The invention provides a data collection system and method based on a network device. The system comprises a collection engine and a rule engine. The collection engine comprises a collection controller, a timing and scheduling frame, a message service interface, a command control plug-in, a device discovery plug-in, device collection plug-ins and the rule engine. When the collection system is started, the timing frame is loaded automatically. After appointed time arrives, the timing frame starts the plug-ins to carry out device data collection. The collection controller is used for receiving a system monitoring control command. After the device collection plug-ins are installed completely, the collection controller starts the device collection plug-ins in sequence according to an installation sequence. In a starting process, scheduling jobs and data reports are allocated to the device collection plug-ins. After the device collection plug-ins are started, device data is obtained according to the previously allocated scheduling jobs and corresponding monitoring protocol tools, and the data is reported to the rule engine through the message service interface. Real-time detection of an application is realized, flexible cross-area deployment is realized, and hot deployment of monitoring agents is realized.