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Amazon CloudWatch vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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

"The product helps us collect and store various metrics to set test alarms."
"Amazon CloudWatch's best feature stems from its ability to monitor app performance."
"You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you."
"We have found the pricing to be reasonable."
"We can create events and alerts. We use the information to dive down into the infrastructure performance."
"It's a very simple logging system."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is reliability."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is collecting the logs from Lambda."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"It allows me to quickly see the status of all of my printers, switches, computers, and virtual machines to determine if any system has fallen."
 

Cons

"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"It's not an advanced way of monitoring."
"The technical support must be improved."
"For monitoring applications or for APM, CloudWatch has some limitations. You cannot monitor application performance from CloudWatch, and you have to go for a third-party tool."
"The solution's pricing is a bit higher."
"It's not very intuitive. It doesn't have drag-and-drop functionality to trigger actions from notifications."
"The product should provide more features."
"The solution should provide human-readable metrics."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
"In the future, we may have double the number of devices, and we do not want to have any issues with performance in the data display."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"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 product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"The tool is not expensive."
"Its pricing is reasonable. It is sometimes tricky, but it is reasonable as compared to others."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"The price is okay for me."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"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."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"My rule of thumb would be that if you need more than thirty agents, and you lack an automation tool such as Chef or Puppet, you will save a lot of time and money going to the Enterprise edition."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
5%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
9%
Media Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
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: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.