PRTG costs €1,799/year with published pricing and runs on your own Windows Server. Auvik is cloud-delivered with no published pricing and gets most networks mapped within hours of installing the collector.
The core trade-off is setup time versus setup depth. Auvik is live before your first cup of coffee is cold. PRTG takes days or weeks to configure well — but once it is, no cloud tool touches its sensor granularity.
This guide covers real pricing at three network scales, a 17-row feature comparison, integration ecosystem details, and the specific scenarios where each tool wins — and where both fall short.
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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 gives teams a way to evaluate infrastructure monitoring software fit, deployment tradeoffs, and day-to-day operational usability.
Sensor-based pricing, Cloud / On-prem deployment, Windows operating-system support, and a trial path for early validation.
PRTG is usually a better fit when cloud / on-prem, sensor-based, and Windows line up more closely with the environment your team actually needs to support.
Auvik gives teams a way to evaluate IT operations software fit, deployment tradeoffs, and day-to-day operational usability.
Custom quote pricing, Cloud deployment, Windows, Linux operating-system support, and a trial path for early validation.
Auvik is usually a better fit when cloud, custom quote, and Windows, Linux line up more closely with the environment your team actually needs to support.
Use the matrix as the fastest way to isolate hard differences in pricing, deployment, platform coverage, and trial access before you go deeper into rollout and workflow questions.
PRTG vs Auvik is a shortlist-stage decision page meant to help IT buyers move from general research into a clearer vendor choice.
PRTG and Auvik usually stay on the shortlist for different reasons. Use this page to see where one product fits the current environment more cleanly, where the tradeoffs start to matter, and which differences deserve more pressure-testing before the team treats either option as the default choice.
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.
Before booking demos, answer these against your environment. If most resolve cleanly, you are ready to move forward — a smoother sales process is not the same as a better product fit.
Which product matches the team’s current operating model without requiring unnecessary process change?
Which option offers the cleaner path for rollout, onboarding, and long-term operational ownership?
Where do pricing mechanics, integrations, and platform scope create meaningful differences?
If neither option is a perfect fit, which tradeoff is easier to absorb over the next 12 months?
For single-site internal IT teams, PRTG is almost always cheaper. PRTG's 500-sensor tier at €1,799/year (~$1,980/year) covers a 50-60 device network with good depth. Auvik at the same scale runs roughly $1,800-3,000/year for Essentials — comparable at small scale, more expensive at larger scale. For MSPs, Auvik's cost may be justified by PSA integration time savings, but the raw per-device cost is higher than PRTG's tiered sensor licensing at most scales. All figures as of March 2026.
Auvik is cloud-only — there is no on-premises deployment option. The collector agent installs on-premises and collects network data, but all processing, storage, and the management interface are in Auvik's cloud. If your security requirements mandate that network telemetry stays on internal infrastructure, Auvik is not a viable option. PRTG's on-premises version is the correct choice for that requirement.
Not natively. PRTG can fire HTTP webhooks on alerts, and teams have built custom ConnectWise Manage or Autotask ticket creation using those webhooks — but it requires custom development work to configure and maintain. Auvik has production-ready native integrations with both PSA platforms that require no custom coding. For MSPs where PSA integration is table stakes, this difference alone often decides the comparison.
Auvik can be fully operational — topology mapped, alerts firing, PSA integration configured — within 1-4 hours of collector install on a typical SMB network. PRTG auto-discovery finds devices quickly, but configuring sensors, alert thresholds, maps, and notification rules for a 100-device network typically takes a network engineer 1-3 weeks to do properly. PRTG's initial deployment can be done in a day; getting to a well-tuned production setup takes significantly longer.
Yes — PRTG has dedicated sensors for Modbus RTU/TCP, OPC UA, and MQTT, which are the primary protocols used in IoT and industrial equipment. It can monitor building management systems, SCADA devices, PLCs, industrial sensors, and smart meters alongside standard IT network gear from the same console. Auvik does not support these protocols at all. If IoT or industrial monitoring is a requirement, PRTG is the only option in this comparison.
When you reach your licensed sensor count, PRTG stops letting you add new sensors until you delete existing ones or upgrade to the next tier. Your current coverage keeps running — you are not cut off from existing sensors. But you cannot expand monitoring until you create headroom. This is why sensor count planning before purchase matters: buy with 20-30% headroom above your current count to avoid hitting the limit as the network grows.
Not meaningfully. Auvik is a network monitoring tool — its strength is switches, routers, firewalls, and the topology connecting them. It can show device availability and basic SNMP metrics for servers, but it does not collect CPU utilization trends, memory usage, disk I/O, or application metrics with useful depth. If you need server performance monitoring alongside network monitoring, pair Auvik with a dedicated infrastructure monitoring tool, or consider PRTG which covers Windows server metrics more thoroughly via WMI sensors.
Yes. PRTG's 100-sensor tier is permanently free — not a trial, not a time-limited license. For a small office with 8-15 devices monitored at basic depth (ping, interface bandwidth, CPU/memory), 100 sensors can cover the environment entirely. The free tier is the same software as the paid tiers — same UI, same sensor types, same alerting. The only limitation is the 100-sensor ceiling. PRTG also offers a 30-day trial with unlimited sensors, which is useful for measuring your real sensor consumption before choosing a paid tier.
Yes — Auvik does not publish pricing, which means pricing is set per negotiation. MSPs report Essentials at roughly $3-5/billable device/month and Performance at $5-8/billable device/month, but actual quotes vary. Volume (more billable devices) and commitment length (multi-year contracts) are the main negotiation levers. The r/msp community consistently notes that Auvik's initial quote is rarely the final price. Get competing quotes and push back — especially if you are bringing 100+ billable devices.
It depends on why neither fits. If cost is the main constraint and your team has Linux skills, Checkmk Raw Edition (open-source, free) or Zabbix (open-source, free) provide strong network monitoring without licensing costs. If you want cloud delivery with published pricing and simpler setup than Auvik, Domotz is a solid option. If you need enterprise-grade network performance management with path analysis, SolarWinds NPM is the premium alternative. For server and application monitoring alongside network monitoring from one platform, Datadog Infrastructure is the most capable single tool.
Read the full PRTG review and Auvik review for in-depth pricing analysis, hands-on feature breakdowns, and editorial verdicts beyond what this comparison covers.
Go deeper on product profiles, pricing, category context, and glossary terms before committing to a vendor path.
Return to the category hub when the shortlist still needs broader market context before the final vendor decision.
Check which tools in this category offer free tiers, trials, or community editions.
Open the full product profile for deeper pricing, deployment, review, and shortlist context.
Check commercial fit and pricing mechanics directly before treating the comparison as settled.
Open the full product profile for deeper pricing, deployment, review, and shortlist context.
Check commercial fit and pricing mechanics directly before treating the comparison as settled.
Use glossary terms when the comparison raises category language that still needs a clearer definition.
