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Icinga vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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

Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
10th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
8th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
14th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
42nd
Ranking in Server Monitoring
17th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
42nd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
28th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (37th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 3.4%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Claudio Kuenzler - PeerSpot reviewer
A free and time-saving product that helps to monitor servers and network devices
I use the product for server and network device monitoring. A team of five people is managing the solution, and around 50 people are using the solution in the organization Pro-active monitoring and alerting helped us to decrease downtimes of services. The apply rules feature saves a lot of time.…
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

"The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."
"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."
"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"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."
"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 allows me to quickly see the status of all of my printers, switches, computers, and virtual machines to determine if any system has fallen."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
 

Cons

"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"The user interface should be improved."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."
"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."
"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 find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The solution is cheap."
"It's an open-source solution."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"The solution is free to use."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Media Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Icinga?
The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.