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SCOM 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

SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (5th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SCOM is 1.4%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SCOM1.4%
WhatsUp Gold1.5%
Other97.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.
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

"It discovers the components automatically, which is a fantastic thing. The discovery works in an automatic way, and it has a dynamic way of discovering the components, assets, and applications. It doesn't require any manual intervention."
"The solution is used for monitoring the hardware inventory. For instance, it helps with the whole operational monitoring view for the company's infrastructure."
"It's easy to use."
"The most valuable features in SCOM are Azure monitoring and integration with Azure Monitor for monitoring Azure-hosted servers from SCOM on-premises."
"It takes a lot of the headache out of managing your data centers and software in other places."
"The most valuable feature is the extensibility, as there are really no limits as to what you can do with it."
"Availability monitoring is the feature I have found most valuable, as well as the capacity and ability to send notifications."
"I enjoy its integration with the Microsoft Active Directory functions, which means users, computers, or other group policies can connect with Windows Active Directory."
"This is a good, stable network monitoring solution for devices."
"The user interface is good enough."
"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."
"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
"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 most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
 

Cons

"Then there is also an issue with capacity and limited space. That is something that needs to be improved."
"They can focus more on cloud monitoring instead of on-premise monitoring. We should be able to monitor cloud-related applications. They can include this feature in the next release. If it is in the cloud, we can have scalability by using Kubernetes. The container is containerized, packaged, and managed using Kubernetes. This feature is not there in SCOM. Going forward, if they can focus on that, it will be great."
"The management of the servers could be better."
"SCOM needs to improve its usability."
"The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface."
"Of course, price is always an issue with Microsoft and could be improved."
"In future releases, I would like to see APM solutions and dashboards like Grafana."
"Non Windows monitoring is fairly weak. Network device monitoring is not reliable."
"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."
"Users want SMS available via Whatsapp Gold. They don't want to go through third party SMS servers. The solution should work to make this possible."
"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."
"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."
"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."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then this is part of the agreement."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"Two customers bought the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and paid for Software Assurance. But few customers don't buy it for Software Assurance. They just buy it and deploy it, and they think that we will be using it for the next five years."
"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
"We have an enterprise agreement that includes this product as part of it."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"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."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"This is a well priced solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
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?
It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complicated to manage.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
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 SCOM vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.