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Amazon CloudWatch vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (13th)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Log Management
41st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
27th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (42nd), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rasanpreet Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable AWS monitoring and logging
The choice of logging solution should always be determined by the specific business requirements. It is crucial to align the logging strategy with what type of logs are needed and how they should be used. There are instances where we require custom solutions to retrieve logs, especially application logs that may not be easily accessible through CloudWatch or similar services. When we heavily rely on AWS native services, CloudWatch is indeed a robust choice. However, in certain scenarios, we might need integration capabilities with other tools, and if they can incorporate such features, it would enhance overall logging capabilities. I would rate it eight out of ten.
Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
Personalized metrics; simplicity of data
My primary use case for Pandora is monitoring This solution has helped us improve our organization by allowing us to create a lot of metrics on several platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Unix. We then use these Pandora metrics to create an interface. We then pass the interface off to the…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"The monitoring features are valuable."
"The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit."
"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is the monitoring and UI."
"The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."
"I have found the memory metrics and the CPU metrics valuable."
"The most valuable part is the metrics part, which is really good."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"Pandora's architecture is interesting. It's open so you can easily extend and enhance it. It's simpler to customize Pandora compared to other solutions. It's also scalable enough to support large environments."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
 

Cons

"The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future."
"The solution should provide human-readable metrics."
"There could be further enhancements through CloudWatch's partnerships."
"When customers want to see the CPU or memory utilization there is a cost. This should be free to see the utilization."
"It's not an advanced way of monitoring."
"What would make Amazon CloudWatch better is if it includes more on-site checks, particularly status checks on the CPU, network input/output, etc. It would also be helpful if there's built-in swap space, disk, and memory monitoring in Amazon CloudWatch because, at the moment, my team has to configure it manually through a shell script."
"This product lacks some features: real-time data stream monitoring, application performance monitoring, mobile app monitoring, and live dashboards. Its workflows also need improvement."
"I think something that can be improved are the alerts and alerting mechanism based on no rejects. We want to have it more flexible and that is one of the key things that is required."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"Their support is good, but it is just online communication. It would be great to be able to just call someone and talk to them instead of always writing. It works well for me because I am a decent communicator in email, but some people might find it difficult to describe in a written fashion and communicate with them that way. There is a learning curve to the interface, but once you get used to it, it is actually very powerful. They have a lot of options, but people struggle with the interface. They've improved it though, and it is getting better. They need to keep improving the learning curve to help buy-in. I'm the guy that manages it, so I'm comfortable with it. They can refine the upgrade agents to be easier. They can also do more refinement in end-user usability because not everyone is strong technically, and people who aren't strong technically might be averse to the product, even though it has come a long way. It has a complete GUI and everything."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"It is a free-of-charge service."
"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."
"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"The pricing is average."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable. When the rate of data collection is done the price will increase. The price is less than other solutions."
"The tool is not expensive."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"You have to pay for the number of agents and models that you are monitoring. I would rate the cost at three with one being the most expensive and five being the cheapest."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Media Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch charges more for custom metrics as well as for changes in the timeline, which I see as a disadvantage given the price.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch charges extra for custom metrics, which is a significant disadvantage. Another aspect that needs improvement is the look and feel of custom dashboards, which currently do not matc...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.