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Pandora FMS vs ServiceNow Discovery comparison

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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 Server Monitoring
26th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (64th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (59th), Log Management (59th), Cloud Monitoring Software (38th)
ServiceNow Discovery
Ranking in Server Monitoring
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (10th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 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 ServiceNow Discovery is 2.3%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow Discovery2.3%
Pandora FMS2.1%
Other95.6%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
Asociado/ at Infraestructura Informática
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…
Abhinay Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Now Developer at Bangmetric services pvt ltd
Cloud discovery has improved asset visibility and reporting but still needs smarter automation
The impact of ServiceNow Discovery on my organization's strategic planning depends on various factors. Some customers have their own discovery tools which they do not want to switch from, even if we explain why ServiceNow might be better, because they have been using them for a long time. Some customers are dynamic, so we need to have some kind of proposition that comes with ServiceNow. Sometimes, we need to talk with ServiceNow people themselves to give them a bundle offer in which we can have Discovery and ITSM at a much more affordable price than the competitors, so that is our main goal. Currently, I would say there might be a possibility if we can use some AI discovery features that could be helpful for our organization. If we can get discovery jobs running based on AI schedules, that would be beneficial. I believe in the coming future that I want to see myself working more with ServiceNow in this capacity.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"The network monitoring and configuration within this solution is very good."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"The support from Pandora FMS is legendary."
"In comparison with most monitoring software, this software is incredibly easy to use."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"In the past, I found troubleshooting difficult in ServiceNow Discovery because I didn't have much exposure to the platform during that time, but then I explored some troubleshooting features, and I found that it wasn't that tough, so this is one of the qualities I like about ServiceNow Discovery. I also like that log reading in ServiceNow Discovery is much better than other tools. Another valuable feature of the tool is that you don't need to install many tools to deploy ITSM. You only need to subscribe to the modules to deploy the proper ITSM in your organization."
"The value that they get from the product is good, and once you set it up, it is easily scalable with a large scope for automation and the product keeps expanding."
"We can find servers or services we were unaware of and stumble on vulnerabilities from those devices."
"I am impressed with the tool's incident problem change management."
"It does a good job of collecting the data that's necessary for data centers, and IT's operations."
"It is a stable solution...The initial setup of the product is straightforward."
"When my team starting any project or learning a new environment, we always implement ServiceNow Discovery which can be used along with other products."
"The security is a major part of the solution and customers look for the best security."
 

Cons

"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."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
"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."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"Pandora could deliver better analytics out of the box."
"In my opinion, it's quite slow compared to other tools, like Device42. Also, there are predefined fields in Device42 that are not available in ServiceNow. These are the basic things I think can be improved here."
"Sometimes, I believe one or two tickets took longer than two weeks, but other than that, they are quick with the resolution."
"Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation."
"Technical support has not been helpful when we have come across problems. They take too long to respond and then don't provide helpful information."
"The product should improve its customer interface, web interface, and front end. I would like to see the integration of keyboard chat with the solution."
"The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups."
"ServiceNow Discovery could improve the interface. The navigation bar could improve. It would be helpful to have a landing page to go to find all the elements in one place."
"The solution needs to improve the cost of the solution. There are a few different solutions and they do act the same and have the same types of capabilities, however, the cost is quite high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"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."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"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."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"As per a general discussion I had with the stakeholders, I figured out that it is a costly tool. There is a need to make additional payments apart from the licensing fees for better support services from ServiceNow."
"It's on a yearly basis. We renew our contract for three years at a time."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonable for the value it provides."
"Setting up and licensing for ServiceNow can be expensive, especially for enterprise service management."
"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."
"The pricing is determined based on the CIs."
"This is expensive, but it meets our needs."
"There is a need to make payments every quarter of a year towards the licensing costs of the solution. ServiceNow Discovery is an expensive tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
20%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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 Enterprise5
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?
Regarding pricing, I have not dealt much with it. I am more focused on the feature side of things, so I cannot comment on the latest pricing because it is dynamic as well. Sometimes it is cheaper f...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
ServiceNow could improve ServiceNow Discovery by integrating artificial intelligence capabilities. The system could study frequently created queries for the CMDB, whether related to applications, c...
What is your primary use case for ServiceNow Discovery?
I mainly use ServiceNow Discovery for asset inventory in the estate. I primarily use it for linking applications versus inventory and creating disaster recovery plans, recovery time objectives, and...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. ServiceNow Discovery and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.