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Pandora FMS vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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
66th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
58th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
39th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (26th), Log Management (59th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Pandora FMS0.7%
Other95.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

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…
Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"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."
"The solution has good dashboards and graphics."
"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
"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."
"I like this solution a lot because it has a very large Hispanic community and the platform looks very friendly."
"We are able to control our business with this all-in-one monitoring tool."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"The solution is easy to install and it takes a couple of hours."
"It improved the way our organization functions by being a consolidated product which I was able to do a lot of the initial data entry and organization with."
"In a few short years, SolarWinds has empowered us to provide robust infrastructure monitoring, including a converged view of our servers, both the physical and virtual servers, and the storage and application environments."
"This solution offers a very good view of our network and allows us to effectively monitor performance."
"The solution provides comprehensive monitoring that includes proactive items such as advance notifications and engineer tickets for code breaks, allowing engineers to quickly resolve issues before major outages occur."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
"Without NPM monitoring, we would be in a world of hurt and constantly responding to outages and unexpected downtime."
 

Cons

"It would be useful if Pandora FMS included an ISO image (or «software appliance») for each big company that leases virtual private machines (VPS), just like in AWS."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"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 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."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"The module UIs can have different features based on what module you're in. I'd love to see feature parity between them."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"Sometimes there are issues when upgrading to a new version of the product."
"The constant flow of new features and re-designing of the product sometimes presents bugs that were not identified."
"New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI."
"The admin web site could be a lot faster."
"They could make the process of adding various devices easier and more intuitive."
"In my opinion, the pricing model for SolarWinds NPM should be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"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."
"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."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"It is expensive."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"It is too expensive."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
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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
21%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction 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 Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.