ControlUp vs Pandora FMS comparison

ControlUp and Pandora FMS are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. ControlUp is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.0, while Pandora FMS is ranked #55. ControlUp holds a 0.9% mindshare in IM, compared to Pandora FMS’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ControlUp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pandora FMS users who would recommend it.

ControlUp

Read 13 ControlUp reviews

2,429 Views
1,287 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pandora FMS

Read 22 Pandora FMS reviews

1,793 Views
861 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ControlUp

Pandora FMS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Pandora FMS and ControlUp compete in the monitoring solutions category. Pandora FMS has the upper hand in network and infrastructure monitoring due to its simplicity and efficiency, while ControlUp leads in end-to-end analysis with real-time insights and automation.

Features: Pandora FMS offers an all-in-one monitoring system for servers, network devices, and platforms, supporting agent and agentless setups. It is valued for diverse integrations and strong community support. ControlUp is noted for detailed real-time analytics, user-centric features, and script-based automation.

Room for Improvement: Pandora FMS could enhance its monitoring features, cloud deployment support, and integration scalability. ControlUp users express a desire for better integration, improved network monitoring, and enhanced support for custom workflows and analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pandora FMS offers hybrid cloud and on-premises flexibility with responsive technical support though its initial setup requires expertise. ControlUp provides straightforward deployment and proactive support, yet some find integration challenging.

Pricing and ROI: Pandora FMS is praised for competitive pricing with flexible open-source and enterprise options. ControlUp is seen as pricier but valuable with a rich feature set. Both systems report significant ROI with customizable plans.

To learn more, read our detailed ControlUp vs. Pandora FMS Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp vs. Pandora FMS

January 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 880,685 peers since 2012

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

ControlUp

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

19th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (4th)

Pandora FMS

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

55th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (78th), Server Monitoring (25th), Log Management (63rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (45th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ControlUp	0.9%
Pandora FMS	0.7%
Other	98.4%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

reviewer2717526

Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Delivers comprehensive and customizable system management with increased efficiency

The best features I have found are that it is very customizable, which would be number one, and very extensible through the use of scripts and triggers. The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening. It may sound facetious, but it really is everything about it. Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place. The benefits I have seen from using it so far include the ability to know in advance and take actions based on the information the tool gives you.

Read full review

Gabriel Glusgold

Asociado/ at Infraestructura Informática

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."

"ControlUp has an easy installation process."

"When using ControlUp, the core feature that we have found valuable is its UI. It is a valuable tool to view the analysis reactions of a base core Level 2 or Level 1 team so that they can complete the necessary troubleshooting."

"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."

"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."

"ControlUp has a lot of automation in it; it detects problems and failures very well, and it's not only monitoring, but it's also detecting, and it could even fix problems with a lot of automation that you can put in place to fix problems automatically before you even detect them."

"It has a great career time monitoring tool."

"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."

More ControlUp pros

"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."

"Thanks to this software and to the work of the support team, we have everything under control."

"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."

"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."

"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."

"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."

"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."

More Pandora FMS pros

Cons

"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."

"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."

"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."

"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."

"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."

"Solve is a quick and intuitive tool for quickly mapping data together, however, once you have the view of the data that you like, it is difficult to share this with colleagues."

"It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly."

"There was some lag earlier, and reports pulled from the dashboard would sometimes be half an hour old. But now, the information provides real-time status, which is greatly appreciated. Overall, I've seen improvement in the product."

More ControlUp cons

"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."

"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."

"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 FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."

"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."

"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."

"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."

"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."

More Pandora FMS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."

"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."

"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."

"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."

"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."

"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."

"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."

"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."

"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 Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."

More Pandora FMS pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

880,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Healthcare Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Government

10%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?

It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?

I don't see any.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?

I was taking care of a Citrix infrastructure, and as ControlUp is the best monitoring tool for those environments, I was also using ControlUp to monitor those environments.

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Nexthink vs ControlUp

Compared 26% of the time

Citrix uberAgent Monitoring vs ControlUp

Compared 15% of the time

Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) vs ControlUp

Compared 8% of the time

SysTrack vs ControlUp

Compared 7% of the time

eG Enterprise vs ControlUp

Compared 5% of the time

More ControlUp Competitors

Zabbix vs Pandora FMS

Compared 13% of the time

Wazuh vs Pandora FMS

Compared 10% of the time

LibreNMS vs Pandora FMS

Compared 9% of the time

Checkmk vs Pandora FMS

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Pandora FMS

Compared 5% of the time

More Pandora FMS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp

January 2026

Download ControlUp product report

Buyer's Guide

Pandora FMS

January 2026

Download Pandora FMS product report

Overview

ControlUp is a digital experience monitoring management platform that makes it possible for IT teams to deliver a work-from-anywhere experience for employees. The solution makes fixing and preventing issues easy, enabling IT teams to make smarter decisions. It also provides monitoring performance, availability, and useful productivity metrics.

The ControlUp platform supports:

Any digital workstyle
Physical endpoints
Virtual desktops
Apps
SaaS
Web apps
Unified communications tools

ControlUp Features

ControlUp has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Out-of-the-box device and performance metrics
Custom metric and device data collection
Non-intrusive, secure agents with offline mode
Custom reporting
Easy-to-use dashboards
Scalable SaaS infrastructure
Built-in troubleshooting & remediation actions
Remote assist
Custom script actions
Multiple scripting languages
Automation and alerting

ControlUp Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing ControlUp. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Wide range of platform options: ControlUp offers multiple platform options including Windows, macOS, Linux, and IGE, independent of device location.

Powerful analytics: With ControlUp, you can analyze across your entire infrastructure or you can collect detailed individual device performance.

Optimizes performance: The solution enables you to remediate issues and optimize performance with its support of both manual and automated actions.

Minimize user downtime: ControlUp helps you catch common issues that lead to workflow interruptions. Self-correcting capabilities and comprehensive early-warning systems address issues before they impact employee productivity.

Resolve issues faster: The solution enables you to spend less time on support calls and more time driving value via its real-time troubleshooting and remediation solutions.

Increased visibility of remote environments: Gain real-time visibility across your entire network and find new ways to deliver the best end-user experience possible.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the ControlUp solution.

A Chair, IEEE Consumer Technology Society - Dallas,Texas, USA at a non-profit says, “In terms of the public cloud, ControlUp's features make us feel very secure. Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service. ControlUp offers a return-on-investment type of approach that helps us.”

A VP Virtualisation and Citrix Engineer at BlackRock mentions, “Solve is quickly becoming one of the most-used features. Its interface allows us to connect to all 54,000 monitored endpoints in real-time. The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities. Combined with the triggers, we have been growing their usage to fix things before they become an issue. Lastly, the controller view allows us to compare the configurations of settings side-by-side which is extremely helpful when tracking down the RCA of an issue.”

A Senior Citrix Remote Access Engineer at Rabobank comments, “The high-level view of the estate coupled with powerful administration tools has been great. We can see real-time performance and trends and can create triggers for common issues with associated scripts that can automate a lot of the previous manual remediation steps.”

ControlUp

Pandora FMS is a monitoring as a service (MaaS) solution that is ideal for companies with at least 100 or more devices. Instead of multiple, difficult-to-integrate monitoring systems, Pandora FMS is an all-in-one solution that is easy to use. The software is able to untangle complicated technology infrastructures to easily identify the root cause of issues in order to find the most efficient solution. It does so by analyzing everything in your system, from databases and applications to services and desktops, as well as communications.

Pandora FMS Features

Pandora FMS has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Application Monitoring (APM)
IoT monitoring
Log collection
Inventory
Issue management / ITSM
Mainframe monitoring
Network monitoring
Remote control
Synthetic monitoring
Service oriented monitoring
Server monitoring
User experience monitoring
Virtualization & cloud

Pandora FMS Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Pandora FMS. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Comprehensive overview: Pandora FMS provides a comprehensive overview of your system to make troubleshooting easy. It also provides all the tools to monitor and analyze an extensive range of data, from traffic to connectivity.

Easy forecasting: With Pandora FMS, you can use your network diagram for forecasting solutions, which gives you the necessary info you need to perform maintenance.

Proactive solutions: Issues are proactively addressed. Pandora FMS provides alerts 24/7 so you can deal with problems before they grow even bigger. This also helps your organization eliminate any down time.

Solve future problems: Another benefit of implementing Pandora FMS is that it enables you to optimize your services to ensure that future issues are minimized. In addition, they offer around-the-clock monitoring and automated solutions. As a result, the solution enables you to operate your organization with maximum efficiency all the time, saving you money and time.

Personalized service maps: Pandora FMS allows you to create detailed, personalized service maps that can help you identify any shortcomings in your system and address them as soon as possible.

SLA and availability reports: With Pandora FMS, you receive critical alerts when SLA levels aren’t met, which also helps you understand when your applications and systems are not meeting your business goals.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Pandora FMS solution.

PeerSpot user Marc C., Systems Analyst at a university, says, "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. It is really flexible. It is reliable. It does the job, and it alerts. It is also surprisingly feature-rich. It is very mature for a not-so-known product."

Another reviewer, Alexandre J., comments, “What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it. The speed of locating problems and to be able to solve them quickly, so that it affects our client's network infrastructure as little as possible, is very valuable.

Thanks to Pandora FMS we have everything unified in the same point and it is highly efficient.”

Pandora FMS

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp vs. Pandora FMS

January 2026

Free Report: ControlUp vs. Pandora FMS

Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

880,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our ControlUp vs. Pandora FMS report.

See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors.

We monitor all IT Infrastructure Monitoring 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.