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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
20th
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
24th
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 (26th), Server Monitoring (16th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (32nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 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 2.1%, 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 (%)
ControlUp0.8%
WhatsUp Gold2.1%
Other97.1%
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

"Integration with Netscaler and Scoutbees can provide a proper end-to-end analysis of the user's experience and give us a real ROI."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"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."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."
"It is easy to access and discover devices, as well as monitor them automatically. The topology discover is also a useful feature."
"It is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
 

Cons

"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting."
"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."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"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."
"Regional product team support is not very good."
"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 technical support does not bother to respond."
"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 licensing model could be improved. Right now, the levels are too far apart. This causes the solution to be more expensive than it needs to be."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"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."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
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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
12%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
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 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.
 

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: January 2026.
882,180 professionals have used our research since 2012.