OpenNMS Horizon vs Pandora FMS Community
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | OpenNMS Horizon | Pandora FMS Community |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 45 · Fair |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Java | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,173 | ★ 474 |
| First released | 2000 | 2008 |
| Replaces | SolarWinds, PRTG | SolarWinds, PRTG |
What are OpenNMS Horizon and Pandora FMS Community?
OpenNMS Horizon
OpenNMS Horizon is an enterprise-grade network monitoring and management platform that handles fault, performance, and traffic monitoring at scale. It supports SNMP, flow analysis, and event correlation.
- Fault and performance monitoring
- Flow analysis
- Event correlation
- Scales to large networks
Pandora FMS Community
Pandora FMS Community Edition is a flexible monitoring system that watches networks, servers, applications, and infrastructure. It supports SNMP, agents, and remote checks at scale.
- Network and server monitoring
- SNMP and agents
- Custom dashboards
- Alerting and reports
OpenNMS Horizon vs Pandora FMS Community: key differences
OpenNMS Horizon is written in Java, while Pandora FMS Community is built with PHP. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for OpenNMS Horizon versus GPL-2.0 for Pandora FMS Community. Pandora FMS Community is the lighter option, starting around 2,048 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for OpenNMS Horizon. OpenNMS Horizon is the more established project (first released 2000), while Pandora FMS Community arrived in 2008. OpenNMS Horizon has the considerably larger community, at 1,173 GitHub stars versus 474.
Why pick each one
Choose OpenNMS Horizon if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Java
Choose Pandora FMS Community if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in PHP
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenNMS Horizon or Pandora FMS Community better?
Neither is universally better. OpenNMS Horizon has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are OpenNMS Horizon and Pandora FMS Community free and open-source?
Yes. OpenNMS Horizon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Pandora FMS Community under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OpenNMS Horizon and Pandora FMS Community with Docker?
OpenNMS Horizon: yes. Pandora FMS Community: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, OpenNMS Horizon or Pandora FMS Community?
Pandora FMS Community has the smaller minimum footprint at 2,048 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for OpenNMS Horizon. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.