Best practice for applying a custom check to multiple hosts in Nagios XI

[sofaclean1]

Hi all,
I’m using Nagios XI and I’d like to apply a custom plugin-based service check across multiple hosts without having to configure it individually each time. Is there a best practice in XI for doing this using host groups or service templates?

Also, how would I go about setting different arguments (like warning/critical thresholds) for each host while still using the same service definition?

Appreciate any guidance, thanks!

[kg2857]

Custom checks are the same as others and have nothing to do with the discussion.
I imagine people have differing opinions. For example I use 5 minute intervals for most everything and x percentage of memory, cpu and disk usage. Others want to be able to set such things individually.
I use templates to remove monitoring from hosts and services. For example a host has just the template, hostname, and address. The same is true for services--if it isn't specific to the service, it's in a template.
Hostgroups such as Linux and Windows are used so I can just add a host to a hostgroup and basic monitoring used on all that type of host is applied.
Nagios runs on .cfg files and over time will reward you for making things as generic as possible.