Pandora FMS Community vs SNMP Exporter
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Pandora FMS Community | SNMP Exporter |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 45 · Fair | 81 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | PHP | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 474 | ★ 2,176 |
| First released | 2008 | 2016 |
| Replaces | SolarWinds, PRTG | SolarWinds |
What are Pandora FMS Community and SNMP Exporter?
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
SNMP Exporter
The SNMP Exporter scrapes SNMP-enabled devices such as switches, routers, and printers and exposes their metrics for Prometheus. A generator builds configurations from MIBs for specific devices.
- Scrapes SNMP devices
- MIB-driven config generator
- Network hardware monitoring
- Prometheus integration
Pandora FMS Community vs SNMP Exporter: key differences
Pandora FMS Community is written in PHP, while SNMP Exporter is built with Go. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Pandora FMS Community versus Apache-2.0 for SNMP Exporter. SNMP Exporter is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Pandora FMS Community. Pandora FMS Community is the more established project (first released 2008), while SNMP Exporter arrived in 2016. SNMP Exporter has the considerably larger community, at 2,176 GitHub stars versus 474.
Why pick each one
Choose Pandora FMS Community if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in PHP
Choose SNMP Exporter if…
- Brings network gear into Prometheus
- Flexible config
Watch out for
- MIB configuration is fiddly
- Needs Prometheus and Grafana
Frequently asked questions
Is Pandora FMS Community or SNMP Exporter better?
SNMP Exporter is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Pandora FMS Community if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Pandora FMS Community and SNMP Exporter free and open-source?
Yes. Pandora FMS Community is licensed under GPL-2.0 and SNMP Exporter under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pandora FMS Community and SNMP Exporter with Docker?
Pandora FMS Community: yes. SNMP Exporter: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Pandora FMS Community or SNMP Exporter?
SNMP Exporter has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Pandora FMS Community. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.