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Corelight vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Corelight
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (13th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
10th
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 (30th), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Corelight is 8.0%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Corelight8.0%
WhatsUp Gold1.7%
Other90.3%
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

HamadaElewa - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Sales Manager at Spire Solutions
An expensive solution to monitor internet traffic with multiple dashboards
The huge library especially the open source link, makes it the main engine for Corelight with some enhancements in the commercial version. It has a very powerful level, such as signature-based attacks or behavioral attacks, with enhancements in the design. It is very flexible for intelligent implementations like IPs, especially between big companies and banks. Corelight is easy to understand and monitor what is going on behind the team. The solution is already integrated with other systems like Suricata, Elastic, and Microsoft tools. It's very easy to integrate signature-based or behavior-based engines. You can use Elastic for the dashboards to get it from Corelight, along with all the benefits and expandability.
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 most valuable feature is the embedded IDS from Suricata."
"Corelight is easy to use."
"It is easy to deploy and easy to handle."
"It's an easy way for us to get visibility in a client's environment."
"It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks."
"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."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"Our local support team provides excellent service."
"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 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 link. You can go into a particular part of the topology map, scroll in, and see exactly which module it is."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
 

Cons

"In the next release, building a graphical user interface would be helpful."
"The solution’s architecture is complex and difficult to understand. There are multiple machines and VMs."
"They can enhance the interface of the product. They can make it more interactive and also easier to use for feature access."
"Corelight hasn’t added features in a long time."
"Machine learning could be a good improvement, but it's very costly."
"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."
"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."
"The new release cadence needs to be improved. It takes a while for them to add new features and functionality. There should be a quicker turnaround with new versions."
"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."
"The product is old and not updated."
"Setting up WhatsUp Gold is complicated and not easy because it requires managing SNMP and many complex settings in the devices it's monitoring, and fine-tuning it to fit our needs is also not very easy."
"Improvements are needed in integration, especially for WhatsApp call and messages."
"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

"It's a yearly fee and depends on what you are looking for."
"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."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"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."
"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."
"This is a well priced solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?
The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the eventual forwarding of events and parsed data logs to a security team’s SIEM or ...
What do you like most about Corelight?
It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Corelight?
The solution is too expensive compared to others. If you have the technical knowledge, it's good. Corelight is a very big gap between you and others if you’re new.
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

Education First
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 Corelight vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,078 professionals have used our research since 2012.