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Pandora FMS vs SCOM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
69th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (27th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (58th), Log Management (60th), Cloud Monitoring Software (41st)
SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM1.5%
Pandora FMS0.7%
Other97.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

MM
Independent Consultant at Maack Consulting
The open architecture is easy to extend and enhance
Pandora could deliver better analytics out of the box. You can work around these limitations with the help of other tools like Grafana. The shortcomings are mostly on the graphical side. The built-in report generators are a bit limited in some areas. They could improve their management console's ability to monitor large environments could be improved. For example, SNMP management is only partially integrated into the management console.
AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"Pandora FMS is a powerful monitoring system that has enabled us to identify and resolve IT infrastructure problems before they affect critical business processes."
"Pandora FMS provides us with a general report (graphical) about all of the connected devices, which helps with planning new stations and tracking them."
"Pandora FMS (the Flexible Monitoring System) is an all-in-one package solution, and we can monitor our whole system with Service perspective."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"This solution satisfies all of the requirements that we need for our Windows-based systems, so if you are using the Windows platform then this is an easy solution."
"The product’s auto-remediation feature helps with automation."
"SCOM provided end-to-end monitoring for all aspects of the infrastructure, including web sites, network devices, databases and applications."
"SCOM will allow you to go from firefighting mode to a more proactive stance when finding issues."
"This solution helps our application teams by allowing them to drill further into issues and perform a root cause analysis."
"I enjoy its integration with the Microsoft Active Directory functions, which means users, computers, or other group policies can connect with Windows Active Directory."
"The most valuable feature of SCOM is real-time alerts."
"SCOM has helped us to monitor all the VMs in our environment, especially the Windows servers."
 

Cons

"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems and we have issues with monitoring."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"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."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"Pandora FMS is relatively new, and the interface with the older version crashes at times."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"I had issues with SCOM 2007 and MOM 2005, regarding the view of alerts in the Console Operations."
"Both SCOM and WhatsUp Gold could use some system enhancements, such as better dashboards."
"Application monitoring must be improved."
"Documentation is poor, but the community makes up for it with good blogs and lots of how-to examples."
"Regarding certain issues in the solution, it can be difficult to generate reports if we have a program that is not user-friendly for reporting. While this is not necessarily negative, we may need to use another solution."
"At this point, only monitoring a network device is not good enough."
"The dashboard features are not user-friendly for our management team, only for the technical department."
"Reporting could be improved, you get many reports out-of-box but they can be difficult to interpret and drill down into."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"Two customers bought the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and paid for Software Assurance. But few customers don't buy it for Software Assurance. They just buy it and deploy it, and they think that we will be using it for the next five years."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Dialog Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SCOM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.