you configure SNMP auto-discovery via plugins.

System Requirements (recommended):

• CPU: 2 cores+

• RAM: 2–4 GB

• Disk: Moderate (RRD files are compact but can grow with many devices)

• Cacti performs well with scheduled polling, but scalability may require tuning poller intervals and using plugins like spine for multi-threaded data collection.

Comparison Table: LibreNMS vs Cacti Deployment

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Summary

• LibreNMS provides a more modern deployment experience, especially with Docker support, auto-discovery, and scalable architecture for larger networks.

• Cacti is more hands-on but remains a solid choice for users who prefer to manually fine-tune every aspect of their monitoring and visualization stack.

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Use Cases and Ideal Scenarios

Both LibreNMS and Cacti serve the broad purpose of network monitoring, but they excel in different environments due to their design philosophies and feature sets.

This section breaks down the best-fit scenarios for each tool, helping IT professionals determine when to deploy one, the other, or both in a complementary fashion.

When to Choose LibreNMS

LibreNMS is best suited for environments that demand modern, scalable, and feature-rich network monitoring with minimal manual configuration.

Ideal Scenarios:

• Medium to large enterprises with diverse network devices and vendors.

• MSPs and ISPs that need distributed polling across customer environments.

• Organizations requiring auto-discovery and dynamic mapping of network devices.

• Environments needing centralized alerting, integration with Grafana, or APIs for automation.

Use Cases:

• Proactive infrastructure monitoring with thresholds and alerting.

• Real-time visibility across hybrid and multi-vendor networks.

• Integrating SNMP monitoring with time-series dashboards via Grafana.

🔗 Related post: LibreNMS vs Grafana – Explore how LibreNMS can be extended with Grafana for advanced visualization.

When to Choose Cacti

Cacti is ideal for use cases focused on graphing performance metrics over time with a strong emphasis on SNMP data collection and customization through templates.

Ideal Scenarios:

• Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that prioritize historical performance tracking.

• Environments with static network topologies where device changes are infrequent.

• Teams looking for highly customized graphs and long-term performance reports.

Use Cases:

• Monitoring bandwidth usage and CPU/memory trends over time.

• Building detailed, manually tailored graphs for specific interfaces or metrics.

• Creating static dashboards for NOC displays.

🔗 Tip: If you’re primarily interested in long-term SNMP graphing without complex alerting or auto-discovery, Cacti provides a lightweight solution.

Combining Both Tools

In some environments, using LibreNMS and Cacti together offers the best of both worlds:

• LibreNMS for device discovery, alerting, API integrations, and real-time SNMP polling.

• Cacti for deep historical graphing and custom dashboards tailored to specific device metrics.

This hybrid approach allows:

• Real-time incident response using LibreNMS’s alerting system.

• Long-term performance tracking and capacity planning with Cacti’s visual reports.

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Summary

LibreNMS vs Cacti: Pricing and Licensing

Both LibreNMS and Cacti are free and open-source tools, making them accessible to a wide range of users—from small businesses to enterprise IT teams.

However, while the software itself comes at no cost, there are important distinctions in how each platform handles licensing, support, and long-term maintenance.

LibreNMS: Open-Source, Community-Supported

LibreNMS is released under the GNU GPL v3 license, ensuring complete freedom to use, modify, and distribute the software.

Key Highlights:

• No licensing fees for core functionality or features.

• Supported and maintained by an active community of developers and contributors.

• Community forums, GitHub issues, and IRC channels serve as the primary support channels.

• Rapid updates and feature rollouts via daily updates.

Cost Considerations:

• Zero software licensing costs.

• Indirect costs may include server resources, database maintenance, and staff time for deployment, configuration, and monitoring.

• Optional integrations with tools like Grafana or Alertmanager can increase complexity but remain cost-effective due to their open-source nature.

🧩 Tip: If your team is comfortable with Linux and community-driven support, LibreNMS offers enterprise-level capabilities without vendor lock-in.

Cacti: Open-Source, Plugin-Driven Architecture

Cacti is also licensed under GNU GPL v2, making it freely available for both personal and commercial use.

Key Highlights:

• Completely free to use, including core and extended functionality.

• Community-supported via forums and an official plugin repository.

• Robust plugin ecosystem available for extending capabilities like device templates, automation, and logging.

Cost Considerations:

• No licensing fees or usage-based pricing.

• Manual setup and plugin integration can require more hands-on configuration compared to LibreNMS.

• Minimal hardware requirements make it a low-cost option for long-term SNMP graphing and historical tracking.

Cost Implications and Maintenance

Summary

While both tools are budget-friendly due to their open-source nature, LibreNMS tends to demand more in terms of compute resources and setup complexity, especially in larger environments.

However, its automation, alerting, and integrations may offset those costs by reducing manual oversight.

Cacti’s leaner architecture and focus on static graphing make it a lower-maintenance solution for simpler environments or teams with minimal network monitoring needs.

In the final Conclusion section, we’ll recap the key differences and offer recommendations based on environment size, technical expertise, and specific monitoring goals.

Conclusion

When comparing LibreNMS vs Cacti, both tools stand out as reliable, open-source solutions for network monitoring, but they cater to distinct user needs and operational contexts.

Recap of Key Differences and Similarities

Recommendations for Specific Network Monitoring Needs

• ✅ Choose LibreNMS if:

  • You manage a diverse network environment with multiple vendors.

  • You need features like auto-discovery, alerting, and integration with modern visualization tools like Grafana.

  • You’re looking for an all-in-one monitoring suite with minimal reliance on external tools.

• ✅ Choose Cacti if:

  • You require a lightweight, graph-focused monitoring tool.

  • Your environment is SNMP-centric and doesn’t require complex alerting or integrations.

  • You prefer a low-maintenance setup with consistent historical graphing.

Final Thoughts on Selecting the Optimal Monitoring Solution

Ultimately, both LibreNMS and Cacti are capable solutions, and your choice will depend on the complexity of your infrastructure, the level of automation you require, and the monitoring depth you expect.

In some scenarios, combining both tools can offer the best of both worlds: use LibreNMS for device discovery, alerting, and overall network insight, and Cacti for focused historical graphing of specific metrics.

If you’re also exploring other alternatives, consider checking out our comparison of LibreNMS vs Grafana and Prometheus vs LibreNMS to better understand how different tools complement or contrast with LibreNMS.

By understanding your team’s expertise and network demands, you can confidently select a solution that delivers the performance and insights your infrastructure needs.