We compared Zabbix and Pandora FMS across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Zabbix is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, scalability, and reliable performance. It provides customizable dashboards, trigger dependencies, SNMP monitoring, and problem tracking. Pandora FMS is highly regarded for its straightforward management process, effective dashboards, and efficient network monitoring capabilities.
Room for Improvement: Zabbix could reduce false positives and improve integration, cloud monitoring, and reporting. 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.
Service and Support: Users had mixed opinions about Zabbix customer service. Some found it helpful, while others feel it needs improvement. Customers generally rely on online documentation and community forums for assistance. Pandora FMS support received high praise for their expertise, kindness, and fast response time.
Ease of Deployment: The complexity of Zabbix's initial setup varies, and it may require an experienced group of administrators and engineers. Most users found Pandora FMS’s initial setup to be relatively easy.
Pricing: Zabbix is a free, open-source solution, but users can purchase support services and additional features. Pandora FMS is considered reasonably priced, and the total cost depends on the environment.
ROI: Users say that Zabbix provides a cost-effective solution. Pandora FMS has also demonstrated advantages in terms of return on investment. Users say Pandora FMS has also demonstrated a return on investment.
Comparison Results: Zabbix is a highly customizable open-source solution with a wide range of monitoring capabilities, including the ability to monitor virtual machines and databases. However, Zabbix’s setup can be complex and may require technical expertise. 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
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
"Pandora FMS provides us with a general report (graphical) about all of the connected devices, which helps with planning new stations and tracking them."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"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."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"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."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"Zabbix can use old data to current data to set the threshold. We can use previous data to set the threshold."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of virtual machines."
"The implementation process is very straightforward."
"The overall functionality of Zabbix is very good. The monitoring of bank applications that Zabbix provides is great. The information is displayed on a dashboard that is easily viewed."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides network segregation for server monitoring."
"We detect problems before the customer does and before it actually happens using the predictive functions in Zabbix."
"Zabbix is good for discovery."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the ease with which we can set it up at customer sites with our custom Zabbix proxy and tools."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"Their support is good, but it is just online communication. It would be great to be able to just call someone and talk to them instead of always writing. It works well for me because I am a decent communicator in email, but some people might find it difficult to describe in a written fashion and communicate with them that way. There is a learning curve to the interface, but once you get used to it, it is actually very powerful. They have a lot of options, but people struggle with the interface. They've improved it though, and it is getting better. They need to keep improving the learning curve to help buy-in. I'm the guy that manages it, so I'm comfortable with it. They can refine the upgrade agents to be easier. They can also do more refinement in end-user usability because not everyone is strong technically, and people who aren't strong technically might be averse to the product, even though it has come a long way. It has a complete GUI and everything."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"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."
"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."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"The solution needs to add remote features."
"When we have a problem, we have to do a lot of research to solve it."
"We would like to monitor other touchpoints such as ATM machines. It would be great if it can provide monitoring of ATM machines. Compatibility with other products would also be great."
"As far as improvements, sometimes I get a bit frustrated when I move from a previous version to a new one because some configuration has changed—I need to investigate the documentation to deal with some configuration. But it doesn't take much time, so it's okay."
"The networking monitor is not too easy to work with."
"My company wanted to do an exercise command to access IT from Cameroon. They wanted to access an FSS to a second host with second equipment that was on another coast but it is not possible on Zabbix to do it. They want to directly access from the front-end of Zabbix to access a prompt in Zabbix to an access terminal. In the front-end, there is no way to do that. That would be an important improvement."
"The user web interface is a little bit too basic, we need to link Zabbix to Grafana to have more options, such as graphs and charts. The interface needs to be improved. Additionally, there could be better integration with Grafana API."
"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."
Pandora FMS is ranked 28th in Network Monitoring Software with 22 reviews while Zabbix is ranked 1st in Network Monitoring Software with 101 reviews. Pandora FMS is rated 9.2, while Zabbix 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 Zabbix writes "Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes". Pandora FMS is most compared with Wazuh, PRTG Network Monitor, Nagios XI, SolarWinds NPM and Netdata, whereas Zabbix is most compared with Centreon, Checkmk, SolarWinds NPM, Nagios Core and Nagios XI. See our Pandora FMS vs. Zabbix report.
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