Nagios Core vs. Pandora FMS

Nagios monitoring is well suited for any mission critical application that requires per/second (or minute) monitoring. This would probably include even a shuttle launch. As Nagios was built around Linux, most (85%) plugins are Linux based, therefore its more suitable for a Linux environment.

As Nagios (and dependent components) requires complex configurations & compilations, an experienced Linux engineer would be needed to install all relevant components.

Any company that has hundreds (or thousands) of servers & services to monitor would require a stable monitoring solution like Nagios. I have seen Nagios used in extremely mediocre ways, but the core power lies when its fully configured with all remaining open-source components (i.e. MySQL, Grafana, NRDP etc). Nagios in the hands of an experienced Linux engineer can transform the organizations monitoring by taking preventative measures before a disaster strikes.

Incentivized

I believe Pandora FMS is a solution that adapts to any type of scenario; it's useful for small businesses as well as large organizations. It more than meets the need to have a comprehensive monitoring system capable of sending alerts instantly and consulting historical data, logs, and trends. Additionally, for small businesses, the free version will be more than sufficient in most cases. And for those who do not want to deploy the service on-premise, there is an option for MaaS (Monitoring as a Service).

Incentivized

• Monitoring of services is one of the biggest benefits for our company. Being able to respond in a timely fashion keeps business smooth.
• Hardware and device monitoring are easy to set up with proper parameters.
• Notification to key staff to be able to respond quickly makes issues go away faster.

Incentivized

• All-in-one software
• Flexible and easy configuration
• Multi-platform
• Design in PERL, CCS and HTML5

• Nagios could use core improvements in HA, though, Nagios itself recommends monitoring itself with just another Nagios installation, which has worked fine for us. Given its stability, and this work-around, a minor need.
• Nagios could also use improvements, feature wise, to the web gui. There is a lot in Nagios XI which I felt were almost excluded intentionally from the core project. Given the core functionality, a minor need. We have moved admin facing alerts to appear as though they originate from a different service to make interacting with alerts more practical.

Incentivized

• The interface is not intuitive due to the number of options it has and its organization.
• It has a free version with limitations, and another paid version. The commercial one has a quite high cost.
• It has a certain learning curve.

Incentivized

We're currently looking to combine a bunch of our network montioring solutions into a single platform. Running multiple unique solutions for monitoring, data collection, compliance reporting etc has become a lot to manage.

Incentivized

The Nagios UI is in need of a complete overhaul. Nice graphics and trendy fonts are easy on the eyes, but the menu system is dated, the lack of built in graphing support is confusing, and the learning curve for a new user is too steep.

Incentivized

I haven't had to use support very often, but when I have, it has been effective in helping to accomplish our goals. Since Nagios has been very popular for a long time, there is also a very large user base from which to learn from and help you get your questions answered.

Incentivized

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.

Because we get all we required in Nagios [Core] and for npm, we have to do lots of configuration as it is not as easy as Comair to Nagios [Core]. On npm UI, there is lots of data, so we are not able to track exact data for analysis, which is why we use Nagios [Core].

We considered Pandora FMS to be the solution that offered more features at a lower cost. We were particularly interested in the abundance of options available in Pandora FMS's free version and the ability to monitor practically anything in an extremely heterogeneous environment like ours. We also considered Pandora FMS for its management capabilities and the possibilities offered by its web interface.

Incentivized

• With it being a free tool, there is no cost associated with it, so it's very valuable to an organization to get something that is so great and widely used for free.
• You can set up as many alerts as you want without incurring any fees.

Incentivized

• 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.