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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
11th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
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
46th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
44th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (18th), Log Management (34th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 2.7%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.5%, up from 0.5% 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

"The most valuable features are the reports and the way it generates the report in a graphical manner."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is it allows us to develop and add as many plugins as we want."
"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."
"I like the way the solution sends alerts and how it keeps on escalating them."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."
"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."
"We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"Thanks to this software and to the work of the support team, we have everything under control."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
 

Cons

"The initial setup process could be easier."
"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."
"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"There is room for improvement in the graphics."
"The tool needs to improve the integrations."
"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"We would like the real-time monitoring of an interface to be improved within this solution."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems."
"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."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheaply priced."
"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"We are using the free version."
"The solution is expensive."
"It's free."
"It's free."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"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."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Media 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: August 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.