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Cisco UCS Manager vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

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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
29th
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
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (39th), Network Monitoring Software (25th), Server Monitoring (14th), Configuration Management (21st), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (26th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.4%, 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 Gold2.4%
Cisco UCS Manager1.4%
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

"Technical support has been good so far. We haven't had any issues with them. We're satisfied with the level of service they provide our company."
"The management is one of the most valuable features of this solution, and I also like the dashboard, as it is quite user-friendly."
"What I like most about Cisco UCS Manager is the ease of administration. It also allows the central management of maintenance, installation, and configuration activities."
"Cisco UCS Manager is recommended for its ease of deployment and management capabilities."
"From a usability and functionality perspective, Cisco UCS Manager is very good."
"The dashboard is awesome and you can easily get all of the information that you want."
"Cisco UCS Manager is overall a good package because it offers a GUI interface and a CLI."
"Cisco Infrastructure is one of the top vendors and no one can beat them in terms of switching and routing."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"The most important features of WhatsUp Gold are the server health and uptime it provides. Additionally, WhatsUp Gold is a Windows-based solution which is a benefit."
"The user interface is good enough."
"Overall, we have been satisfied with the functionality of the product."
"The interactive mapping interface for scrolling, zooming, and drilling down on an element to learn about a network issue is good. When we see a network there will sometimes be a spot that has one link. You can go into a particular part of the topology map, scroll in, and see exactly which module it is."
"The solution effectively monitors network devices and servers."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
"There is a flow monitor option, so we can trace the source IP, the destination IP, and top talker feature in this."
 

Cons

"Cisco UCS Manager should have a simplified deployment in the sense of not having multiple machines, demilitarized zones, and on-premise options."
"The automation within the solution needs to be simplified."
"I would like to see Cisco UCS optionally work as a hyper-converged system because right now, it only operates as a converged system."
"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."
"The primary challenge we face is identifying the correct version to deploy during firmware upgrades or compute updates."
"In the next release, I would like to see improvements made to their security."
"The pricing can be better."
"But the GUI needs some work."
"Honestly, I do not particularly like WhatsUp Gold. I think we should get rid of it."
"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."
"The tool should focus on increasing its market share, as it is the only area of concern where improvements are needed."
"The price could be improved. When we first started using this product, the company was new. The prices were very low then, in comparison with HP OpenView or IBM, but now the policy is too high, relative to the number of devices we have."
"I would like to see better integration with switches so that you can see what is connected to each port, what the traffic is, and have a network map automatically generated."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."
"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."
"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."
"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"This is a well priced solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

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: September 2026.
916,056 professionals have used our research since 2012.