We compared Pandora FMS and SolarWinds NPM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Pandora FMS is highly regarded for its straightforward management process, effective dashboards, and efficient network monitoring capabilities. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.
Room for Improvement: Users say Pandora FMS could make its dashboards more customizable and improve its integration with other systems. Many also said they would like Pandora to add APIs for integration and offer better out-of-the-box analytics. SolarWinds NPM needs improvement in edge computing capabilities and data reporting. Users also said the performance could be better and that they would like to see expanded IPAM functionality.
Service and Support: Pandora FMS support received high praise for their expertise, kindness, and fast response time. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Most users found Pandora FMS’s initial setup to be relatively easy. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.
Pricing: Pandora FMS is considered reasonably priced, and the total cost depends on the environment. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.
ROI: Pandora FMS has also demonstrated advantages in terms of return on investment. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.
Comparison Results: Users like Pandora FMS’s management and monitoring capabilities as well as its dashboards, but the solution has been criticized for its compatibility issues, limited customization options, and slower performance. SolarWinds NPM is a customizable solution that’s easy to deploy and features comprehensive network monitoring capabilities. However, some users consider it costly and voiced concerns about technical support and user experience.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"Pandora's architecture is interesting. It's open so you can easily extend and enhance it. It's simpler to customize Pandora compared to other solutions. It's also scalable enough to support large environments."
"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 solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one. I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."
"Network performance is the main issue clients are facing. SolarWinds checks if a node is down, and we can set thresholds for performance metrics. For example, we set it up to get an alert automatically if a value is over 80 percent. It has a full dashboard that covers CP, hard disk, and node monitoring."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its graphical interface and reports."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"Pandora could deliver better analytics out of the box. You can work around these limitations with the help of other tools like Grafana. The shortcomings are mostly on the graphical side. The built-in report generators are a bit limited in some areas."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"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."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"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."
"There isn't support available to us as they don't offer support in our country."
"The tool can only monitor up to 1000 instances in a single SolarWinds console. Customers may have over 1000 instances. Hence, it needs to support a minimum of 1500 instances. It should also improve support."
"The evaluation time for the product is too short especially for large corporations."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting."
"Time: A worldwide deployment can be confusing for dispersed users with non-local times. Each node should have a local time (with summer offset if appropriate) & each user should view & report in their local time."
Pandora FMS is ranked 21st in Cloud Monitoring Software with 22 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 6th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. Pandora FMS is rated 9.2, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Pandora FMS writes "The open architecture is easy to extend and enhance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". Pandora FMS is most compared with Zabbix, Wazuh, PRTG Network Monitor, Nagios XI and Netdata, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes and Entuity. See our Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds NPM report.
See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors, best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors, and best Network Monitoring Software vendors.
We monitor all Cloud Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.