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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
64th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
59th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
38th
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
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
8th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
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 November 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 4.2% 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 support from Pandora FMS is legendary."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"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."
"Each of these points I think represents the keys as to why this software works in my jewelry stores, as it gives me greater control over all of the devices, the best performance, and I can interpret the data easily and much faster, with excellent results."
"This tool has been of great help because we can manage faster solutions with the problems in our network and it helped us reduce our response time."
"Thanks to its flexibility, I have been able to adapt the tool to our servers and find out quickly how their console works."
"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."
"It is really very flexible, a flexible solution."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"Implementing this product has given us detailed visibility and understanding of our network, and small teams are able to manage large enterprises with this tool."
"SolarWinds core data is organized in a very good way and the solution can easily be interconnected with other management systems to get information not only from networking devices but also applications and servers."
"Technicians are aware of issues and 90% of the time exactly what caused the issue."
"Technical support has always been great."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"It's just having visibility of the entire networking estate for myself and for my clients; that's the main benefit of it and it's probably the best product out there."
 

Cons

"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."
"The product lacks APIs for integration with other systems and we have issues with monitoring."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"When it comes to the definition of local Software Agents for the first time in the open-source version, it can become very tedious."
"An update to the Android app would be appreciated."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"This solution requires proper training to get 100% out of it."
"They could make the process of adding various devices easier and more intuitive."
"We do see issues, but not so many major ones."
"This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"SolarWinds NPM is a stable solution, aside from the fact that they had a major hack a couple of years ago and effectively allowed the Russian government to completely hack their code, making everyone vulnerable."
"Customer service: I rate technical support everywhere from poor to great."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"Price could be improved on"
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
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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
20%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction 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 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: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.