We compared Amazon CloudWatch and Pandora FMS based on our users' reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Amazon CloudWatch users liked the solution’s simplicity, intuitive interface, and ability to handle large workloads. Users also praised CloudWatch’s comprehensive monitoring and alerts. Pandora FMS is highly regarded for its straightforward management process, effective dashboards, and efficient network monitoring capabilities.
Room for improvement: Some reviews mentioned that Amazon CloudWatch could improve performance and dashboard visualization. Others noted that the solution lacked compatibility with some databases. Users say Pandora FMS could make its dashboards more customizable and improve its integration with other systems. Many also said they would like Pandora to add APIs for integration and offer better out-of-the-box analytics.
Service and Support: Customers generally have positive opinions about Amazon's customer service. They commended the support team for its availability and timely issue resolution. Pandora FMS support received high praise for their expertise, kindness, and fast response time.
Ease of Deployment: Amazon CloudWatch is generally described as easy to set up. Most users found Pandora FMS’s initial setup to be relatively easy.
Pricing: Amazon CloudWatch offers a flexible pricing structure based on usage and processing, without any separate licensing cost. Some users said that scaling up can be costly due to the need for additional storage space. Pandora FMS is considered reasonably priced, and the total cost depends on the environment.
ROI: Amazon CloudWatch offers a return on investment by minimizing the need for manual monitoring. Pandora FMS has also demonstrated advantages in terms of return on investment.
Comparison Results: Reviewers say that Amazon CloudWatch is a simple, intuitive solution that can handle large workloads, but some mentioned dashboard visualization and customizability as areas for improvement. Users like Pandora FMS’s management and monitoring capabilities as well as its dashboards, but the solution has been criticized for its compatibility issues, limited customization options, and slower performance.
"I have found the memory metrics and the CPU metrics valuable."
"It offers direct integrations with various storage providers, making it convenient to push logs from CloudWatch to these external platforms."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is intrusion prevention."
"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is reliability."
"The monitoring feature is valuable."
"The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues."
"This product has allowed us to identify and correct certain issues that were affecting our solution."
"Features I have found most valuable with Pandora are the personalized metrics and the simplicity of data."
"It provides us with proactive monitoring and is very easy to configure and maintain."
"This solution has screens that are easy to understand and provide a wealth of information."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"It is easy to create your own custom modules if you just know a little bit of scripting. If you have unique requirements, you can just make your own modules. You can even grab checks from other vendors. There are open-source checks for various things such as SMTP, etc. There is a long list of different ones from Nagios. You can just use them, and within seconds, you get yourself a check that is monitoring whatever you need. It is really flexible. I guess that's why they call it Pandora Flexible Monitoring System (FMS). It is reliable. It does the job, and it alerts. It is also surprisingly feature-rich. Our network guy just recently asked about a particular protocol to monitor the bandwidth on the network, which is not a common protocol. When I looked it up, and I found that they cover it. It is very mature for a not-so-known product."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"You can configure several types of architecture for high availability or load balancing."
"The configuration capabilities could be better."
"The solution's auto-scaling could be improved."
"The product should provide more features."
"The product's configuration has some challenges. The solution needs to be more user-friendly."
"This product lacks some features: real-time data stream monitoring, application performance monitoring, mobile app monitoring, and live dashboards. Its workflows also need improvement."
"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"For monitoring applications or for APM, CloudWatch has some limitations. You cannot monitor application performance from CloudWatch, and you have to go for a third-party tool."
"The solution could benefit from a price decrease."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"It would be helpful to include the generation of reports for times that the network was out of service."
"I find that this software is resource heavy, and demands a lot of processing capacity."
"Third-party integration should be improved for some commonly used products."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"I think some improvements to the Android app would be good."
"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."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
Amazon CloudWatch is ranked 12th in Log Management with 40 reviews while Pandora FMS is ranked 22nd in Log Management with 22 reviews. Amazon CloudWatch is rated 8.0, while Pandora FMS is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Amazon CloudWatch writes "Instantaneous response when monitoring logs and KPIs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pandora FMS writes "The open architecture is easy to extend and enhance". Amazon CloudWatch is most compared with Zabbix, Datadog, Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver), Dynatrace and SolarWinds NPM, whereas Pandora FMS is most compared with Zabbix, Wazuh, PRTG Network Monitor, Nagios XI and SolarWinds NPM. See our Amazon CloudWatch vs. Pandora FMS report.
See our list of best Log Management vendors and best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors.
We monitor all Log Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.