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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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

Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (4th), Patch Management (1st)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Server Monitoring
18th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (45th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd), Log Management (36th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 5.3%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 1.2%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements
While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six 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

"Patching is the main feature because SCCM is made to control the entire environment without manually interpreting. So it is good to use for patching."
"The solution effectively handles inventory management, deployment, and reporting."
"Technical support is very helpful and very responsive."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the availability of being able to manage the Microsoft estate. It handles many areas, such as asset management and tracking."
"Valuable features include configurations enforcement, compliance data gathering, and deployment of a standardized OS."
"The technical support is good."
"The product is very stable compared to older versions."
"It's helped us solve problems surrounding patching, installing, and reporting different patches, etc., on the virtual machines."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"Pandora FMS provides us with a general report (graphical) about all of the connected devices, which helps with planning new stations and tracking them."
"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."
"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."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
 

Cons

"The main room for improvement is the on-screen display. I think it would be good if some improvements were made."
"Not everything is readily available, and there are a lot of commands that are only executable via PowerShell."
"I currently need to increase my compliance level in the patching processes which this solution could improve on."
"Initial setup was complex. There's a lot that goes into it."
"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."
"SCCM should strive to enhance the accuracy of its reporting functions in order to avoid any issues with incorrect or inaccurate data."
"The product needs to improve scalability."
"The solution can be improved with the addition of a mobile device manager."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"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."
"Their support is good, but it is just online communication. It would be great to be able to just call someone and talk to them instead of always writing. It works well for me because I am a decent communicator in email, but some people might find it difficult to describe in a written fashion and communicate with them that way. There is a learning curve to the interface, but once you get used to it, it is actually very powerful. They have a lot of options, but people struggle with the interface. They've improved it though, and it is getting better. They need to keep improving the learning curve to help buy-in. I'm the guy that manages it, so I'm comfortable with it. They can refine the upgrade agents to be easier. They can also do more refinement in end-user usability because not everyone is strong technically, and people who aren't strong technically might be averse to the product, even though it has come a long way. It has a complete GUI and everything."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."
"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."
"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."
"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."
"The price could be better."
"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."
"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"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."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...
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Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.