Icinga vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Icinga and Progress Software are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Icinga is ranked #49, while Progress Software is ranked #25 with an average rating of 7.0. Icinga holds a 1.1% mindshare in NMS, compared to Progress Software’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Icinga users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

8,249 Views
5,939 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

16,207 Views
8,752 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Icinga

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and Icinga are both robust network monitoring tools with distinct strengths. WhatsUp Gold holds the upper hand in ease of use, while Icinga excels in flexibility and advanced customization options.

Features: WhatsUp Gold features ease of setup, intuitive dashboards, and comprehensive monitoring with minimal configuration. Icinga offers flexibility, extensive plugin support, and customizable options catering to varied network environments.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold needs more advanced alerting mechanisms, better integration capabilities, and enhanced operational sophistication. Icinga requires better documentation, improved UI, and a lower learning curve for new users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold provides smoother deployment with less effort and prompt customer service. Icinga, although more complex to deploy, has strong community support but lacks the direct responsiveness of WhatsUp Gold's customer service.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold offers better immediate value with straightforward pricing and quicker ROI due to ease of use. Icinga has a higher upfront investment but potentially offers better long-term ROI through advanced features and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold

October 2026

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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

Icinga

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

49th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

17th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

51st

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

35th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

25th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

18th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

23rd

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

27th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (44th), Configuration Management (22nd), Log Management (41st), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
WhatsUp Gold	2.0%
Icinga	1.1%
Other	96.9%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201

Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect

It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated. The alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.

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Erik Cheng

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.

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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 one that not many are even aware of, as Icinga has a self-healing event handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted, and you can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction."

"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."

"The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."

"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."

"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."

"I would recommend Icinga; it's an open-source solution, it's quite easy and simple to use, and checks can be run with Python code and Shell Script code."

"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."

"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."

More Icinga pros

"The installation and configuration process are easy."

"It is very good at monitoring the network and keeps us up to date on the status of internal devices."

"It handles the basics of monitoring."

"It is stable."

"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."

"We've been using it for many years and we use it typically for early warning, as it notifies customers of problems prior to failure."

"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."

"The documentation is very good."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."

"Icinga’s automation could be improved."

"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."

"The installation and configuration are very complex."

"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."

"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."

"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."

"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."

More Icinga cons

"The technical support does not bother to respond."

"The interface needs some work."

"I haven't had any issue with stability, except during the upgrade to 2017 when we encountered slow responses."

"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."

"This product should add other options for monitoring. It does not currently meet the broader needs of the banking industry in the version we have deployed."

"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."

"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."

"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."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"The solution is free to use."

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"The solution is cheap."

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."

"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."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."

"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."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

14%

University

13%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios Core vs Icinga

Compared 3% of the time

LogicMonitor vs Icinga

Compared 2% of the time

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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 2% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 2% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

October 2026

Download Icinga product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

October 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

No data available

Overview

Icinga is an open-source monitoring platform known for stability and scalability. It offers object-oriented configuration, extensive plugins, and community support, providing a robust environment for monitoring servers, network devices, and infrastructure components.

Icinga facilitates intuitive setup through features like the Icinga Director, allowing for efficient configuration, automation via APIs, and flexible customization with add-ons. It supports clustering for distributed monitoring and self-healing event handlers. Integration with external tools further enhances its adaptability. While valuable, users suggest improvements in dashboard aesthetics, installation procedures, and data consistency. Automation and network discovery capabilities require further development, as does the need for built-in scripts and plugins. Icinga proves complex for beginners, with multi-tenancy support rated average and role management needing simplification.

What are Icinga's main features?

Object-Oriented Configuration: Simplifies custom plugin development and setup.
Icinga Director: Facilitates intuitive and efficient configuration management.
API Automation: Enables automated processes and seamless integrations.
Clustering Support: Allows scalable and distributed monitoring solutions.
Self-Healing Event Handlers: Automatically manage and correct system issues.
Integration and Add-Ons: Expands functionality with external tools.

Which benefits do reviews often highlight?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing monitoring needs.
Community Support: Access to a wide range of shared knowledge and solutions.
Customizability: Tailors the platform to meet specific monitoring requirements.
Stability: Delivers consistent performance and reliability.

Organizations use Icinga to monitor Linux and AIX servers along with network devices, storage, and firewalls. It supports resource surveillance, application checks, automated ticket generation, and alerting. Managed service providers use it for multi-tenancy setups, finding it essential for server health and configuration management across mixed infrastructure landscapes, leveraging plugins and SNMP Traps for proactive monitoring.

Icinga

WhatsUp Gold stands out with its comprehensive network monitoring, dynamic mapping, and real-time alerts, offering essential tools for managing extensive IT infrastructures.

WhatsUp Gold provides robust capabilities in network visibility through dynamic mapping and NetFlow analysis. The platform's interactive topology aids in pinpointing issues effectively. Auto-discovery ensures complete network device tracking. While offering an intuitive interface and integration with Cisco ServiceNow, users find server performance monitoring useful for incident handling. However, improvements are anticipated in application monitoring and Active Directory integration. The pricing model and customization options leave room for enhancement. Despite these, users benefit from its integrated dashboards for immediate device health checks and network updates, making it beneficial for large-scale infrastructure management.

What features does WhatsUp Gold offer?

Network Monitoring: Provides continuous oversight of network components
Dynamic Mapping: Offers visual representation of network topology
NetFlow Analysis: Delivers insights into bandwidth utilization
Threshold Alerts: Notifies users upon reaching set performance thresholds
Auto-Discovery: Detects devices automatically for complete network coverage

What benefits should users expect from reviews?

Comprehensive Visibility: Enhanced understanding of network elements
Real-Time Monitoring: Immediate insights into network and device status
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive solution suitable for expansive networks
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the management of complex networks

Organizations in sectors like telecommunications, education, and healthcare utilize WhatsUp Gold for their network monitoring needs. Telecom companies track switches and routers, educational institutions manage bandwidth usage, and healthcare facilities monitor device availability to ensure seamless operations.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

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

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold

October 2026

Free Report: Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold

Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.

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