Naemon was created in 2013 as a fork of Nagios by community members who wanted to improve performance and add modern features while maintaining Nagios compatibility. The project was designed to be a drop-in replacement for Nagios with better performance, enhanced features, and active development. The name “Naemon” is derived from “Nagios” with a unique spelling to distinguish it as a separate project.
In 2013, frustrated by Nagios’s slow development and missing features, community members forked the project:
Key Founders:
- Andreas Ericsson (Lead Developer)
- Other Nagios community members
Motivation:
- Better performance
- Modern features
- Active development
- Nagios compatibility
- Open-source (GPL)
Naemon 1.0 was released in 2013 as a fork of Nagios 4.x. The initial release featured:
- Nagios-compatible core
- Performance improvements
- Enhanced logging
- Better scalability
- Modern features
The project attracted users who wanted Nagios compatibility with better performance.
| Year |
Version |
Milestone |
| 2013 |
1.0 |
First release as Nagios fork |
| 2014 |
1.1 |
Enhanced performance, bug fixes |
| 2015 |
1.2 |
Improved scalability, new features |
| 2016 |
1.3 |
Enhanced logging, better UI |
| 2017 |
1.4 |
Performance improvements |
| 2018 |
1.5 |
Security updates, bug fixes |
| 2019 |
1.6 |
Enhanced features |
| 2020 |
1.7 |
Modern improvements |
| 2021 |
1.8 |
Security updates |
| 2022 |
1.9 |
Bug fixes, stability |
| 2023 |
1.10 |
Enhanced features |
| 2024 |
1.11 |
Security updates |
| 2025 |
1.12 |
Modern improvements |
| 2026 |
1.13.x |
Current stable release |
Initial Naemon architecture (Nagios fork):
- C Core: High-performance monitoring engine
- Nagios Compatible: Plugin compatible
- Enhanced Logging: Better audit trails
- Performance: Optimized check execution
- Scalability: Better large deployments
Improvements over Nagios:
- Live Status: Real-time status updates
- Enhanced API: Better automation
- Improved Logging: Detailed audit logs
- Better Scalability: Handle more checks
- Active Development: Regular releases
Naemon is community-governed:
- Core Team: Lead developers
- Contributors: Community members
- Users: Nagios/Naemon administrators
- No Single Company: Community project
- Open Development: Public discussions
- GitHub-Based: Issue tracking and PRs
- Release Model: Stable releases
- Community Input: Feature requests
Naemon leverages the Nagios ecosystem:
- Plugin Compatibility: Works with Nagios plugins
- Configuration: Compatible config format
- Tools: Nagios tools work with Naemon
- Migration: Easy Nagios to Naemon migration
Naemon gained adoption among Nagios users:
- Nagios Administrators: Primary user base
- Performance Seekers: Users needing better performance
- Enterprise: Production deployments
- Integration: Nagios environments
Common Naemon deployments:
- Infrastructure Monitoring: Server/service monitoring
- Nagios Replacement: Drop-in Nagios replacement
- Performance Critical: High-volume monitoring
- Enterprise: Large-scale deployments
- GitHub Stars: 500+
- Contributors: 30+
- Downloads: Thousands of installations
- Community: Niche but active
- Development: Maintenance mode
- Maintenance releases
- Bug fixes
- Security patches
- Community contributions
- Maintenance: Continued stability
- Security: Security updates
- Compatibility: Modern Nagios compatibility
- Community: Community-driven development
- Performance: Continued optimization
Any questions?
Feel free to contact us. Find all contact information on our contact page.