Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Pandora FMS vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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
76th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
58th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
44th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (26th), Log Management (61st)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Pandora FMS0.6%
Other95.8%
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.
Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"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, and it's also scalable enough to support large environments."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
"Our search finally ended at this Orion’s NPM tool which has great scalability and reliability."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"Our ability to locate the source of a network issue has dramatically reduced our mean-time-to-resolve."
"In my experience with SolarWinds NPM Quality of Experience dashboard, it fulfilled all of our requirements."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
 

Cons

"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"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."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"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."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products such as Universal CMDB."
"Stability is an issue. We have installed SolarWinds (Server 2016) on a dedicated physical server and as a virtual machine in a brand new Hyper-V environment with brand new servers."
"A feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"In terms of scalability, there is room for improvement. When you start monitoring, if you have so many interfaces and you're trying to monitor them at a faster interval, or a shorter interval, you get to a point where you need to request another node."
"They have had a rather large security breach in the past. It's cost some companies customers."
"The only other issue I have is that sometimes when upgrading, it becomes complicated to manage the upgrade."
"It would be good to have high security."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
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 Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.