4 ms·

This is a great free tool, just don't ask for something the developer doesn't agree with. He and the IRC community supporting it will tear you to shreds.

llama052 12y ago
I agree with this, the developer on this is no doubt good at what he does, but him and the community that supports him is very poisonous. Does not take criticism well, and is generally hateful to people who say something he doesn't agree with.
- SpaceInvader 12y ago
  Do you have any examples? I am not teasing here with you. Seriously I'd like to know what they do since I'm still looking for monitoring solution (currently testing munin).
- kgadek 12y ago
  I feel that it's getting more common recently. …I'm not pointing in any direction… ducks
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
chilicuil 12y ago
Or send patches who the main developer doesn't agree with, you'll waste your time.
- laf 12y ago
  Give LibreNMS a try (www.librenms.org), it's a fork of Observium but with different values. I do agree with dozzie though and that's something LibreNMS hasn't yet resolved which is being able to correlate data from different devices / systems to give you the one true answer of what's just gone wrong. I'd like to think we could get closer to being able to do that with more people contributing + some fundamental changes to the software.
Acconut 12y ago
On their site they say you only have the "Ability to suggest new features" if you pay £150/year to obtain the Professional edition. Maybe their opinion changes if you throw money at them.
- misframer 12y ago
  Not only that, I don't think the Community edition receives any new features at all.
  - Acconut 12y ago
    The Community edition is updated every half a years and seems to receive the new features then but I can't verify it.
    - misframer 12y ago
      > The Observium Community Edition only receives critical security updates between 6-monthly release cycles and it is intended for small non-critical deployments, home use, evaluation or lab environments. -- http://observium.org/wiki/Edition_Split#Observium_Community_Edition http://observium.org/wiki/Edition_Split#Observium_Community_...
jauer 12y ago
The thing about Observium is the feature set happens to select for a unusual number of unskilled+entitled+whiny users. Observium's niche is user-friendly software for comprehensive monitoring of networks (and some server/appliance things). Setup is as easy as Wordpress and it will monitor pretty much everything on a network (ISP/carrier). Adding a device is pretty much one click, add hostname. In exchange it expects things like having resolvable hostnames for devices and standardized port descriptions. Compare this with Nagios or Cacti where you have to configure checks/graph collection for each thing you care about. The skill level required to set them up is a bit higher than Observium but still free. Alternatively you have commercial software like Orion or Intermapper where setup may be easier but you have to pay for every metric you collect. Because of this Observium gets a stream of vocal small MSP/ISP-type people who demand support and aren't willing to pay for it. I believe Obserivum went to a pay-for-access model in part to keep this under control. I use Observium, pay for the subscription (~$200/yr is really trivial for this), and have contributed patches (that were committed) that fixed bugs and added device support (without any compensation aside from it making $DAYJOB easier). From the WISP community alone I saw probably half a year of "I won't buy a subscription until you support X device/X pet feature" from people who often came off as the client from hell in how they said it. So, yeah, I don't like that I end up with a bit of anxiety over the reception my patches will get but I see the occasionally rough reaction as a immune response from a community that's under stress.

llama052 12y ago

I agree with this, the developer on this is no doubt good at what he does, but him and the community that supports him is very poisonous. Does not take criticism well, and is generally hateful to people who say something he doesn't agree with.

SpaceInvader 12y ago
Do you have any examples? I am not teasing here with you. Seriously I'd like to know what they do since I'm still looking for monitoring solution (currently testing munin).
kgadek 12y ago
I feel that it's getting more common recently. …I'm not pointing in any direction… ducks

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

chilicuil 12y ago

Or send patches who the main developer doesn't agree with, you'll waste your time.

laf 12y ago
Give LibreNMS a try (www.librenms.org), it's a fork of Observium but with different values. I do agree with dozzie though and that's something LibreNMS hasn't yet resolved which is being able to correlate data from different devices / systems to give you the one true answer of what's just gone wrong. I'd like to think we could get closer to being able to do that with more people contributing + some fundamental changes to the software.

Acconut 12y ago

On their site they say you only have the "Ability to suggest new features" if you pay £150/year to obtain the Professional edition. Maybe their opinion changes if you throw money at them.

misframer 12y ago
Not only that, I don't think the Community edition receives any new features at all.
- Acconut 12y ago
  The Community edition is updated every half a years and seems to receive the new features then but I can't verify it.
  - misframer 12y ago
    > The Observium Community Edition only receives critical security updates between 6-monthly release cycles and it is intended for small non-critical deployments, home use, evaluation or lab environments. -- http://observium.org/wiki/Edition_Split#Observium_Community_Edition http://observium.org/wiki/Edition_Split#Observium_Community_...

jauer 12y ago

The thing about Observium is the feature set happens to select for a unusual number of unskilled+entitled+whiny users. Observium's niche is user-friendly software for comprehensive monitoring of networks (and some server/appliance things). Setup is as easy as Wordpress and it will monitor pretty much everything on a network (ISP/carrier). Adding a device is pretty much one click, add hostname. In exchange it expects things like having resolvable hostnames for devices and standardized port descriptions. Compare this with Nagios or Cacti where you have to configure checks/graph collection for each thing you care about. The skill level required to set them up is a bit higher than Observium but still free. Alternatively you have commercial software like Orion or Intermapper where setup may be easier but you have to pay for every metric you collect. Because of this Observium gets a stream of vocal small MSP/ISP-type people who demand support and aren't willing to pay for it. I believe Obserivum went to a pay-for-access model in part to keep this under control. I use Observium, pay for the subscription (~$200/yr is really trivial for this), and have contributed patches (that were committed) that fixed bugs and added device support (without any compensation aside from it making $DAYJOB easier). From the WISP community alone I saw probably half a year of "I won't buy a subscription until you support X device/X pet feature" from people who often came off as the client from hell in how they said it. So, yeah, I don't like that I end up with a bit of anxiety over the reception my patches will get but I see the occasionally rough reaction as a immune response from a community that's under stress.