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Nagios XI vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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

Nagios XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
16th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
22nd
Ranking in Server Monitoring
14th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
18th
Ranking in Cloud 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 (29th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 2.4%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios XI2.4%
WhatsUp Gold2.2%
Other95.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emmanuel Appiah Boateng - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simplifies setup and requires user interface enhancement
Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried. Typically, setting up a monitoring system on Linux involves cloning files from GitHub, building it, and installing many dependencies, but with Nagios XI, it wasn't like that. Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools.
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

"Simplicity of configuration; I can set up configuration of 100 devices with about 10 services in one to two days."
"They have very accurate and fast support."
"It is a very stable solution and the best solution for monitoring any IT infrastructure for all companies."
"You can save a lot of time using Nagios monitoring because otherwise you need to check all of your services or system one by one."
"I can monitor a software made in-house to software of bigger companies."
"It's an essential part of our infrastructure, and we'll keep using it."
"In my experience with Nagios, I've found that the most valuable features are the scalability and extensibility through using scripts."
"It's very easy to install it and manage it with Nagios XI's interface."
"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."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"It is stable."
"The documentation is very good."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
 

Cons

"I would like a much easier GUI so that I can delete events and logs, which will free up a lot of space."
"We'd like to see more integration capabilities."
"The way Nagios displays information isn't easy for a new user to understand. It's not intuitive enough. You need to read some tutorials or be trained to understand what it's displaying. Also, I think it needs more features to improve network visibility because there are some things you can't detect."
"WebUI should be improved (visual aspect) and should incorporate non-relational databases."
"Reporting items needs more improvement and need to be more flexible based on customer needs."
"I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it."
"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of additional services. Monitoring streaming services is an example of something that is not currently supported, so in order to handle this, I would have to write a script."
"The installation and monitoring need improvement."
"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."
"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."
"I haven't had any issue with stability, except during the upgrade to 2017 when we encountered slow responses."
"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 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."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
"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."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nagios XI is open source."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"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."
"This is a well priced solution."
"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."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
What is your primary use case for Nagios XI?
I normally use Nagios XI for our servers. It's not particularly used for network equipment, however, I use it for monitoring our server performance, including CPU, memory, data, and services runnin...
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

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
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 Nagios XI vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.