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Kentik vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
22nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (30th), Server Monitoring (15th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th), Configuration Management (21st), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 1.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.9%
WhatsUp Gold2.3%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Network Engineer III at Fortanix
Integrating synthetic tests and network monitoring enhances traffic pattern visualization
The Kentik support team is good. If you want me to rate them on a scale, I would give them eight. I had a call with the Kentik support team for fifteen minutes, so I'm going to give them eight for now. The reason for giving them an eight is that they are good and address our issues. They have monthly calls and discuss the product roadmap with us, including what is needed and what is not. However, when we are working on some real issues with Kentik, I sometimes feel there's a delay due to the busyness of their teams. We faced some outages and were not able to get the desired results from Kentik tools, so that took a little time to resolve.
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

"Monitoring operational efficiency is easy."
"It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics."
"Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives."
"We have been extremely happy with the features; they were exactly what we were after."
"The most important feature is cybersecurity."
"The biggest thing Kentik has given us is the amount of visibility we have into our own network now and knowing what's going on at a given time."
"In terms of the solution’s real-time visibility across our network infrastructure, I have not been able to find any other monitoring or netflow visualization tool that gives me the kind of information I get from Kentik. If I need to take a deep-dive into something that I see, it's really easy for me to do that. Whereas with most other things, I have to use five or six other tools to get that kind of data, with Kentik, I have it all in one place."
"I really love the Data Explorer. I use it all the time to go in and craft exactly what I need to see. I'm able to then take that story and explain it to the executives. I've done that a couple of times and it is helpful."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
"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 most valuable aspects of the solution are the application monitors that allow for discreet roaming on network devices."
"It handles the basics of monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
"It is very good at monitoring the network and keeps us up to date on the status of internal devices."
"The documentation is very good."
 

Cons

"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."
"There is room for improvement around the usability of the API. It's a hugely complex task to call it and you need a lot of backing to be able to do it."
"Sometimes it's difficult to order the dimensions correctly when trying to make Sankey flow diagrams."
"I've checked out the V4 version of the interface and it's still a little bit clunky for me to use."
"We had faced some issues during an outage and were not able to get the desired results from Kentik tools. It took time to resolve these issues, which is why I give them eight points."
"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."
"In recent months, I've noticed that while the industry is trending towards AI, Kentik has room for improvement in this area."
"I believe they're already working on this, but I would love for them to create better integrations from network flow data to application performance — tracing — so that we could overlay that data more readily. With more companies going hybrid, flow logs and flow data, whether it be VPC or on-prem, matched with application performance and trace data, is pretty important."
"The new release cadence needs to be improved. It takes a while for them to add new features and functionality."
"The tool should focus on increasing its market share, as it is the only area of concern where improvements are needed."
"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."
"Sometimes it's a little bit slow."
"Honestly, I do not particularly like WhatsUp Gold. I think we should get rid of it."
"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."
"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."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cheaply priced."
"We have an annual contract with Kentik that we renew each year for a set number of licenses. We also have some burstable licenses which we can spin up and spin down, and those are paid as they are used."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"This is a well priced solution."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
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 Enterprise3
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 Kentik?
I would say Kentik's pricing is not cheap. From my perspective as part of the technical team, I would not categorize it as expensive, but I know it is not cheap.
What needs improvement with Kentik?
There's always room for improvements and better relations when using any kind of product. We faced some issues with Kentik UI and alerting, which we asked them to fix, and they succeeded. They have...
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
We are using Kentik mostly for synthetic tests, and from one last year, network monitoring as well. We are using it for inter DC BGP tests and server monitoring as well.
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

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
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 Kentik vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.