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Pandora FMS vs Zabbix 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 Network Monitoring Software
47th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
16th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
43rd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
29th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (44th)
Zabbix
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
1st
Ranking in Server Monitoring
1st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.4%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 12.6%, up from 11.4% 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…
ASM Naushad Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes
We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
"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."
"We are able to monitor our virtual infrastructure, virtual machines, windows servers, databases, and the network using a simple network management protocol. We are able to pull almost all the metrics that we want, receive notifications, and have them integrate with telegrams for certain devices that are critical, such as UPSs."
"I have found that the reporting feature in Zabbix is most valuable. Additionally, the solution has given us bandwidth options, we are able to see where problems are. For example, we noticed a problem that occurred because of a bad interface going in the wireless VLAN."
"Its overall flexibility is most valuable. When our customers have some custom applications that are not necessarily covered by the community or a standard monitoring tool, we use Zabbix to build our own modules with our own templates. This feature has been useful in using Zabbix for infrastructure and IT monitoring. It has also been useful for industrial equipment monitoring. Zabbix is very lightweight. It is efficient in terms of performance because it doesn't use a lot of resources."
"It not only provides the preconfigured item monitoring feature, but it is also easy to configure custom items."
"We detect problems before the customer does and before it actually happens using the predictive functions in Zabbix."
"The solution's design has recently changed and it is visually pleasing with more color, for example, there is blue, black, and white."
"Every new asset placed in the environment can be automatically detected, predicting human failures."
"Zabbix helps to save time."
 

Cons

"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"Pandora FMS is relatively new, and the interface with the older version crashes at times. We have several different operating systems, such as Linux and Windows, and Pandora does not run as well in these."
"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."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"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 sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"I am having difficulties connecting it to Grafana, as well as some of the other plugins like Kibana."
"The documentation gets a bit messy between versions and is not too detailed, which is a bit painful for first-timers, especially when they run into issues."
"Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need."
"There are not too much documentation or manuals. We found the tutorials very easy to understand but do not go deep enough in the use of Zabbix. We need more manuals, proper use, documentation, etc."
"The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the best."
"Zabbix claims that there is an auto-discovery process but my team member was facing difficulty and was told that it's not really automatic, and there are some manual steps."
"The performance reporting could be improved."
"I have experienced stability issues approximately five or ten times."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
"It is freeware. We still use the free version of Zabbix."
"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."
"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"My manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything."
"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."
"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."
"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."
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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
13%
Educational Organization
8%
Media Company
8%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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 do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.