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Cisco UCS Manager vs WhatsUp Gold 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS Manager
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
32nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Network Monitoring Software (22nd), Server Monitoring (14th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
WhatsUp Gold2.6%
Cisco UCS Manager1.2%
Other96.2%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

RC
Consultant at rcnss
A market leader with an enhanced user interface for seamless experience
There is room for improvement in terms of cost and complexity to set up. It doesn't work straight out of the UCS, so someone who knows what they're doing is needed immediately, and it can be quite confusing. Some settings are still fairly well hidden, even the basic ones. Companies don't really understand how long it takes to set up. Also, when changes are pushed, it can take their phone line off the system for twenty minutes to half an hour. Out-of-the-box functionality is an issue, too. I know that my company is different, however, the basics are always the same. You do your tap lines, zip lines, and stuff like that, then you get your internal phone line system. That can all be automated and scripted, and it's probably part of the automation process. However, I haven't really seen it.
EC
Technical Manager at Quan Hung Gourmet
Efficient monitoring with detailed customization, yet complexity remains
The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless. I have used the automated device discovery with this topology feature. The interactive map feature helps me manage the topology because sometimes we cannot draw the topology correctly, so we need to manually edit the connections. The alerting system is very tunable and customizable, but it's a little complicated to use. Many customers cannot manage it by themselves and need support from us, the provider. We always use the dashboards in the SOC, where we constantly display a dashboard or multiple dashboards. This allows us to know immediately if the connection or bandwidth is full or if the connection is broken.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Ease of management is certainly the most valuable feature in this product."
"The flexibility and the ease in which the features can be expanded are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"The management is one of the most valuable features of this solution, and I also like the dashboard, as it is quite user-friendly."
"The hardware is very powerful and it is a stable solution."
"The best thing about UCSM and the UCS B-Series servers is its centralization, which means from one location we can configure storage, network and compute for all the servers that will be using it."
"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS Manager include the visibility it provides and the ease of identifying issues within the Cisco environment."
"I strongly recommend that you go with a Cisco UCS solution for a cloud business."
"The solution is highly scalable, mainly because of the templates that make it easy for you to actually edit on the system."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"The new version has a lot of improved features."
"It's a good product, and if one has the expertise to use it, it will be a good investment and it will help IT to save and plan for the future."
"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
 

Cons

"I would like to see Cisco UCS optionally work as a hyper-converged system because right now, it only operates as a converged system."
"We faced issue with Nexus vem licensing issue which makes our complete DC went isolated in connect"
"I want to be able to schedule multiple sequential updates in one go."
"I found it a bit of a challenge to get training on UCSM. I've been trying to get that for some time now. I feel like I have to figure it out a lot of things myself. For years I've to log calls with support whenever I've got challenges that I cannot resolve. If I had some training or more manuals, I'd be better able to handle more things on my own."
"There is room for improvement in the software part of Cisco UCS Manager. It should be more user-friendly, especially when creating policies."
"The pricing aspect should be addressed."
"The automation within the solution needs to be simplified."
"We have three data centers and if we could manage all three data centers using one interface, it would be great."
"I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy."
"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"Setting up WhatsUp Gold is complicated and not easy because it requires managing SNMP and many complex settings in the devices it's monitoring, and fine-tuning it to fit our needs is also not very easy."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"The technical support does not bother to respond."
"Honestly, I do not particularly like WhatsUp Gold. I think we should get rid of it."
"Users want SMS available via Whatsapp Gold. They don't want to go through third party SMS servers. The solution should work to make this possible."
"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."
"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."
"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."
"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."
"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."
"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."
"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."
"It is per device, per year. The pricing is very clear. If you have a service agreement, you get all of your major upgrades and minor upgrades. It was under $10,000 to go all-in with all of the different add-ons for it."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"This is a well priced solution."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Manager?
My experience with the pricing of Cisco UCS Manager ( /products/cisco-ucs-manager-reviews ) is that it is reasonable. Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offe...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?
For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks. While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS Manager?
Our primary use case involves working with Cisco UCS B-Series ( /products/cisco-ucs-b-series-reviews ), specifically the UCS X modular deployment. We are setting up a new deployment shortly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?
Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information first. The licensing is based on devices, providing better cost-effectiveness than ...
What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?
It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complicated to manage.
What is your primary use case for WhatsUp Gold?
My use case for WhatsUp Gold includes all device availability checks, bandwidth usage, CPU, and memory usage, as well as alarm notifications.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals
Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.