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Pandora FMS vs ServiceNow Discovery comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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 Server Monitoring
16th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (42nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th)
ServiceNow Discovery
Ranking in Server Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (4th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 1.1%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 4.0%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Kaustubh Partha - PeerSpot reviewer
Scans servers and network devices through SNMP and reduces manual maintenance for our infrastructure team
I like how ServiceNow Discovery scans servers and network devices through SNMP. Most fields on our forms are auto-filled, reducing manual maintenance for our infrastructure team. Post Discovery implementation there is hardly any maintenance. There are three to four fields that are customized. Otherwise, 90% of the data is auto-filled. Discovery can also run in bulk, which is helpful for organizations that cannot run it during weekdays. With identification rules, if a configuration item (CI) isn't in the CMDB, you can simply add the IP address, and it will be automatically added based on criteria like name or serial number, making CMDB maintenance easier.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pandora FMS provides us with a general report (graphical) about all of the connected devices, which helps with planning new stations and tracking them."
"It allows me to quickly see the status of all of my printers, switches, computers, and virtual machines to determine if any system has fallen."
"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."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network."
"ServiceNow Discovery works better than other products I've used."
"The most valuable feature of ServiceNow Discovery is its performance."
"It has been stable since deployment."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"We can scale the solution."
"The most valuable asset is relationship building because the solution discovers and builds auto relationships in a way that makes cleanup very easy."
"ServiceNow Discovery has played a vital role in improving service visibility through automated IT service management processes, including change and problem management."
 

Cons

"In the future, we may have double the number of devices, and we do not want to have any issues with performance in the data display."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"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."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"The solution is too high priced."
"ServiceNow Discovery could improve the interface. The navigation bar could improve. It would be helpful to have a landing page to go to find all the elements in one place."
"I feel that credential-less discovery could be improved."
"Application discovery could be improved. And, right now, ServiceNow needs to be coupled with another solution in order to verify information."
"Technical support has not been helpful when we have come across problems."
"The initial setup could be made easier. We hired professionals to implement it, and they trained our employees for ongoing processes."
"The service mapping component is less developed than it is in other solutions, and is in need of improvement."
"It's an expensive platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"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."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
"This is expensive, but it meets our needs."
"The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."
"I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten. We had availed some discount from the standard pricing. Even then, the tool's pricing is expensive. You have to pay some vendor service fees for the product's implementation."
"It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."
"The product is not cheap."
"ROI (Return on Investment) is good. ServiceNow don't disclose the price publicly. They'll assess your organization's needs and then come up with a price."
"Setting up and licensing for ServiceNow can be expensive, especially for enterprise service management."
"There is a need to make payments every quarter of a year towards the licensing costs of the solution. ServiceNow Discovery is an expensive tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Media Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?
The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?
ServiceNow is considered more expensive compared to other products. If I were to rate the pricing on a scale from one to ten in terms of expense, I would rate it quite high.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation. Currently, each new product must be manually created if it is not already available in ServiceNow, which can be cumbers...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. ServiceNow Discovery and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.