Cisco UCS Manager vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Cisco and Progress Software are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Cisco is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.8, while Progress Software is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.7. Cisco holds a 1.3% mindshare in IM, compared to Progress Software’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Manager

Read 27 Cisco UCS Manager reviews

2,294 Views
2,088 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

5,476 Views
2,355 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Manager

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and Cisco UCS Manager are competing in the network management solutions category. WhatsUp Gold offers more accessible pricing, while Cisco UCS Manager provides robust features that justify a higher cost.

Features: WhatsUp Gold offers comprehensive network monitoring, easy integration with various IT environments, and adaptability in diverse infrastructures. Cisco UCS Manager provides centralized management of data center resources, integrated server management, and enhanced server and resource oversight, making it ideal for large-scale operations.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold could benefit from enhanced server management capabilities, deeper data center resource integration, and more features for large-scale enterprises. Cisco UCS Manager might improve on providing simplified deployment options, increased adaptability in mixed IT environments, and cost-effective solutions for smaller businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is known for straightforward deployment suitable for varied IT landscapes, with effective customer support. Cisco UCS Manager faces a more involved deployment process, especially for intricate server networks, but it offers extensive customer support for complex installations.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold's accessible initial setup cost provides quicker returns on investment for smaller or medium-sized enterprises. Cisco UCS Manager demands a larger upfront investment, yet delivers significant long-term ROI through superior management capabilities for sophisticated data environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

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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

19th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

24th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Network Monitoring Software (26th), Server Monitoring (16th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (32nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.3%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco UCS Manager	1.3%
WhatsUp Gold	2.1%
Other	96.6%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Sidi Abdul

CTO at Next Technologies Ltd

Service profiles simplify management and streamline network and storage processes

The most valuable features are the service profiles and the unified management of both network and storage. With UCS, it's quite easy to deploy. Whenever there's a failure of any component, it's very easy to swap because you just disassociate that profile, remove the faulty blade, connect the new blade, and associate that profile, maintaining the same MAC address and worldwide port name. Everything remains the same, and it's only the hardware that you're replacing. This makes it very easy for me to manage and troubleshoot.

Read full review

Erik Cheng

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.

Read full review

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 management is one of the most valuable features of this solution."

"When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time."

"Creating UCS service profiles for quickly deploying servers and replicating that configuration to another server makes it easier for deployment."

"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS Manager include the visibility it provides and the ease of identifying issues within the Cisco environment."

"Cisco UCS has different layers of security, and you can do multiple installations of your LIAMs on top of the server and Blade. You can install VMware, Windows Server, Hyper-V, etc."

"One of the valuable features is the user interface base."

"From a usability and functionality perspective, Cisco UCS Manager is very good."

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

"It is easy to access and discover devices, as well as monitor them automatically. The topology discover is also a useful feature."

"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."

"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."

"The documentation is very good."

"The product is reasonably priced."

"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."

"It handles the basics of monitoring."

"Our local support team provides excellent service."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"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."

"We have three data centers and if we could manage all three data centers using one interface, it would be great."

"I would like to see improved visibility into the operating system, enabling us to identify issues directly from the operating system itself."

"The pricing can be better."

"Upgrading the firmware is a difficult procedure."

"What's lacking in Cisco UCS Manager is the performance dashboard. If a blade has any performance issues, you should be able to create a dashboard on Cisco UCS Manager. Currently, this feature isn't present."

"For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks."

"The automation within the solution needs to be simplified."

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."

"I might like to see a better interface in the future."

"The initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."

"I would like to see them do an enhancement to the application monitoring. A lot of other products do better application monitoring so they should do some improvements to the application monitoring."

"The tool should focus on increasing its market share, as it is the only area of concern where improvements are needed."

"The new release cadence needs to be improved. It takes a while for them to add new features and functionality. There should be a quicker turnaround with new versions."

"Regional product team support is not very good."

"The product is old and not updated."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."

"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."

"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."

"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."

"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."

"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."

"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

"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."

"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."

"This is a well priced solution."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Manager?

When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about WhatsUp Gold?

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 l...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Intersight vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 62% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 4% of the time

HPE OneView vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 4% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 4% of the time

Datadog vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 3% of the time

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PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 4% of the time

LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

ManageEngine OpManager vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager

January 2026

Download Cisco UCS Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Overview

Cisco UCS Manager helps significantly reduce management and administration expenses by automating routine tasks to increase operational agility. Customers can extend the benefits of Cisco UCS Manager globally across an enterprise to thousands of servers in multiple domains with Cisco UCS Central Software.

Cisco

Explore and manage your entire network infrastructure effortlessly with WhatsUp Gold's robust layer 2/3 discovery, creating a detailed interactive map from the edge to the cloud. Monitor devices, wireless controllers, servers, virtual machines, applications, and traffic flows across various environments. Real-time alerts ensure optimal performance, allowing you to meet or exceed SLAs. The platform offers customizable maps, dashboards, and alerts for easy network management. Quickly resolve issues with intuitive workflows, reducing Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR). WhatsUp Gold's integrated log management provides easy visibility and control of device log data, allowing monitoring, filtering, searching, and alerting on syslogs or Windows logs. Archive logs to comply with regulatory requirements and preserve historical data, all through a user-friendly interface. Streamline network monitoring and issue resolution with WhatsUp Gold, making network management efficient and hassle-free.

Progress Software

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

Free Report: Cisco UCS Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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