ServiceNow Discovery vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

ServiceNow and Progress Software are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. ServiceNow is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while Progress Software is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.5. ServiceNow holds a 4.0% mindshare in SM, compared to Progress Software’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Discovery

Read 41 ServiceNow Discovery reviews

2,622 Views
1,285 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 24 WhatsUp Gold reviews

503 Views
399 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Discovery

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and ServiceNow Discovery are both prominent network management tools, but they cater to slightly different user needs. ServiceNow Discovery has an edge due to its comprehensive features.

Features: Users like WhatsUp Gold for its intuitive monitoring capabilities, ease of visualization, and user-friendly interface. ServiceNow Discovery is praised for its in-depth automation, extensive infrastructure mapping, and comprehensive discovery processes.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold needs enhancements in scalability, deeper integration with other tools, and improved fault management. ServiceNow Discovery requires better reporting functionalities, a more intuitive setup process, and enhanced speed during asset discovery.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is often noted for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. ServiceNow Discovery can be complex to set up but offers robust long-term support once implemented.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold has competitive setup costs and provides a solid return on investment for small to medium businesses. ServiceNow Discovery, though more expensive, is considered worth the investment due to its powerful enterprise-level functionalities, providing substantial ROI benefits in large-scale deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

April 2025

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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

ServiceNow Discovery

Ranking in Server Monitoring

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (4th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Server Monitoring

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (24th), Network Monitoring Software (26th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (27th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 4.0%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Kaustubh Partha

Technical Support Analyst at CLSA

Scans servers and network devices through SNMP and reduces manual maintenance for our infrastructure team

I like how ServiceNow Discovery scans servers and network devices through SNMP. Most fields on our forms are auto-filled, reducing manual maintenance for our infrastructure team. Post Discovery implementation there is hardly any maintenance. There are three to four fields that are customized. Otherwise, 90% of the data is auto-filled. Discovery can also run in bulk, which is helpful for organizations that cannot run it during weekdays. With identification rules, if a configuration item (CI) isn't in the CMDB, you can simply add the IP address, and it will be automatically added based on criteria like name or serial number, making CMDB maintenance easier.

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Tom Condo

Supervisor Information Services Operations at Seminole County Public Schools

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.

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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

"We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."

"It's a single system of record and it captures the relationships."

"The service management and operations management modules are valuable."

"ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network."

"It's pretty robust, and it's agentless for the most part. So, you don't need to deploy agents, which makes it a lot easier to stand up."

"The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB."

"We can find servers or services we were unaware of and stumble on vulnerabilities from those devices."

"Discovery enables us to get an accurate inventory that's updated daily. It eliminates human error and the need for people to update configuration changes manually. We have not implemented them yet but plan to set up alerts on CIs that are being audited to see if there are any changes."

More ServiceNow Discovery pros

"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."

"The installation and configuration process are easy."

"The documentation is very good."

"It is stable."

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

"The user interface is good enough."

"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."

"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"In my opinion, it's quite slow compared to other tools, like Device42. Also, there are predefined fields in Device42 that are not available in ServiceNow. These are the basic things I think can be improved here."

"ServiceNow Discovery could improve the interface. The navigation bar could improve. It would be helpful to have a landing page to go to find all the elements in one place."

"Without improvement in the patters, applications can't be discovered"

"They can expand on the plugins for some of the other tools."

"Instead of AI, even GenAI should be introduced in ServiceNow Discovery."

"I feel that credential-less discovery could be improved."

"We would like more flexibility with the licensing. Discovery is bundled with ServiceNow's ITOM license. It was more affordable when it was sold separately, but we bought a package license to get more functionality out of the CMDB. We'd prefer to buy only the pieces we need instead of taking things we don't want or solutions that aren't yet mature enough to use."

"ServiceNow has a constant development environment. Hence they get constant bugs which result in incorrect performance. It should also improve customer service."

More ServiceNow Discovery cons

"I would like to see better integration with switches so that you can see what is connected to each port, what the traffic is, and have a network map automatically generated."

"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 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."

"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."

"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."

"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."

"One of the biggest things that made us start to look at another product is we're not able to have an end to end monitoring from a user perspective throughout the system and back to the user. All the monitoring is from inside out, we need something that also can give us from outside in."

"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ServiceNow Discovery has very broad pricing, so it becomes costly. It would be better if it had a pay-as-you-use licensing model because the total cost of ownership is quite high."

"It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."

"The pricing is determined based on the CIs."

"The solution is very expensive."

"If the product is not deployed properly, it can be very expensive."

"Setting up and licensing for ServiceNow can be expensive, especially for enterprise service management."

"This solution is a paid option within the ServiceNow framework."

"It costs a lot. It is probably close to over a hundred thousand. It's an expensive platform, but you can't compare ServiceNow's Discovery functionality to other discovery tools. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison of ServiceNow to a configuration management tool to an asset management tool because it does those things, but it's not those things."

More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice

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

"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 is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."

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

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

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?

The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?

ServiceNow is considered more expensive compared to other products. If I were to rate the pricing on a scale from one to ten in terms of expense, I would rate it quite high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?

Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation. Currently, each new product must be manually created if it is not already available in ServiceNow, which can be cumbers...

See all answers

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...

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?

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tanium vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 27% of the time

Lansweeper vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 22% of the time

BMC Helix Discovery vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 5% of the time

More ServiceNow Discovery Competitors

Grafana vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 14% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 8% of the time

Nagios XI vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 6% of the time

More WhatsUp Gold Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery

April 2025

Download ServiceNow Discovery product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

April 2025

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

ServiceNow

Explore and manage your entire network infrastructure effortlessly with WhatsUp Gold's robust layer 2/3 discovery, creating a detailed interactive map from the edge to the cloud. Monitor devices, wireless controllers, servers, virtual machines, applications, and traffic flows across various environments. Real-time alerts ensure optimal performance, allowing you to meet or exceed SLAs. The platform offers customizable maps, dashboards, and alerts for easy network management. Quickly resolve issues with intuitive workflows, reducing Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR). WhatsUp Gold's integrated log management provides easy visibility and control of device log data, allowing monitoring, filtering, searching, and alerting on syslogs or Windows logs. Archive logs to comply with regulatory requirements and preserve historical data, all through a user-friendly interface. Streamline network monitoring and issue resolution with WhatsUp Gold, making network management efficient and hassle-free.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY

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

ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

April 2025

Free Report: ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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