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Pandora FMS vs SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Cloud Monitoring Software
40th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (74th), Server Monitoring (23rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (54th), Log Management (57th)
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Obs...
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
34th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability0.4%
Pandora FMS0.9%
Other98.7%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

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…
AshwaniSingh1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Smart alerts have reduced downtime and improved proactive monitoring across environments
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability could be improved in several ways. It feels slow sometimes, especially when handling large amounts of data. The initial setup and configuration can also be complex for new users. If it were faster and easier to set up with simple dashboards for quick insights, it would be even better. Customer support could be quicker and more responsive with urgent issues. Integration with third-party tools could be smoother, making it easier to connect with other systems we use. The dashboard could also be simpler for quick insights. More guidance or templates for new users would be helpful during onboarding. Report customization is another area that could be improved. While the built-in reports are useful, being able to create more flexible and tailored reports would enhance our experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"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 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 most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"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."
"SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability has helped our organization stay on top of network and system performance; it allows us to spot and fix issues quickly, reducing downtime and keeping us happy."
"The primary use cases are for customers who require complete infrastructure monitoring. I mean IT infrastructure, which includes network devices, security devices, and server environments, whether physical, virtual, or cloud-based. The platform can manage any infrastructure component that needs monitoring."
"The initial setup is straightforward and quick if prerequisites are met, taking only a couple of days."
"I rate my satisfaction with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability at nine out of ten."
"SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers very good community support with many documents and best cases for various situations."
"Reduced downtime and faster issue resolution are significant benefits of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability; features such as PerfStack, NetPath, and intelligent maps allow organizations to visualize dependencies and pinpoint problems quickly."
 

Cons

"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"Their support is good, but it is just online communication. It would be great to be able to just call someone and talk to them instead of always writing. It works well for me because I am a decent communicator in email, but some people might find it difficult to describe in a written fashion and communicate with them that way. There is a learning curve to the interface, but once you get used to it, it is actually very powerful. They have a lot of options, but people struggle with the interface. They've improved it though, and it is getting better. They need to keep improving the learning curve to help buy-in. I'm the guy that manages it, so I'm comfortable with it. They can refine the upgrade agents to be easier. They can also do more refinement in end-user usability because not everyone is strong technically, and people who aren't strong technically might be averse to the product, even though it has come a long way. It has a complete GUI and everything."
"SolarWinds HCO platform offers various features spanning components, such as network, security, server, virtual, and application components. Common features include dashboarding, reporting, and alerting. These features provide comprehensive visibility, allowing you to see how one area's issues affect others. For instance, if a network issue impacts server performance, this visibility is crucial."
"SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability could be improved in several ways. It feels slow sometimes, especially when handling large amounts of data."
"Event management features can be added as it has limited capability to ingest events from external sources."
"The solution could improve in areas such as on-premises container monitoring, CICD observability, and providing additional documentation and support files in languages other than English."
"The solution could improve in areas such as on-premises container monitoring, CICD observability, and providing additional documentation and support files in languages other than English."
"Currently, SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability monitors AWS, Azure, and virtual environments, but it is primarily built on the traditional Orion platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"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."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
"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."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"The solution's pricing is quite reasonable. It has moved to node-based licensing, simplifying the process. They don't distinguish between different types of nodes, such as server nodes, physical routers, or switches. One node equals one license, making it easy to manage. If you have 500 devices, you need five hundred licenses to get all the features of this unified monitoring platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Media Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What needs improvement with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability?
Event management features can be added as it has limited capability to ingest events from external sources.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability?
I work day-to-day on SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability ( /products/solarwinds-hybrid-cloud-observability-reviews ). It covers network, server, storage, and networking.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.