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Pandora FMS vs Zabbix 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 Network Monitoring Software
76th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
26th
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
Log Management (61st)
Zabbix
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
1st
Ranking in Server Monitoring
1st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th)
 

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 Zabbix is 5.0%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zabbix5.0%
Pandora FMS0.6%
Other94.4%
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.
KamranBhatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity
We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In comparison with most monitoring software, this software is incredibly easy to use."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"We are consultants and thanks to Pandora can detect a lot of disasters that other companies can't, and we can offer high availability of the system to the client."
"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."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"The support is excellent for this product; their response time is very fast, and they are very knowledgeable."
"There are lots of great features and functionality within the solution."
"It meets my organizational needs. It's pretty easy to use."
"The flexible licensing model is one of the solution's most valuable aspects. It really allows for great flexibility for companies."
"What we find the most valuable about Zabbix is that it is open source and there are no licensing costs."
"The monitoring capabilities of the product are excellent."
"I would absolutely recommend Zabbix to others."
"Zabbix is an excellent performance monitoring tool."
"We detect problems before the customer does and before it actually happens using the predictive functions in Zabbix."
 

Cons

"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"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."
"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."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
"They should open an SSH session from the web interface."
"I wish it had more options for personalizing the product, such as being able to include your company's logo without editing text files."
"In the area of the solution where you write the command, it is not very user-friendly and could be improved."
"There are not too much documentation or manuals. We found the tutorials very easy to understand but do not go deep enough in the use of Zabbix. We need more manuals, proper use, documentation, etc."
"It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases."
"There is a bit of a learning curve during installation."
"I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly."
"There's a small module of APM, however, it is not an enhanced version. People usually ask for a full-fledged APM solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."
"If you have 20,000 hosts, the support costs around €95,000 for a year."
"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"We were searching for an open source solution and Zabbix fit the bill because it is free and open source under the GPL license."
"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."
"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."
"The tool's licensing is good."
"There is no license but we need to pay for support."
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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%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
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 Business56
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is providing everything free of cost. Zabbix is economical, and you can install it...
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts. I think Zabbix needs to improve the customization better. At present, I am satisfied with the functionality ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.