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Pandora FMS vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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 Server Monitoring
26th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (66th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (58th), Log Management (59th), Cloud Monitoring Software (39th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 2.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.0%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.0%
Pandora FMS2.1%
Other94.9%
Server Monitoring
 

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.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility
From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

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 a powerful monitoring system that has enabled us to identify and resolve IT infrastructure problems before they affect critical business processes."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"Network monitoring is fun again with Pandora FMS."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"In comparison with most monitoring software, this software is incredibly easy to use."
"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."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its real-time node monitoring and Help Desk's feedback."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"If a company would really like insight into its database utilization or performance and why their servers are slow or why the database is not giving a proper response, this solution will help."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements, so the threshold gets configured automatically, and it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
 

Cons

"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."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"Pandora could deliver better analytics out of the box."
"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."
"In its versions for Linux, in the beginning, it can be somewhat complicated to configure and implement."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is not stable. We have to maintain the platform and it goes down frequently."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
 

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."
"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."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"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 price is too high."
"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
20%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare 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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,069 professionals have used our research since 2012.