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ControlUp vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
33rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
PRTG Network Monitor
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.3%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.
Noman-Saleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting
We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"Integration with Netscaler and Scoutbees can provide a proper end-to-end analysis of the user's experience and give us a real ROI."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"PRTG Network Monitor helps us quickly and easily discover a large number of sensors, so we can spend minimal time monitoring customer sites."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"The solution is scalable."
"It helps the entire organization become digitally enabled."
"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are the threshold notification when certain traffic increases and goes beyond the defined threshold. The up and down status email notifications and other notifications are useful. Additionally, it is user-friendly, and customizable, and there are many features available."
"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is its ease of use."
"PRTG gives us true visibility of the downtime of particular circuit functions. So if a circuit is up but not routing traffic, I will know with this tool. I can write a customized script for a sensor to detect specific things."
"The remote probes are very useful. They allow us to provide a reference across different areas in the network. In trying to localize issues, that's very useful."
 

Cons

"Solve is a quick and intuitive tool for quickly mapping data together, however, once you have the view of the data that you like, it is difficult to share this with colleagues."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting."
"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."
"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."
"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."
"PRTG Network Monitor could improve by having descriptions for the tab usages. The dashboards or interface could be easier to understand."
"Users need to buy the more expensive licenses if they expect to be able to scale."
"The icons on PRTG's network diagram are hard to find. For example, finding the icons for firewalls and servers is difficult, so we're struggling to create the network topology."
"It probably has this already, but if it had a mobile app that would be helpful. For example, on a day like today when I'm out, if I could just fire it up and see green, green, green, green, green or red, that would be good."
"In terms of sensors and probes, it would be really cool if PRTG had a purely Azure-based solution. We had to install a probe on one of our cloud servers and then let that probe out from there. It would be really cool if it just monitored Azure without having to install something on the device."
"PRTG Network Monitor is okay to use, but you'll need some time to analyze the data. If it can automatically locate or identify the problem area, it would be more helpful to users."
"We're using more cloud services now. It would be useful to be able to get information back from these cloud services in detail, and display any issues within PRTG for the rest of our systems."
"The licensing policy needs more flexibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"It is about £4,500 for the first year, then about another 15 to 20 percent annually after that. So, we are looking at about £1000 running costs a year. When you think about how much an outage costs per minute, it's negligible."
"When you buy PRTG, everything comes in one bundle. Licensing is very easy."
"The scalability is there, but smaller companies might need CAM software to be able afford the product."
"We pay for a perpetual license and we have a support fee."
"We have unlimited devices and sensors, and it is a bit pricey, but we do have unlimited sensors. With all things considered the price is fine, related to the solution itself. PRTG Network Monitor is good value for money."
"The pricing is okay and it is cheaper than some competing products."
"We looked at PRTG and SolarWinds. From a cost side perspective, compared to PRTG, and from what you get back from it, PRTG was sort of a hands down the winner."
"The price is pretty comparable."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.
What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
My use cases include everything, and I don't mean that facetiously. I mean everything. We manage the servers, manage user sessions, manage everything. We monitor monitoring and take actual actions,...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. PRTG Network Monitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.