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Pandora FMS vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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 (46th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd), Log Management (44th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Active Directory Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 1.1%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.8%, down from 3.4% 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…
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"Thanks to this software and to the work of the support team, we have everything under control."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"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."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"The product integrates with Remedy."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
 

Cons

"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"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."
"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."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"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."
"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
"The product is expensive."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Educational Organization
8%
Media Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
46%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
 

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 needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.