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Nagios Core vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

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

Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
11th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
46th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
44th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (18th), Log Management (34th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 2.7%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Nishith-Vyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements
The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.
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

"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
 

Cons

"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."
"I would like to see more training videos."
"The tool needs to improve the integrations."
"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."
"The mapping is a little hard."
"The interface could be improved."
"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."
"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."
"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."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"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."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheaply priced."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"We are using the free version."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"The solution is expensive."
"It's free."
"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
"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."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Media Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios Core?
What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.