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PRTG Network Monitor vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 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

Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
78th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
55th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
45th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (25th), Log Management (63rd)
PRTG Network Monitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
5th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 3.3%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
PRTG Network Monitor3.3%
Pandora FMS0.6%
Other96.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
madhan kumar hs - PeerSpot reviewer
software engineer at Capgemini
Alerting precision has reduced incident response times and improved department-level network visibility
The auto-pause sensor during the maintenance window is good without any false alerts, and it prevents me from getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance, helping department heads understand their own network usage better. It has reduced incident response time by giving clearer ownership of each alert, ensuring alerts go to the proper recipient. SNMP testers and auto-pause are among the best features of PRTG Network Monitor, which is particularly useful for different departments such as HR and finance, where alerts can be filtered accordingly. The alerting features and dashboard of PRTG Network Monitor are very helpful, especially in our industry. However, the dashboard can look cluttered on smaller screens, which is one negative aspect. PRTG Network Monitor has impacted us positively; we have stopped getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance or unplanned outages. Compared to others, this gives specific alerts very quickly and helps department heads understand their own network usage better, thus reducing incident response time so that each alert has clear ownership.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"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."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"Thanks to this software and to the work of the support team, we have everything under control."
"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."
"The scalability is good. You can improve a remote host or the clustering. This gives it the flexibility to monitor another infrastructure remotely."
"PRTG Network Monitor helped prevent incidents by creating an alert to the DL when servers go down, notifying me before it became a bigger problem."
"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are bandwidth utilization, user-friendliness, all past report simple retrievals, and timeout features. Additionally, if the solution does go down it is simple to bring it back."
"Nice product with an easy interface to use and a large variety of sensors."
"This solution provides us with the needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It allows us to grab all the information from a single point of view."
"There is a simplicity to setting up the extra sensors. It's really easy for us to build infrastructure and start monitoring very quickly."
"The simplicity is what I appreciate about PRTG Network Monitor."
"The reporting module is easy to configure."
 

Cons

"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"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 for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"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."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"Performance-wise, PRTG Network Monitor still needs improvement because a large number of SNMPv3 queries reduces tool performance."
"The dashboarding definitely needs improvement."
"I would like the ability to monitor Cisco IRS devices."
"I've encountered a challenge in my functions, particularly in adding and printing."
"PRTG Network Monitor should provide syslog monitoring since it is not available at this time."
"PRTG would be improved if it required less memory to run."
"A room for improvement in PRTG Network Monitor is its sensors. Its application technology sensor, such as the IAS, .NET, etc., needs some improvement because it doesn't work as expected. For example, the IAS sensor doesn't give immediate information, and the information you get from it isn't of good value. The web GUI of PRTG Network Monitor also needs improvement because errors keep popping up if it's not been updated to the latest version. What I'd like to see in the next release of the tool is end-to-end topology mapping for the business model, and that should be required. There has to be a technical map. Technical mapping and topological creation are missing in PRTG Network Monitor, so I would like to see those in the future."
"There's always room for improvement. The high availability feature is good, but it's an area that PRTG could marginally improve. For example, in PRTG, both servers have a different IP, but it would make things a lot easier if they were bound by a single IP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"PRTG Network Monitor's price is a little high."
"The price of PRTG Network Monitor is more expensive than other solutions, such as OP Network Manager."
"PRTG is now available as PRTG Enterprise Monitor, and the price varies depending on the total number of sensors the customer buys"
"I rate the price of PRTG Network Monitor an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"We looked at PRTG and SolarWinds. From a cost side perspective, compared to PRTG, and from what you get back from it, PRTG was sort of a hands down the winner."
"The price was pretty good, very competitive."
"All monitoring system is close to the same pricing scheme."
"Our licensing costs are 10,000 euros over three years."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise47
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing was higher at the beginning, but the recurring licensing cost is affordable and reasonable. Overall, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing is fair for our industry. They have quoted us...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about PRTG Network Monitor vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
880,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.