No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Pandora FMS vs SolarWinds AppOptics 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

Pandora FMS
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
58th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
41st
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (69th), Server Monitoring (27th), Log Management (60th)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
61st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
44th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (55th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pandora FMS0.9%
SolarWinds AppOptics0.8%
Other98.3%
IT Infrastructure 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.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd
Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions
I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

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."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"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."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"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."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"It's a solid application."
"AppNeta provides a range of products, all based around intelligent network testing algorithms."
"SolarWinds AppOptics does far more than what an individual may realize; it is not just a SIEM tool."
"Customer service is exceptional, as they are very much in tune with our service needs and are always in contact for both enhancement requests and overall satisfaction."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"With minimal effort on our part, TraceView provides extraordinary visibility into the requests that flow through our SOA applications."
 

Cons

"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems and we have issues with monitoring."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."
"The support is not too bad, but also not very good—it's quite standard."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"Because of its inability to monitor mobile solutions, I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"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 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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing 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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.