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Pandora FMS vs Zabbix comparison

 

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 Network Monitoring Software
46th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
18th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
44th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
28th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (34th)
Zabbix
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
1st
Ranking in Server Monitoring
1st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 12.3%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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…
B Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity
I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

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."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"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."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"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."
"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 being able to use proxy servers for different locations. The agents are pretty cool. They're easy to roll out. The standard out-of-the-box templates are also pretty easy to use. The integration with other learning products is also good. I have, in the past, used Slack, but we've integrated it with Microsoft Teams. We also use it for SMS with a service called Redcoat. It is very flexible. It does what I need it to do, and my manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything. We are nearing 4,000 hosts inside Zabbix, and we've got another 6,000 access points to add to it. We've thrown everything at it, and it has managed to keep going. I am very impressed with the tool, and I'd shake their hand very hard if I got to say the compliments to the Zabbix team. They keep improving it and doing refreshes, which is one good thing about it. There is also online information as well as books that you can purchase if you're willing to read enough. There is a lot to pick up, but it is a pretty complete solution."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of virtual machines."
"I really enjoy network traffic triggers that allow us to check traffic threshold from ISP."
"Its overall flexibility is most valuable. When our customers have some custom applications that are not necessarily covered by the community or a standard monitoring tool, we use Zabbix to build our own modules with our own templates. This feature has been useful in using Zabbix for infrastructure and IT monitoring. It has also been useful for industrial equipment monitoring. Zabbix is very lightweight. It is efficient in terms of performance because it doesn't use a lot of resources."
"I have found that the reporting feature in Zabbix is most valuable. Additionally, the solution has given us bandwidth options, we are able to see where problems are. For example, we noticed a problem that occurred because of a bad interface going in the wireless VLAN."
"The most valuable features of Zabbix are flexibility and a single interface for different types of monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides network segregation for server monitoring."
"The integration capabilities and APIs are the best part."
 

Cons

"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."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"I would like to have a dashboard with all assets displayed, with a quick hover-over status."
"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."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"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."
"The user web interface is a little bit too basic, we need to link Zabbix to Grafana to have more options, such as graphs and charts. The interface needs to be improved. Additionally, there could be better integration with Grafana API."
"The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly."
"I had problems using Zabbix when working with SUSE Enterprise; many companies use SUSE."
"There are areas of improvement. The database grows really fast. So, when you install Zabbix, you have to deal with some issues, like the database. We become pretty big very fast."
"In an upcoming release, there should be automated reports which we are currently doing manually. For example, if we collect a report file every day and want to send it to a moderator for review. We are expecting this feature to come out soon but it would be valuable to have now."
"The initial setup could be complex if you don't have templates. If creating templates from scratch, it's quite difficult, but if you are using already pre-created templates and setups for your needs, it looks very good."
"The event correlation could be better."
"One of the things we don't like is that Zabbix has a license structure with a price that is high compared to the competition. It's very high, for example, compared to something like Microsoft Teams."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"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."
"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."
"In terms of money, the Enterprise version is the cheapest that I have found after a market study."
"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."
"Pandora FMS is easy to implement and the pricing of licenses is competitive."
"There is no license but we need to pay for support."
"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."
"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
"Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed."
"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"
"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."
"If you have 20,000 hosts, the support costs around €95,000 for a year."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Government
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Media Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Pandora FMS vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.