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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
18th
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
29th
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 (30th), Server Monitoring (16th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco UCS Manager1.3%
WhatsUp Gold1.6%
Other97.1%
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."
"I can deploy something in my 50-odd servers all in one go, in parallel, whereas if I was to do that individually, it could be a nightmare."
"Cisco Infrastructure is one of the top vendors and no one can beat them in terms of switching and routing."
"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."
"Ease of management is certainly the most valuable feature in this product."
"A main feature of Cisco UCS Manager is its reliability, as all of the computing blades are in cluster mode."
"We can configure the Cisco UCS Manager, the profiles and interactions with the resource we manage."
"I can quickly manage the provisioned servers."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"It handles the basics of monitoring."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
"The user interface is good enough."
"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
 

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."
"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."
"Cisco UCS is expensive compared to others. The Cisco UCS Chassis is more expensive than a standalone server, but some companies require standalone servers because of their production load and affordability. You need to pay more if you require more features on the Blade or if you need more ports on the switch."
"I want to be able to schedule multiple sequential updates in one go."
"The pricing aspect should be addressed."
"Its user interface can be improved. It can be more user-friendly."
"Getting a CLI report on routers, switches, or any other CLI configuration device is difficult."
"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."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution."
"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 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."
"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."
"Regional product team support is not very good."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future."
"WhatsUp Gold should work on real-time monitoring and configuration management. If they succeed in doing this, the solution will cover all the network troubleshooting aspects and will be a benefit."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."
"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."
"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."
"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."
"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."
"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"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 price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"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."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

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.
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 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...
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.
 

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: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.