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Amazon CloudWatch vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (13th)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Log Management
41st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
27th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (42nd), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rasanpreet Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable AWS monitoring and logging
The choice of logging solution should always be determined by the specific business requirements. It is crucial to align the logging strategy with what type of logs are needed and how they should be used. There are instances where we require custom solutions to retrieve logs, especially application logs that may not be easily accessible through CloudWatch or similar services. When we heavily rely on AWS native services, CloudWatch is indeed a robust choice. However, in certain scenarios, we might need integration capabilities with other tools, and if they can incorporate such features, it would enhance overall logging capabilities. I would rate it eight out of ten.
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's useful to analyze past data and compare it with recent activities."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The product helps us collect and store various metrics to set test alarms."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"Monitoring time and ensuring ease in it is the most valuable feature."
"The detection is the most valuable feature."
"The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."
"It's a very simple logging system."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
"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."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
 

Cons

"Maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features."
"The configuration capabilities could be better."
"The solution could benefit from a price decrease."
"Some of our customers want to use Kubernetes to monitor their CICD flow but Amazon CloudWatch does not support it. We need to use another solution, such as Datadog or Dynatrace has the needed capability."
"The drill-down aspect on the dashboard of the solution needs improvement. We get a very good high-level overview, but when we drill down, it becomes a little less clear. We have given this feedback to AWS as well and hope they will improve this in the future."
"The integration with third-party tools must be made easier."
"The product’s documentation must be improved."
"What would make Amazon CloudWatch better is if it includes more on-site checks, particularly status checks on the CPU, network input/output, etc. It would also be helpful if there's built-in swap space, disk, and memory monitoring in Amazon CloudWatch because, at the moment, my team has to configure it manually through a shell script."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"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."
"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."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is reasonable. It is sometimes tricky, but it is reasonable as compared to others."
"The price is okay for me."
"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."
"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"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 Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"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."
"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."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Media Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch charges more for custom metrics as well as for changes in the timeline, which I see as a disadvantage given the price.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch charges extra for custom metrics, which is a significant disadvantage. Another aspect that needs improvement is the look and feel of custom dashboards, which currently do not matc...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.