Pandora FMS Community vs Shinken
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 | Shinken |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 45 · Fair | 17 · At risk |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 474 | ★ 1,135 |
| First released | 2008 | 2009 |
| Replaces | SolarWinds, PRTG | SolarWinds |
What are Pandora FMS Community and Shinken?
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
Shinken
Shinken is a monitoring framework written in Python and compatible with Nagios configurations and plugins. Its distributed architecture splits monitoring into specialized, scalable daemons.
- Nagios configuration compatibility
- Distributed daemon architecture
- Scales across many pollers
- Plugin support
Pandora FMS Community vs Shinken: key differences
Pandora FMS Community is written in PHP, while Shinken is built with Python. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Pandora FMS Community versus AGPL-3.0 for Shinken. Shinken is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Pandora FMS Community. Shinken has the considerably larger community, at 1,135 GitHub stars versus 474. Pandora FMS Community lists first-class Docker deployment; Shinken does not.
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 Shinken if…
- Scales horizontally
- Reuses Nagios ecosystem
Watch out for
- Development has slowed
- Complex setup
Frequently asked questions
Is Pandora FMS Community or Shinken better?
Neither is universally better. Shinken has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Pandora FMS Community and Shinken free and open-source?
Yes. Pandora FMS Community is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Shinken under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pandora FMS Community and Shinken with Docker?
Pandora FMS Community: yes. Shinken: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Pandora FMS Community or Shinken?
Shinken has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 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.