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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 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

Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (1st), Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (2nd)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Server Monitoring
26th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (77th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (56th), Log Management (62nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (45th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 4.2%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager4.2%
Pandora FMS1.7%
Other94.1%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

JunedBedrekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Have effectively deployed patches and applications while integrating with cloud solutions
The features I find most valuable in Microsoft Configuration Manager are replication and scripting. If I want to get a fetch report for anything, such as hardware-related issues or group policy-related issues, I need to fetch the report by using SCCM's scripting language and remediation part. The inventory collection features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are good because we always prefer the inventory. We do it by using the script language. We use remote management capabilities in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Remote management capabilities are useful if the user is not providing access; we can use the backend users to update the group policy and sync the devices. These are the main features we require.
Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
Asociado/ at Infraestructura Informática
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

"Endpoint Manager is valuable to our organization because it allows us to connect to our enterprise from remote locations securely. The most useful feature is its robustness and scalability. It is highly scalable and flexible, allowing us to use it in various environments. Additionally, we can specialize the policies related to each device group. This ensures that each group has access to the applications they need for their work and non-work hours."
"This solution has made life easy with respect to patching, compliance, and OSD."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical-based reports of software updates that have been successful, the ones that have failed, and a summary of where the failures are what security breaches may occur."
"The most valuable features are application deployment and task-sequenced imaging."
"The tool's most valuable features are easy patch management and software deployment."
"It works well for the endpoints for the customer I'm consulting. It has a bunch of knobs, and you can tune it to do lots of things."
"The most valuable feature of SCCM is the application distribution."
"It is a very good solution. It has a good interface and is easy to use. On top of that, it is very reliable in terms of distribution as well as getting the report."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"It is easy to create your own custom modules if you just know a little bit of scripting. If you have unique requirements, you can just make your own modules. You can even grab checks from other vendors. There are open-source checks for various things such as SMTP, etc. There is a long list of different ones from Nagios. You can just use them, and within seconds, you get yourself a check that is monitoring whatever you need. It is really flexible. I guess that's why they call it Pandora Flexible Monitoring System (FMS). It is reliable. It does the job, and it alerts. It is also surprisingly feature-rich. Our network guy just recently asked about a particular protocol to monitor the bandwidth on the network, which is not a common protocol. When I looked it up, and I found that they cover it. It is very mature for a not-so-known product."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"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."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"Thanks to this software and to the work of the support team, we have everything under control."
 

Cons

"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."
"In terms of scalability, I believe there's room for improvement. While SCCM is capable of handling our current needs effectively, scalability could be enhanced to accommodate future growth and larger deployments."
"The ability to integrate MDM would be great."
"We'd like the solution to make it easier to manage remote users."
"The solution is a bit heavy on the sources such as RAM or CPU and the software needs to be a bit lighter."
"Cloud-based improvements need to be better managed."
"The solution should incorporate AI. It should also incorporate real-time capabilities. If we could get real-time information about challenges or issues, it would allow us to take immediate action. For example, with the recent outage caused by the Windows issue, having a real-time warning system could have helped us avoid or reduce the downtime we experienced."
"The operations could be faster and you need some patience with this tool."
"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."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"The price model is different for every client."
"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."
"The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"SCCM comes with its own version of SQL Server. If you use that SQL Server with SCCM and don't use it for another applications than you get an SQL Server for free."
"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."
"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"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."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Government
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...
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Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
882,333 professionals have used our research since 2012.