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Cisco Intersight vs ControlUp comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco Intersight enhances ROI by streamlining operations, saving time and costs, and reducing manpower through efficient technology.
Sentiment score
7.2
Organizations achieve efficiency and cost savings with ControlUp, automating tasks, preventing disasters, and optimizing virtual environments.
It simplifies the onboarding of new hardware, reducing time spent on manual installations and configurations.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
This is having a 24/7 junior admin who's really smart, always there, always doing work, but you have to consume his work.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Basically, what we were targeting is the response time of the virtual environment.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Intersight offers 24/7 professional support, with users praising its responsiveness, despite occasional challenges in rapid expertise access.
Sentiment score
9.0
ControlUp's responsive, knowledgeable support enhances customer experience, offering integration flexibility and premium benefits for larger organizations.
For complex issues, it's challenging to get the right engineer quickly unless you have a specific contract like CX.
Senior Network Architect at ocp tech
Cisco technical support is helpful.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
Cisco provides better support than anyone else.
Sr. Network Engineer at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
I was quite happy to work with ControlUp because the support is excellent.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Basically, if I could take everything that you do, put it in a tool, and hand you that tool so you don't have to repeat your efforts, then you would be able to make good use of it.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Intersight is praised for its scalability, managing domains and tasks efficiently without maintenance, earning high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.6
ControlUp's cloud scalability eases expansion, though pricing concerns arise, highlighting the importance of strategic adaptability and monitoring.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten due to its capability to manage multiple domains and automate service requests.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
Cisco Intersight is scalable enough for our needs, allowing management in a multi-environment setup and working remotely while deploying servers.
Student at University of Helsinki
It scales very well; you just have to tell it what you're doing and size it for what you're asking.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Intersight is stable and secure, though upgrades pose challenges, with users valuing its accessibility and consistent performance.
Sentiment score
8.9
ControlUp is praised for its stability and effective monitoring, with most users finding it reliable and well-supported.
Some steps are not included in the official documentation, which can create challenges.
Senior Network Architect at ocp tech
It is always accessible online, secure, and allows access from any location, following strict authentication standards.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Intersight struggles with integration issues, needing improvements in cloud management, automation, and third-party tool compatibility.
ControlUp needs seamless integration, improved monitoring, GUI enhancements, and additional features for better automation and complete insights.
There is a significant issue regarding migration from UCS Manager into Intersight without formatting the Fabric Interconnects (FI), which is problematic in a production environment.
System Presale at Bezeq
It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like ChatGPT.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
When registering our devices and servers using tokens, auto-detection could make it easier by automatically identifying resources and adding them to the platform.
Student at University of Helsinki
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Intersight is competitively priced with flexible licensing, although some find initial costs high compared to AWS and Azure.
ControlUp pricing involves annual agreements with varied costs; thorough evaluation of licensing options is essential for optimal use.
Cisco Intersight's license cost is very high compared to AWS and Azure solutions, which have lower initiation costs.
Student at University of Helsinki
The pricing is fair and reasonable, particularly for enterprises.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
The pricing mechanism sounds fair.
System Presale at Bezeq
It is expensive.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Intersight offers integration, centralized management, automation, and analytics, enhancing data center operations, scalability, and decision-making efficiency.
ControlUp offers efficient ROI, real-time insights, robust automation, and proactive management with AI-enhanced performance monitoring and comprehensive visibility.
It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure.
System Presale at Bezeq
It also provides predictive analysis, predicting data leaks and making it easy to scale up servers remotely without requiring physical interference.
Student at University of Helsinki
This solution has provided time savings and required fewer people to operate this tool, rather than direct cost savings.
Sr. Network Engineer at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
There are a lot of counters and monitors you can implement that will help you detect problems before they happen.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Intersight
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (14th)
ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 1.6%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ControlUp is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Intersight1.6%
ControlUp0.9%
Other97.5%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

HH
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
Automation and seamless incident handling transform operational efficiency
I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight. It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like ChatGPT. For instance, if I need to find commands for UCS Manager, it should provide that information.
reviewer2717526 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Delivers comprehensive and customizable system management with increased efficiency
The best features I have found are that it is very customizable, which would be number one, and very extensible through the use of scripts and triggers. The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening. It may sound facetious, but it really is everything about it. Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place. The benefits I have seen from using it so far include the ability to know in advance and take actions based on the information the tool gives you.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Intersight?
Intersight can validate our environment.
What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?
I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight. It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?
We use Cisco Intersight ( /products/cisco-intersight-reviews ) for operational tasks. We run patches and import firmware updates from the Cisco site. In the event of a component failure, such as a ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
I was taking care of a Citrix infrastructure, and as ControlUp is the best monitoring tool for those environments, I was also using ControlUp to monitor those environments.
 

Also Known As

Intersight
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EXMAR, RapidScale
B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Intersight vs. ControlUp and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
880,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.