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ControlUp 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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (30th), Network Monitoring Software (23rd), Server Monitoring (15th), Configuration Management (21st), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
WhatsUp Gold2.6%
ControlUp0.8%
Other96.6%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2717526 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Delivers comprehensive and customizable system management with increased efficiency
The best features I have found are that it is very customizable, which would be number one, and very extensible through the use of scripts and triggers. The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening. It may sound facetious, but it really is everything about it. Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place. The benefits I have seen from using it so far include the ability to know in advance and take actions based on the information the tool gives you.
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

"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"ControlUp has improved our organization by giving us full visibility into our systems, so we know what's running, where it's running, what it's doing, and the load on the system."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"In terms of the public cloud, ControlUp's features make us feel very secure."
"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"The Solve interface has provided us the ability to view our entire estate including physical devices in a single pane of glass, transforming the way we approach the troubleshooting and reporting of our estate."
"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"One thing good about WhatsUp Gold is that it is fairly stable."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"This is a good, stable network monitoring solution for devices."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the visibility it offers of everything in the network and infrastructure."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"Overall, we have been satisfied with the functionality of the product."
 

Cons

"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting."
"ControlUp doesn't allow us to monitor the network infrastructure, so we are obliged to acquire another solution that allows us to monitor the network."
"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."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"The on-premises version has limited scalability as challenges occur because the console takes a lot of computer power."
"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."
"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."
"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive."
"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."
"Improvements are needed in integration, especially for WhatsApp call and messages. Our region heavily uses WhatsApp Messenger for communication, and integration with this platform would be beneficial."
"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."
"Honestly, I do not particularly like WhatsUp Gold. I think we should get rid of it."
 

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."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"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."
"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."
"This is a well priced solution."
"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."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
I was taking care of a Citrix infrastructure, and as ControlUp is the best monitoring tool for those environments, I was also using ControlUp to monitor those environments.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
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 ControlUp vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.