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ControlUp vs Pandora FMS comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
30th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (6th)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
58th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (66th), Server Monitoring (26th), Log Management (59th), Cloud Monitoring Software (38th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ControlUp0.8%
Pandora FMS0.9%
Other98.3%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Jean-CharlesMoriaud - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Automation capabilities and proactive monitoring have improved infrastructure reliability and reduced troubleshooting time
ControlUp has a lot of automation in it. It detects problems and failures very well. 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. That's one of the strong points of ControlUp. All the automations, and there's a large customer-written automation. You can pick up those automations and use them on your environment, and it helps a lot. This is very good. It's not third-party, but it's external routines and automations that you can download from their website and implement on your side. That's one of the strong points of ControlUp. ControlUp, the way we implemented it, and the goal of ControlUp, is to be proactive instead of starting to work on a problem when it already happens. There are a lot of counters and monitors you can implement that will help you detect problems before they happen.
Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"ControlUp has improved our organization by giving us full visibility into our systems, so we know what's running, where it's running, what it's doing, and the load on the system."
"This product's most valuable feature is that it allows you to consume many resources from a centralized tool."
"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"In terms of the public cloud, ControlUp's features make us feel very secure."
"Pandora FMS is an all-in-one solution that is cost-efficient."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"This tool has been of great help because we can manage faster solutions with the problems in our network and it helped us reduce our response time."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"Network monitoring is fun again with Pandora FMS."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
 

Cons

"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."
"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."
"There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting."
"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."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"The on-premises version has limited scalability as challenges occur because the console takes a lot of computer power."
"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"Pandora could deliver better analytics out of the box."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"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."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"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."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
20%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
 

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.
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.
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.