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Microsoft System Center vs Pandora FMS comparison

Microsoft and Pandora FMS are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #22 with an average rating of 7.8, while Pandora FMS is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 0.3% mindshare in CMS, compared to Pandora FMS’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pandora FMS users who would recommend it.
Microsoft System Center
Read 19 Microsoft System Center reviews
  • 208 Views
  • 12 Comparison Views
85% willing to recommend
Pandora FMS
Read 22 Pandora FMS reviews
  • 665 Views
  • 42 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Microsoft System Center and Pandora FMS compete in the IT management and monitoring category. Based on their functionality and user feedback, Microsoft System Center has an upper hand for Windows-centric organizations, while Pandora FMS offers superior cross-platform flexibility.

Features: Microsoft System Center integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products, boasts powerful automation capabilities, and a low learning curve for Windows administrators. It includes operations management, antivirus administration, and intricate alarm systems. Pandora FMS is noted for its simplicity and flexibility, supporting agent and agentless monitoring, geolocation, and intuitive interfaces. It provides comprehensive network monitoring, including TCP/IP services and efficient alarm notifications.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft System Center users face issues with non-Microsoft product integration, cumbersome installation, and platform performance. There is also a need for smoother third-party integration. Pandora FMS requires enhancements in resource efficiency, documentation, and dashboard customization. Improved analytics and simplified configuration processes are also desired. Microsoft System Center lacks in cloud-monitoring, while Pandora FMS needs better mainframe integration and real-time monitoring.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft System Center supports primarily on-premises deployment, with mixed reviews on technical support, citing response delays and lack of engagement. Pandora FMS offers diverse deployment options, including on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud. It receives better initial support feedback, usually requiring less technical support post-implementation compared to System Center.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft System Center is considered expensive due to licensing and support costs but offers significant ROI within the Windows ecosystem by reducing third-party dependency. Pandora FMS presents a cost-effective solution with competitive pricing, offering an open-source version and a straightforward single-payment license that includes updates and support, providing excellent value for budget-conscious businesses.

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To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft System Center vs. Pandora FMS Report (Updated: April 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft System Center vs. Pandora FMS
April 2025
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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

Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (13th)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
28th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (42nd), Server Monitoring (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd), Log Management (37th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ajinkya Mohod - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes user management and application management easy for users
Speaking about the impact of the automation feature that impacted our company's operational efficiency, I can say that the complete tool works on automation. You just have to configure it, and it works, especially in areas like auto-patching updates. I suggest that others can definitely go ahead with Microsoft System Center, especially beginners who choose it, can get hands-on experience with it, and acquire a good understanding of how things work. In terms of the value and benefits derived from the use of the solution, I can say that my company's operations have been made simpler because of the product, especially in areas like user management and application management where we have been benefited a lot. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
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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…
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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

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft System Center is its GUI (graphical user interface)."
"The tool has many valuable features, including license tracking, software deployment, and installation deployment. However, we primarily use it for Windows updates and deployment for Windows servers and desktops. It's a complex product but very well-managed. If you use all the features, they will be valuable to your organization. It allows you to deploy desktops, manage patches, and track various features."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"Many processes could be implemented out-of-the-box, and this helped to adopt processes in areas which we lacked."
"Managment Packs for Microsoft-specific products, help us implement the best practices for each product."
"Good for managing and administering the infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it helps us manage our company's application pool, license pool, application update pool, and OS updates."
"The detail in the alarms is great."
More Microsoft System Center pros
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"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."
More Pandora FMS pros
 

Cons

"Most of the documentation is online, however, there are some gaps there. The product documentation still refers back to the 2012 Server. We're pretty much in 2022. There's a ten-year gap there."
"For me, the tool's UI seems to be too old."
"The solution's dashboard needs improvement."
"We have some bugs but it's stable. It doesn't break every day. It works. Like other applications, it has a lot of bugs but they're manageable."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The multi-tenancy support needs to be improved. We need to have the ability to manage several different environments from one central point of administration."
"System Center hasn't updated to keep up with the industry. It needs improvements in the user interface, ease of use, and overall product functionality, particularly the cloud-monitoring features. It needs more capabilities to monitor AWS and Azure infrastructure."
"In Microsoft System Center, it is difficult to follow the steps to create dataflows at times."
More Microsoft System Center cons
"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."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"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."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"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."
"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."
More Pandora FMS cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"I rate the product price as five to six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is cheap and ten means it is expensive."
"We maximized our license investment."
"Microsoft System Center is quite expensive."
"It's rolled into our enterprise subscription. The entire subscription is around $25,000 a year, however, that covers all the products that we use."
"I know that sometimes there is some reduction in the prices of Microsoft System Center because of the costs of Microsoft SQL Server, which can be advantageous."
"Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly."
"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"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 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."
"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
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Media Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft System Center?
The product's initial setup phase was easy.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft System Center?
Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
Microsoft System Center should be easier to manage. However, it is complex to deploy, so people hesitate to use it. Though it has many features, such as licensing, asset tracking, and software depl...
See all answers
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

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Compared 54% of the time
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IBM BPM vs Microsoft System Center
Compared 46% of the time
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Compared 28% of the time
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Wazuh vs Pandora FMS
Compared 19% of the time
LibreNMS vs Pandora FMS Logo
LibreNMS vs Pandora FMS
Compared 13% of the time
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Centreon vs Pandora FMS
Compared 7% of the time
SolarWinds NPM vs Pandora FMS Logo
SolarWinds NPM vs Pandora FMS
Compared 6% of the time
More Pandora FMS Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft System Center
May 2025
Microsoft System Center reportDownload Microsoft System Center product report
Buyer's Guide
Pandora FMS
May 2025
Pandora FMS reportDownload Pandora FMS product report
 

Also Known As

MS System Center
No data available
 

Overview

System Center helps customers realize the benefits of the Microsoft Cloud Platform by delivering unified management. Experience fast time-to-value with out-of-the-box monitoring, provisioning, configuration, automation, protection and self-service.
Microsoft

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

Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft System Center vs. Pandora FMS
April 2025
Free Report: Microsoft System Center vs. Pandora FMS
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