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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
31st
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
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (31st), Network Monitoring Software (23rd), Server Monitoring (14th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.3%, 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 Manager1.3%
Other96.1%
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

"The hardware is very powerful and it is a stable solution."
"The solution offers quite good stability; we haven't had a problem at all with it."
"If I had to choose between other submissions, I would choose the Cisco UCS every time."
"The flexibility and the ease in which the features can be expanded are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"It is more robust than other solutions. So, the stability is good."
"A main feature of Cisco UCS Manager is its reliability, as all of the computing blades are in cluster mode, so we experience high availability and can easily add compute resources and beef up the computing solution."
"Cisco is globally renowned, which is why it sells so well."
"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."
"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."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"It is easy to access and discover devices, as well as monitor them automatically. The topology discover is also a useful feature."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution, but after that, it's possible to do almost anything with it."
"Overall, we have been satisfied with the functionality of the product."
"We've been using it for many years and we use it typically for early warning, as it notifies customers of problems prior to failure."
"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."
"We primarily use the solution to check the state of the network, monitoring thousands of devices and all of the internal network, and it is the first tool we use to see the state of the network for real-time monitoring."
 

Cons

"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."
"The interface and the way it is constructed is very complex. They should work to simplify it."
"The pricing can always be better, so I would like to see that being improved."
"Cisco depends on other vendors like IBM and HP for the hardware. Cisco should improve its hardware manufacturing in regards to the UCS and the use of other vendor's hardware."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see improvements made to their security."
"The interface and the way it is constructed is very complex. They should work to simplify it. It's quite difficult for somebody who doesn't know the product very well. Users should be able to get proficient with it faster. There's definitely room for improvement there."
"But the GUI needs some work."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"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."
"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."
"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."
"Honestly, I do not particularly like WhatsUp Gold. I think we should get rid of it."
"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."
"The tool should focus on increasing its market share, as it is the only area of concern where improvements are needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."
"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."
"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."
"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."
"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."
"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 most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"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."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
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.
903,182 professionals have used our research since 2012.