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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
33rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (17th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (25th), Server Monitoring (15th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON - PeerSpot reviewer
Client experience and cybersecurity have improved with an easy setup
The solution is valuable for client experience, especially in the financial sector. The most important feature is cybersecurity. The pricing is good, but the functionality is the most important aspect for clients. The solution is easy to deploy and requires only one person to set up, making it easy and quick. Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.
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

"The most important feature is cybersecurity."
"The most valuable feature is being able to pull traffic patterns; to and from destinations. We're able to understand where our traffic is going, our top talkers from an AS set, as well as where our traffic's coming from."
"We're also using Kentik to ingest metrics. It's a useful feature, and its response time, whenever we're pulling back the data, is higher than our on-prem solution."
"Having the API access allows us to do a great deal of automation around a lot of our reporting and management tools."
"I am able to do a lot of work on the visualization end to create different visualizations and different ways to get information out of it."
"We're pretty happy with the API functionality. It's web, and it's very simple to set up queries. It has served us well and you don't need to be an expert on the API or the product to set these things up."
"Monitoring operational efficiency is easy."
"One of the valuable features is the intuitive nature of building out reports, and then triggering actions based on specific metrics from those reports. It has a really good UI and the ability to surface data through the reporting functions is pretty good. That's helped a lot in the security space."
"The solution effectively monitors network devices and servers."
"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
"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."
"It is stable."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
 

Cons

"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."
"The only downside to Kentik, something that I don't like, is that it's great that it shows you where these anomalies lie, but it's not actionable. Kentik is valuable, don't get me wrong, but if it had an actionable piece to it..."
"Sometimes, the tool has complications, so we must deal with the additional support from the tool's end."
"We asked for a way, regarding the potential networks that exist, to hook Kentik up with external tools like peering DBs to correlate things together and see what we can do... This is all in the [next] beta now."
"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."
"They're moving more in a direction where they are saying, "Hey, here's information that you may be interested in or may a need," before the question has to explicitly be asked. Continuing to move in that direction would be a good thing."
"I've checked out the V4 version of the interface and it's still a little bit clunky for me to use. I still go back to the old interface. That's definitely one that they still need to work on. It doesn't seem like everything that you get in the V3, the older interface, is there. For instance, I was trying to add a user or do the administrative tasks in V4, and I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to do that."
"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."
"The technical support does not bother to respond."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"Improvements are needed in integration, especially for WhatsApp call and messages."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution."
 

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."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 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?
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 benefici...
 

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: June 2025.
859,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.