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Nagios Core vs Pandora FMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
8th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
42nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
40th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (16th), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.0%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.5%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Nishith-Vyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements
The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Monitoring with Nagios Core is helpful because it provides immediate alerts if something goes down, such as a server, or wireless router, or if there's a cable break. This allows us to respond promptly to any issues."
"The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything."
"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."
"Dashboard provides monitor of total assets."
"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."
"The solution is quite efficient."
"We use the product to monitor server applications."
"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"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."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
"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."
 

Cons

"The core version is no match for the XI version."
"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."
"The dashboard should be improved."
"The tool needs to improve the integrations."
"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."
"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."
"The price for Pandora FMS is expensive."
"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."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"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."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nagios Core is free to use."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"The solution is expensive."
"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"It's free."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"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."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
9%
Media Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios Core?
What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.