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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
71st
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (25th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (58th), Log Management (61st), Cloud Monitoring Software (43rd)
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 (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 SCOM is 1.6%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM1.6%
Pandora FMS0.6%
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

"Pandora FMS is an all-in-one solution that is cost-efficient."
"Each of these points I think represents the keys as to why this software works in my jewelry stores, as it gives me greater control over all of the devices, the best performance, and I can interpret the data easily and much faster, with excellent results."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"Network monitoring is fun again with Pandora FMS."
"The support from Pandora FMS is legendary."
"The solution is so lightweight that with only 4GB of ram, it allows keeping track of up to two hundred agents from a single console."
"The monitoring features are the most valuable; we have seen a major benefit from that so far."
"If you are a large Microsoft shop then this product excels in monitoring Microsoft services."
"It's a lot more powerful than people realize, and I believe people become dissatisfied with it because of the complicated setup, but once it's up and running, it's pretty amazing at what it can do."
"ROI turned out to be pretty good since we had good centralized monitoring for our whole data center and all the outages were quickly escalated from the Command center to the relevant Team."
"Does a great job with Microsoft technologies."
"SCOM has helped us to monitor all the VMs in our environment, especially the Windows servers."
"SCOM has improved our organization by simplifying the monitoring process."
"If I have to choose any one product for server monitoring to take care of all aspects of monitoring out of the box, SCOM is number one."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"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."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"The management of the servers could be better."
"The dashboard features are not user-friendly for our management team, only for the technical department."
"Super high cost for the 2012 version due to change to a CPU based."
"The configuration, especially for alerts, are somewhat lengthy."
"SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure."
"It could use some system enhancements, such as better dashboards."
"This product is not easy to use."
"The console feature is very poor, and it would be very good for us if this were improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"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 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."
"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"We have an enterprise agreement that includes this product as part of it."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
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 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.
890,124 professionals have used our research since 2012.