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Pandora FMS vs ServiceNow Discovery comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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

Pandora FMS
Ranking in Server Monitoring
16th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (42nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th)
ServiceNow Discovery
Ranking in Server Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (4th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 1.1%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 4.3%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Kaustubh Partha - PeerSpot reviewer
Scans servers and network devices through SNMP and reduces manual maintenance for our infrastructure team
I like how ServiceNow Discovery scans servers and network devices through SNMP. Most fields on our forms are auto-filled, reducing manual maintenance for our infrastructure team. Post Discovery implementation there is hardly any maintenance. There are three to four fields that are customized. Otherwise, 90% of the data is auto-filled. Discovery can also run in bulk, which is helpful for organizations that cannot run it during weekdays. With identification rules, if a configuration item (CI) isn't in the CMDB, you can simply add the IP address, and it will be automatically added based on criteria like name or serial number, making CMDB maintenance easier.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pandora FMS provides us with a general report (graphical) about all of the connected devices, which helps with planning new stations and tracking them."
"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."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
"The service management and operations management modules are valuable."
"The most valuable asset is relationship building because the solution discovers and builds auto relationships in a way that makes cleanup very easy."
"It is a stable solution...The initial setup of the product is straightforward."
"It has given us an understanding of each layer from a server application."
"I am impressed with the tool's incident problem change management."
"The workflows are beneficial as they allow tasks to be assigned to respective teams without the need for coding."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"It's pretty robust, and it's agentless for the most part. So, you don't need to deploy agents, which makes it a lot easier to stand up."
 

Cons

"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"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."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"Whenever you try to discover something with the solution, you get errors that are not descriptive enough."
"The continuous improvement in the quality and customization of the product features would be beneficial, particularly as more customers rely heavily on its capabilities."
"It creates quite a bit of duplication, so that needs to be fixed."
"The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups."
"ServiceNow Discovery should be updated to provide its users with more out-of-the-box information and attributes to support the routers and switches from Cisco."
"I am not seeing significant ROI beyond breaking even on what I spend."
"Discovery, while a bit pricey, integrates well with other tools and offers a centralized discovery solution. These aspects could be enhanced in the new release."
"ServiceNow Discovery could improve the interface. The navigation bar could improve. It would be helpful to have a landing page to go to find all the elements in one place."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten. We had availed some discount from the standard pricing. Even then, the tool's pricing is expensive. You have to pay some vendor service fees for the product's implementation."
"There is a subscription for ServiceNow Discovery. It's expensive, but I think it's one of the best solutions on the market, so it's worth it."
"The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."
"It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."
"ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off."
"The product is not cheap."
"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."
"ServiceNow Discovery is expensive, but the company has a monopoly and we need to use the solution. We use it because we do not have a choice."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
9%
Media Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?
The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?
ServiceNow is considered more expensive compared to other products. If I were to rate the pricing on a scale from one to ten in terms of expense, I would rate it quite high.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation. Currently, each new product must be manually created if it is not already available in ServiceNow, which can be cumbers...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. ServiceNow Discovery and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,959 professionals have used our research since 2012.