Meraki Dashboard vs Pandora FMS comparison

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Meraki Dashboard

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Pandora FMS and Meraki Dashboard both compete in the IT monitoring solutions category, offering unique features and benefits. Pandora FMS seems to have the upper hand in terms of cost-effectiveness and flexibility, while Meraki Dashboard leads with ease of use and cloud management features.

Features: Pandora FMS offers a comprehensive solution with TCP/IP service monitoring, WMI and SNMP support, and an efficient alerting system. It is highly flexible, catering to a wide range of platforms. Meraki Dashboard offers a single-pane-of-glass experience, cloud management, and robust integration features like Layer 7 filtering and advanced VPN connectivity.

Room for Improvement: Pandora FMS could improve its cloud deployment capabilities and third-party integrations. Enhancements in resource management and simpler deployment are also desired. Meraki Dashboard users look for better VPN client enhancements, more intuitive navigation, and improved integration with non-Cisco platforms. The pricing model could also be simplified.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pandora FMS provides on-premises and hybrid cloud deployment options with high customer satisfaction in technical support and responsiveness. Meraki Dashboard, primarily cloud-based, offers solid customer service and ease of deployment, though it lacks some customizable support features compared to Pandora's detailed technical aid.

Pricing and ROI: Pandora FMS offers a straightforward licensing model with competitive pricing, especially in its Enterprise version, and supports open-source use. Meraki Dashboard is more expensive with a subscription-based model. Both solutions deliver strong ROI, with Pandora FMS reducing infrastructure needs and Meraki simplifying network management and potentially lowering admin costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Meraki Dashboard vs. Pandora FMS Report (Updated: September 2025).

Meraki Dashboard vs. Pandora FMS

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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

Meraki Dashboard

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

18th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Pandora FMS

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

74th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (23rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (54th), Log Management (57th), Cloud Monitoring Software (40th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Meraki Dashboard is 1.1%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Meraki Dashboard	1.1%
Pandora FMS	0.6%
Other	98.3%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

MURALI NIDAMANURI

Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Dashboard provides comprehensive network security and management capabilities

I don't have specific handy names. Meraki Dashboard uses multiple functions where we can configure SSIDs, firewall policies, DHCP, multiple VLANs and DHCP configurations, VLAN configurations, access control policies, MAC binding, client access based on MAC authentication and certificate-based authentication. We have configured SSO for Windows Active Directory by configuring the RADIUS services. We have implemented many customer requirements in Meraki Dashboard. With the detailed visibility feature of Meraki Dashboard, I get connected clients information, including how much data each client downloaded and what applications they accessed. I can obtain detailed data including ISP links level monitoring and speed. I can perform speed tests, generate analytics reports, convert to Excel based on each user for each department, create dashboards, monitor and limit bandwidths, and restrict specific URLs. The advanced security configuration in Meraki Dashboard is useful for network security. Substantial security can be achieved within Meraki Dashboard itself, eliminating the need for additional firewalls to protect your network. You can configure WAN monitoring, users' ACLs, URL filtering, web filtering, and department-wise access configuration for specific client applications. It's completely cloud-managed, and in a simplified way, you don't need to visit any physical infrastructure to monitor activities. Apart from access points, everything is in the cloud. We have monitored IoT solutions, CCTV monitoring, and can detect and control intrusions. When people connect IoT devices to your network, Meraki Dashboard can detect what device it is and control those access controls, even with different operating systems.

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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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For us, it serves as a single pane of glass."

"The ease-of-use and the analytics are really effective tools."

"It is very easy to manage. It has good security, and it is working well with our firewall."

"We find that Meraki has all the features you need to be able to enable complex network protocols for AV equipment. We deal with a streaming product over IP, and Meraki is fantastic at that."

"The dashboard itself is very simplified and easy to navigate."

"There is no need to swap the hardware at all the locations, and importing the APs into the Dashboard was a simple and quick process."

"The user-friendly interface facilitated a quick and efficient setup process."

"Meraki Dashboard does not require a lot of maintenance. Cisco tells communicates through the Meraki Dashboard web client, it will automatically send updates to the equipment. They will send you an email on what day the updates will take place. If you want to proceed, you can click on accept, or you can decline them and schedule the updates at another time."

More Meraki Dashboard pros

"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."

"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."

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

"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."

"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."

"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."

"The solution is so lightweight that with only 4GB of ram, it allows keeping track of up to two hundred agents from a single console."

More Pandora FMS pros

Cons

"There is a need for price reductions in developing countries, as the cost of Meraki is quite high."

"The initial setup is complex and can be made more straightforward."

"I’d like the product to allow for other solutions to be integrated with the dashboard as well."

"An area for improvement in Meraki Dashboard is licensing management because it's a little complex. Product licensing can be made a little bit easier through license concurrency and a more straightforward approach to applying the license to products and services."

"I would rate Meraki Dashboard as eight out of ten as a product and solution. I rate it an eight due to some missing features in the system, particularly challenges encountered during firmware upgrades, where sometimes devices shut down and do not come back up, leaving us uncertain about why that happens."

"If I am a user and I have a seat on the fourth floor, if I move across the building, the system should be able to track me and should be able to figure out my whereabouts or my position within the building if I'm connected to the wireless. That would make the administrator's life easier in terms of reachability."

"When users are trying to roam from one location to another location, geographical tracking would be helpful."

"The solution can be expensive."

More Meraki Dashboard cons

"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."

"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."

"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."

"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 for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."

"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."

"In the future, we may have double the number of devices, and we do not want to have any issues with performance in the data display."

"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."

More Pandora FMS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Meraki Dashboard is not expensive because knowing that it is a cloud-based solution has its benefits."

"The pricing for a small setup is only a few hundred dollars a year. The fee is subscription-based."

"Typically, the license model is for one, three, and five years. They can just be a bit more flexible around it and look into providing an option for 24 months."

"From a pricing perspective, they are still expensive."

"Licensing is around under 1000 pounds. The licensing is either one year, three years, five years or ten years and during the licensing, we can choose to renew it per year or per every three years. We've got a license for three years. It's about 160 or about 200 pounds each."

"The licensing fees are $180 USD, per AP, for three years."

"You don't have to pay for the dashboard."

"My view is that it's expensive, but it's the best."

More Meraki Dashboard pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

"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."

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

"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."

"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."

More Pandora FMS pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Government

14%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	25

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Meraki Dashboard?

We greatly utilize the network because we can plug it into the DNS, VPN, or equipment. It's very good. Meraki Dashboard enhances wireless network management. We appreciate its flexibility, as it al...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki Dashboard?

The cost of the Meraki solution is high, which may not be affordable for smaller companies, especially in developing countries.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Meraki Dashboard?

Improving the AI capabilities would be beneficial as the machine should learn more extensively. The future is AI-driven. Network availability is crucial based on machine understanding, so the machi...

See all answers

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Comparisons

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Compared 18% of the time

Zabbix vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 13% of the time

ThousandEyes vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 7% of the time

Mist AI and Cloud vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 7% of the time

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Zabbix vs Pandora FMS

Compared 20% of the time

Wazuh vs Pandora FMS

Compared 15% of the time

LibreNMS vs Pandora FMS

Compared 11% of the time

Checkmk vs Pandora FMS

Compared 9% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Pandora FMS

Compared 7% of the time

More Pandora FMS Competitors

Product Reports

Meraki Dashboard

Download Meraki Dashboard product report

Download Pandora FMS product report

Overview

Meraki Dashboard is a comprehensive cloud-based platform that offers centralized management and control for all Meraki networking and security products. It provides a user-friendly interface, allowing administrators to easily monitor and configure their network infrastructure from anywhere. With real-time visibility, troubleshooting becomes effortless, ensuring optimal performance and minimizing downtime.

The intuitive dashboard offers a holistic view of the network, enabling quick identification of potential issues and proactive measures. It simplifies network deployment and scaling, with zero-touch provisioning and automatic firmware updates. The robust security features include advanced threat protection, content filtering, and VPN connectivity.

Meraki Dashboard also offers powerful analytics and reporting capabilities, providing valuable insights into network usage, application performance, and user behavior. With its seamless integration and scalability,

Meraki Dashboard is the ideal solution for organizations of all sizes, ensuring efficient network management and enhanced productivity.

Cisco

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.”

Sample Customers

Coop eG, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Priefert Manufacturing, Century Care Management, Clifton College, Zürs Ski Resort, Capital FM Arena, MAXI Autohöfe

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

Meraki Dashboard vs. Pandora FMS