Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Pandora FMS vs SolarWinds NPM 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

Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
46th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
41st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
27th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (16th), Log Management (42nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.4%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

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…
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"Thanks to this software and to the work of the support team, we have everything under control."
"The solution is so lightweight that with only 4GB of ram, it allows keeping track of up to two hundred agents from a single console."
"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"I like that SolarWinds NPM is a strong tool for monitoring network devices, switches, and routers. It's also a user-friendly tool. My team also likes how scalable it is."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"The product is lightweight in terms of memory use, requiring only 10 megabytes or less."
"The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"It would be useful if Pandora FMS included an ISO image (or «software appliance») for each big company that leases virtual private machines (VPS), just like in AWS."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"The scalability can be better."
"There isn't support available to us as they don't offer support in our country."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"The solution's database performance could be improved."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
"The solution could improve in many areas, such as the marketing and description of the products, providing areas of improvement, cloud capabilities, and being able to be more streamlined with the current integration points with other applications."
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
"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."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"It is expensive."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"I find that the pricing is acceptable."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pandora FMS?
Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data.
What needs improvement with Pandora FMS?
I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control. In the next release, I'd like to see, when it comes to monitoring, the ...
What is your primary use case for Pandora FMS?
My primary use case for Pandora is monitoring.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.