Pandora FMS vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

Pandora FMS and Plixer are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Pandora FMS is ranked #45 with an average rating of 8.0, while Plixer is ranked #54 with an average rating of 8.0. Pandora FMS holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to Plixer’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Pandora FMS users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Plixer users who would recommend it.

Pandora FMS

Read 22 Pandora FMS reviews

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759 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,401 Views
967 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Pandora FMS

Plixer Scrutinizer

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Pandora FMS and Plixer Scrutinizer compete in the IT monitoring and network analysis category. Pandora FMS holds the upper hand in terms of general monitoring features, while Plixer Scrutinizer is superior in network traffic analysis.

Features: Pandora FMS provides all-in-one monitoring capabilities, supporting multiple platforms through both agent-based and agentless monitoring. It offers ease of use and integrates flexibly with other systems. Plixer Scrutinizer specializes in network traffic analysis, providing high-speed data visualization and integration with security tools. Its fast data processing and unique insights into network traffic stand out.

Room for Improvement: Pandora FMS could enhance its cloud deployment capabilities and improve integration with third-party tools. Simplification of its interface and reporting functionalities is needed. Plixer Scrutinizer requires better scalability support for high traffic volumes and improved usability of data analysis features. Enhancing the update process and better security algorithm implementations are also necessary.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pandora FMS offers flexible deployment options including hybrid cloud, on-premises, and public cloud. Its customer and technical support are responsive, though direct phone support is limited. Plixer Scrutinizer focuses on on-premises deployment, with users receiving helpful technical support and implementation guidance, but they encounter challenges with its update process.

Pricing and ROI: Pandora FMS is competitively priced with a straightforward licensing model that includes updates and support, providing a cost-effective solution, especially for enterprises with more than thirty agents. Its open-source version offers considerable functionality for smaller setups. Plixer Scrutinizer is similarly priced in the middle range, with licensing based on device count and network flows, offering value through its specialized features.

To learn more, read our detailed Pandora FMS vs. Plixer Scrutinizer Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Pandora FMS vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

July 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

Pandora FMS

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

45th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (18th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd), Log Management (36th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

54th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

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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Ira Mulyanti

Sales Director at ARGA SOLUSI

An affordable product with great integration capabilities

Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."

"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."

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

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

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

"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."

"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."

"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."

More Pandora FMS pros

"The most valuable features of the solution are the ability to track what a device is doing and to go back historically. It is also able to go down to, and identify, very low levels of traffic."

"One feature I found most valuable in Plixer Scrutinizer is the very extensive reporting. Reporting is very flexible, though sometimes you need a little bit of support from Plixer Scrutinizer to create custom-made reporting in a very short time. Reporting is a very strong feature of the product."

"One of the most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer is the reporting, particularly how easy it is to drill down into the reports. Another valuable feature of the solution is its overall visibility. It's great. I also liked Plixer Scrutinizer in terms of deployment time and that it's very simple to set up. Once you get the appliance set up and connected, the customer starts to see results immediately, versus other solutions where that could take a while."

"The most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI."

"As a network engineer, the ability to identify what traffic on the link is consuming all the bandwidth at any given time, and provide immediate feedback to the business, is the most valuable feature."

"Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly."

"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."

"We have had many requests to understand in the network which devices are connected to others. Most people don't have this information or are able to establish a map of data flow everywhere around the network. Scrutinizer can really help with this. We are using it to understand who is talking to what, how, and which protocols can help us to improve security and analyze flow."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

Cons

"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."

"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."

"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."

"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."

"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 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."

"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."

More Pandora FMS cons

"It would be useful if there was a way to back up the configuration information. E.g., if you wanted to deploy a new instance or disaster recovery, you could quite easily deploy and restore the config, as opposed to having to restore all the NetFlow data. If there was just a button that said "backup config information", that would be good."

"The reporting structure, the front-end GUI, also needs some work. It needs some getting used to. It works fairly well, but it's a technical tool rather than a user tool. You have to understand the structure of the databases before you can really use it."

"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."

"Knowing that they're coming out with a new user interface, that is an area where there is room for improvement. There are so many variables. They should limit the variables in the user interface and create some classes, like "simple," "novice," and "expert" to narrow down the variables within it."

"There is room for improvement around the data that they have on the website about solutions... they should have more templated solutions on their website. Going out and identifying how to do RTP performance with a Cisco router, or how to do application response times in an Arrista data center deployment was where most of the work was... They should spend some more time documenting solutions and putting together white papers."

"For updating the Scrutinizer platform, when we have the actual data, it never happens in one day. Every time we have the data, we are obliged to install a new server in order to integrate the old data, and every time it has a problem. Most of the time, we were obliged to scrap all the data because we couldn't transfer it to the new server. So, it would be very good if they could improve this part."

"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."

"Though Plixer Scrutinizer has network detection and response, it's an area that needs just a little more rounding out. Another room for improvement in the solution is its lack of SaaS offering which some customers were looking for. My company deals in small to medium businesses, mid-market, and some customers wanted the SaaS feature which Plixer Scrutinizer doesn't offer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for it to have a SaaS offering because my company also deals with educational spaces and smaller businesses that just don't have the staff that can implement this. If there's either a managed service or SaaS-based offering to just make it a little easier for those types of customers, it would be a great addition to Plixer Scrutinizer."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."

"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."

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

"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."

"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."

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

More Pandora FMS pricing and cost advice

"Our entire solution, amortized over five years, is in the vicinity of $40,000 to $50,000 a year."

"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."

"I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive."

"The licensing cost for Plixer Scrutinizer is in the middle. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. Its licensing model is based on how many exporters, how many devices export information to the system. Plixer Scrutinizer has different modules you could add such as the security module which would cost extra."

"We just renewed. The pricing is 5,000 euro per year. This is the final price. All tax (20 percent) is included."

"We recently bought a license upgrade, so we will integrate more exporters. We upgraded from a 25 exporter license to a 50 exporter license. Therefore, there will be more flows, and this will be an extension. I don't know when we will purchase a faster server, because the server that we have is quite new."

"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."

"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Plixer Scrutinizer?

Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Plixer Scrutinizer?

I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive.

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What needs improvement with Plixer Scrutinizer?

I don't have deep enough knowledge to comment on what requires improvements in Plixer Scrutinizer. In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required.

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Comparisons

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Compared 23% of the time

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Compared 17% of the time

LibreNMS vs Pandora FMS

Compared 13% of the time

Checkmk vs Pandora FMS

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Pandora FMS

Compared 6% of the time

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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 23% of the time

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 22% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 17% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 16% of the time

LogicMonitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 12% of the time

More Plixer Scrutinizer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pandora FMS

June 2025

Download Pandora FMS product report

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

June 2025

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

Overview

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

The Scrutinizer incident response system leverages network traffic analytics to provide active monitoring, visualization, and reporting of network and security incidents. The system quickly delivers the rich forensic data needed by IT professionals to support fast and efficient incident response.

Plixer

Sample Customers

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

Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker

Buyer's Guide

Pandora FMS vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

July 2025

Free Report: Pandora FMS vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

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