Kentik vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Kentik and Progress Software are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Kentik is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0, while Progress Software is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.0. Kentik holds a 1.9% mindshare in NMS, compared to Progress Software’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Kentik users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Kentik

Read 16 Kentik reviews

5,920 Views
5,269 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

10,003 Views
5,802 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Kentik

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and Kentik are competing in the network monitoring space. Kentik appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and comprehensive analytics capabilities, which justify its higher cost for large businesses.

Features: WhatsUp Gold provides real-time network monitoring, essential alerts, and straightforward tools for quick troubleshooting. Kentik offers advanced network visibility, real-time data analytics, and deep traffic analysis insights for comprehensive management.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold could improve on its analytics depth, cloud integration, and scalability for larger networks. Kentik might enhance its pricing structure to better cater to small to medium businesses, simplify its deployment for non-cloud environments, and streamline its user interface for ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is noted for simple deployment and responsive support, enabling quick setup. Kentik offers a cloud-based deployment model with specialized support for complex network issues.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold is affordable with lower initial costs, making it cost-effective for small to medium networks. Kentik, despite higher setup costs, offers high ROI through its powerful analytics, ideal for large enterprises needing detailed insights.

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

Buyer's Guide

Kentik vs. WhatsUp Gold

April 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

Kentik

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

22nd

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

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

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
Product	Mindshare (%)
Kentik	1.9%
WhatsUp Gold	2.3%
Other	95.8%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Shubham-Saxena

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.

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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

"Kentik is worth the money to have as a tool."

"Overall, I would give Kentik nine out of ten stars."

"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."

"Collecting that data and having those metrics first-hand, in real-time, allows us to make an educated decision, versus an uneducated guess."

"The most important feature is cybersecurity."

"In terms of overall vendor partnership, I'd give Kentik a nine out of 10; they're right up there as one of my best partners to work with, amongst all the contracts that I own, and they're very customer-centric, always available, with nothing too small or too big that I can't ask them to help with, and they seem to be willing and able to jump in no matter what."

"The drill-down into detailed views of network activity helps to quickly pinpoint locations and causes. All the information is there."

"Having the API access allows us to do a great deal of automation around a lot of our reporting and management tools."

More Kentik pros

"The user interface is good enough."

"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."

"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."

"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 documentation is very good."

"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."

"It's a good product, and if one has the expertise to use it, it will be a good investment and it will help IT to save and plan for the future."

"We primarily use the solution to check the state of the network, monitoring thousands of devices and all of the internal network, and it is the first tool we use to see the state of the network for real-time monitoring."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"I've checked out the V4 version of the interface and it's still a little bit clunky for me to use."

"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."

"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."

"Perhaps a better explanation would be to see how tagging is captured and a method of comparing my tagged interfaces on Kentik’s side."

"We faced some outages and were not able to get the desired results from Kentik tools, so that took a little time to resolve."

"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 product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect."

More Kentik cons

"The technical support does not bother to respond."

"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."

"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 initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."

"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."

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive."

"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."

"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."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is cheaply priced."

"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."

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

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

"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

"This is a well priced solution."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	8

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

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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

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SolarWinds NPM vs Kentik

Compared 5% of the time

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Kentik

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 3% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

ScienceLogic vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Kentik

May 2026

Download Kentik product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

April 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Overview

Kentik provides real-time visibility into network infrastructure, focusing on monitoring, data visualization, and flow analysis to manage traffic patterns efficiently.

With robust analytics capabilities, Kentik offers insights into BGP peering status, aids in DDoS detection, and allows for detailed telemetry through its intuitive interface. The platform's SaaS nature simplifies operations by eliminating server maintenance concerns. Multi-vendor support and synthetic testing enhance network security and performance by simulating customer scenarios, while its API offers automation for querying and reporting tasks.

What are the key features of Kentik?

Real-Time Visibility: Monitors network infrastructure effectively.
Data Visualization: Offers powerful tools for viewing complex data.
Flow Analysis: Analyzes traffic flow for optimal management.
BGP Peering Insights: Provides in-depth peering status checks.
DDoS Alerting: Notifies about potential DDoS threats.
Data Explorer: Aids in understanding traffic patterns.
Synthetic Testing: Simulates scenarios to enhance security and performance.

What benefits can be found in user reviews?

Automation: Users value the flexibility of its API for automating tasks.
Ease of Use: SaaS model streamlines user engagement, eliminating server maintenance.
Flexibility: Report customization and query settings are highly appreciated.
Enhanced Observability: Telemetry and multi-vendor support increase oversight.

Industries implement Kentik for network monitoring, traffic management, and flow data analysis across both on-prem and cloud setups. It proves valuable for detecting DDoS events, managing peering relationships, and optimizing costs, besides managing CDN configurations and performing synthetic tests in diverse environments.

Kentik

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Kentik vs. WhatsUp Gold

April 2026

Free Report: Kentik vs. WhatsUp Gold

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