N-able N-central vs. Pandora FMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
N-able N-central
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
MSPs and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex networks remotely. N-central provides visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users: 1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers and workstations—and troubleshoot. 2. Stay on top of threats with features like MFA, antivirus, integrated endpoint detection and response, data backup, disk encryption, email protection,…N/A
Pandora FMS
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring solution. It is presented as ideal for medium and big-sized environments with at least 100 devices. Users can monitor any device, infrastructure, application, IT as well as business processes and services. It allows business users to obtain information from their concerns in real time, visualizing the data in a direct way. The solution boasts users among companies and organizations in more than 40 countries around the world, who according to the…
$2,990
100 nodes
Pricing
N-able N-centralPandora FMS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
NMS Edition
$2,990
100 nodes
Enterprise Edition
$4,250
100 nodes
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
N-able N-centralPandora FMS
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
Additional DetailsLicensed for individual nodes (agents), starting from 100 nodes.
More Pricing Information
Features
N-able N-centralPandora FMS
Monitoring Tasks
Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
5.9
3 Ratings
22% below category average
Pandora FMS
-
Ratings
Remote monitoring5.43 Ratings00 Ratings
Network device monitoring5.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tasks
Comparison of Management Tasks features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
6.0
4 Ratings
18% below category average
Pandora FMS
-
Ratings
Patch Management6.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
-
Ratings
Pandora FMS
8.0
1 Ratings
3% below category average
Automated network device discovery00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
Network monitoring00 Ratings8.21 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings6.41 Ratings
Alerts00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
Network capacity planning00 Ratings7.31 Ratings
Packet capture analysis00 Ratings7.31 Ratings
Network mapping00 Ratings7.31 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings7.31 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
Best Alternatives
N-able N-centralPandora FMS
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
N-able N-centralPandora FMS
Likelihood to Recommend
4.9
(22 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
2.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(8 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
N-able N-centralPandora FMS
Likelihood to Recommend
N-able
In my opinion, N-able N-central is a good "learn your lesson and move onto something better" tool. I've used many RMM tools over the years and I feel that this one is slow, does a terrible job with reporting, alerting, monitoring, software deployments, etc. The ability to turn on services like AV, backup, etc easily is cute, but you're not going to be able to use your own tools with this easily. In my experience, if you do turn those tools on for testing during the trial, you'll be charged later (despite it being a trial). They also turn off your ability to monitor these increased costs or to turn them off yourself. As a company, I found that they were impossible to work with. The sales team is right there if you want to buy something - but if you need anything other than to buy something, in my experience, they take days or weeks to navigate. I found that they are not a terribly ethical company and are more concerned with making a few dollars than creating a partnerships with MSPs. I can see value is in the advertised price of $99 for a hundred endpoints. However, you need to remember to not trial any other tools (like AV, backup, etc).
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
Pandora FMS adjusts to the client's need, from a simple configuration of a single server to a complex scenario with high availability support without additional licensing costs.
Read full review
Pros
N-able
  • Remote tasks - entry-level techs can run basic tasks without physically touching a piece of equipment.
  • Remote support - remote controlling user devices is easy and saves a lot of time with having to initiate a remote session.
  • Management of devices, particularly patch management and anti-virus management - you can automatically approve and deploy patches and schedule automatic AV scans.
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
  • All-in-one software
  • Flexible and easy configuration
  • Multi-platform
  • Design in PERL, CCS and HTML5
Read full review
Cons
N-able
  • Expensive software
  • The support team are terrible
  • Sales team will promise the world to get you over the line
  • Subscription management is tedious
  • Old software with very little development and the support team will not provide any further information on this - no roadmap
  • Integrations galore - but none of them are effective
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
  • Community version small features
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
N-able
Overall we have liked our solar winds experience, however, as our company has grown to support larger enterprises, this product does not have the functionality that our teams need in order to fully support them. The lack of granularity with backups and lack of ability to support nutanix environments is slowly drawing us into the use of other tools.
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
No answers on this topic
Usability
N-able
The user interface is fairly straight forward, with logic groupings for objects. I did not deploy this software, but am one of the daily administrators. Once you get the correct agent package (Which can be a challenge) the integration into AD is not bad. The UI could be more customized, but that may have been a design choice.
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
N-able
Every time we have reached out to SolarWinds they are quick to respond, even offering support chat 24/7. Their support team is great and works with you to find solutions to issues. They have taken items we had issues with before and used those to create updates so that the issue is handled better in the future.
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
The support team answers very quickly. They are always willing to find a solution to any need that is required by us or one of our clients.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
N-able
Make sure if you your using a vm you follow the instructions for provisioning to the letter or it will be starting from square one
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
N-able
Our version of SolarWinds was old and running on old hardware, but it was way easier to setup and do things with. It did not do everything N-able does such as patch management, or at least we didn't have a module to do so if one existed. However it definitely seemed easier to use and possibly more stable.
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
Before using Pandora FMS, tests were carried out with all these tools:
  • Nagios
  • Zabbix
  • System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)
  • IBM Tivoli
  • PRTG
  • SolarWinds
Pandora FMS allows simple customization by making adjustments to text files, developing agent add-ons without the need to be a programmer, there is no scenario where we could not take data and save it in PandoraFMS, IoT, industrial products, and everything that any client needs to monitor.
Read full review
Return on Investment
N-able
  • Reduced time to manage and support servers and endpoints.
  • Provides support dept with more accurate information to assess and resolve issues quicker and more efficiently.
  • The subscription cost associated with N-central, to our clients has a good profit margin for us.
Read full review
Pandora FMS LLC
  • It is a tool with an appropriate cost that allows to have results in a very limited time.
  • Having a health dashboard and alerts of important business in the company is an important differential with any other monitoring solution on the market.
  • Monitoring can be adjusted to the business, considering service SLAs and adjusting the platform according to the needs of each department of the company.
Read full review
ScreenShots

N-able N-central Screenshots

Screenshot of N-able N-central DashboardScreenshot of Remote desktop access with Take Control

Pandora FMS Screenshots

Screenshot of Operation viewScreenshot of DashboardScreenshot of SLA Report SampleScreenshot of Log visualizationScreenshot of SLA report viewScreenshot of Netflow usage