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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

"Cisco UCS Manager is overall a good package because it offers a GUI interface and a CLI."
"Usually, we are called by clients specifically about product suggestions, and I often personally recommend Cisco UCS because of the high availability."
"The solution is highly scalable, mainly because of the templates that make it easy for you to actually edit on the system."
"Cisco UCS Manager is recommended for its ease of deployment and management capabilities."
"It is more robust than other solutions. So, the stability is good."
"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS Manager include the visibility it provides and the ease of identifying issues within the Cisco environment."
"The most valuable features are flexibility and management."
"The interface is ergonomic and native. We can use UCS Manager to do all the configurations for the servers, including storage, networking, and all the other components we need inside the fabric. It's simple and flexible."
"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."
"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
"It is stable."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
"The solution effectively monitors network devices and servers."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"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."
 

Cons

"The primary challenge we face is identifying the correct version to deploy during firmware upgrades or compute updates."
"The solution's pricing is high and could be reduced."
"During the firmware upgrades, we would definitely need to take downtime in some cases and the downtime would take too long."
"We have three data centers and if we could manage all three data centers using one interface, it would be great."
"Upgrading the firmware is a difficult procedure."
"The installation is very complex."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future. It's not necessarily easy to integrate the product with other vendors."
"The initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."
"Integrations with other devices. I want to have a product that has full integration with my active directory so I can track user activity. I want to track my complete user activity, so I'm looking for a product to implement in the near future, which will have full integration with my network and active directory users. It became very difficult to track user activity."
"The product is old and not updated."
"There is a very big gap in the support."
"My understanding is that there are better products out there that do a better job."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."
"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."
"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."
"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."
"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."
"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."
"This is a well priced solution."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"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."
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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.
904,016 professionals have used our research since 2012.