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Elastic Observability vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
Ranking in Log Management
14th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (4th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
29th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
30th
Ranking in Log Management
28th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (32nd), Server Monitoring (16th), Configuration Management (17th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 3.9%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Observability3.9%
WhatsUp Gold0.6%
Other95.5%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
Tom Condo - PeerSpot reviewer
If CPU, memory, or disk space is over-utilized, it alerts us immediately via text or email if there is an issue
When it comes to the intuitiveness of the topology mapping feature, our network architect created a vision diagram of our entire network and then created the links tied into the WhatsUp active monitoring to different spots on our topology map. It's one of the more critical functions we do here. We have the map displayed in different places in our room and help desk. We get alerted via emails but we can also see it visually. It does what it says it's going to do. We find this feature very helpful. 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. All the information is provided. This feature really helps. You can see the correlation between that link and what failed. This feature is very helpful. The interface is fairly intuitive. Some of our users used SolarWinds and Nagios, and WhatsUp is easy in comparison. Once you get set up, the look, feel, and configuration are good. Our network architect had never used it before but he was able to create the Visio and map. It was very simple. He has no problems with it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can view and connect different sources to the dashboard using it."
"The architecture and system's stability are simple."
"It has always been a stable solution."
"Its diverse set of features available on the cloud is of significant importance."
"The solution allows us to dig deep into data."
"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."
"I think Elastic Observability is already in very good shape."
"The most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"It is easy to access and discover devices, as well as monitor them automatically. The topology discover is also a useful feature."
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
"It is stable."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
 

Cons

"It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side."
"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low."
"Elastic Observability needs to have better standardization, logging, and schema."
"The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language."
"There could be more low-code features included in the product."
"There's a steep learning curve if you've never used this solution before."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"When opening tickets, we cannot use our team mailbox."
"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."
"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."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
"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 technical support does not bother to respond."
"I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"The product is not that cheap."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"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 most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"This is a well priced solution."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Out-of-the-box use cases have room for improvement in Elastic Observability. They don't invest a lot in building out-of-the-box observable use cases, and they are more focusing on giving a very fle...
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
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 Elastic Observability vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.