ServiceNow Discovery vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Why PeerSpot?

ServiceNow and Progress Software are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. ServiceNow is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.4, while Progress Software is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.0. ServiceNow holds a 2.3% mindshare in SM, compared to Progress Software’s 3.8% 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 46 ServiceNow Discovery reviews

6,406 Views
2,819 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

16,207 Views
2,593 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: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

November 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

ServiceNow Discovery

Ranking in Server Monitoring

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (10th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Server Monitoring

18th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (44th), Network Monitoring Software (25th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (23rd), Configuration Management (22nd), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 2.3%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 3.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ServiceNow Discovery	2.3%
WhatsUp Gold	3.8%
Other	93.9%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Abhinay Sharma

Service Now Developer at Bangmetric services pvt ltd

Cloud discovery has improved asset visibility and reporting but still needs smarter automation

The impact of ServiceNow Discovery on my organization's strategic planning depends on various factors. Some customers have their own discovery tools which they do not want to switch from, even if we explain why ServiceNow might be better, because they have been using them for a long time. Some customers are dynamic, so we need to have some kind of proposition that comes with ServiceNow. Sometimes, we need to talk with ServiceNow people themselves to give them a bundle offer in which we can have Discovery and ITSM at a much more affordable price than the competitors, so that is our main goal. Currently, I would say there might be a possibility if we can use some AI discovery features that could be helpful for our organization. If we can get discovery jobs running based on AI schedules, that would be beneficial. I believe in the coming future that I want to see myself working more with ServiceNow in this capacity.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The solution finds public cloud infrastructures globally and updates the integration management database, service catalogs, and asset management details."

"The best part about ServiceNow Discovery is that it is included in the ServiceNow suite."

"The product's discovery feature is valuable due to its accuracy, reliability, and the high prestige associated with the information it provides."

"The process involving the original setup of the solution is excellent."

"The most valuable feature of ServiceNow Discovery is its performance."

"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."

"I would rate the stability of ServiceNow Discovery as nine, as we never had downtime."

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

More ServiceNow Discovery pros

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the application monitors that allow for discreet roaming on network devices."

"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."

"One thing good about WhatsUp Gold is that it is fairly stable."

"This product has aided us in procurement and is overall a well-priced solution."

"The documentation is very good."

"There is a flow monitor option, so we can trace the source IP, the destination IP, and top talker feature in this."

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

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

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"Improvements are required with the scripts used to collect the information from servers."

"The current limitation requires having mid servers or discovery servers in each data center for proper discovery, hindering the ability to discover assets across continents such as Asia Pacific and Europe."

"When you switch versions, for example, when you go from Paris to Quebec they will introduce many new things and occasionally things break when they do that."

"Between SolarWinds and ServiceNow, there is some communication gap."

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

"In terms of improvement, I would like for it to be possible to use without coding. I would like a dropdown so that every customer can do it easily for himself and can understand it."

"ServiceNow Discovery should be updated to provide its users with more out-of-the-box information and attributes to support the routers and switches from Cisco."

"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."

More ServiceNow Discovery cons

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

"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."

"I haven't had any issue with stability, except during the upgrade to 2017 when we encountered slow responses."

"The interface needs some work."

"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."

"I might like to see a better interface in the future. It's not necessarily easy to integrate the product with other vendors."

"The price could be improved. When we first started using this product, the company was new. The prices were very low then, in comparison with HP OpenView or IBM, but now the policy is too high, relative to the number of devices we have."

"There is a very big gap in the support."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not cheap."

"This is expensive, but it meets our needs."

"There is a need to make payments every quarter of a year towards the licensing costs of the solution. ServiceNow Discovery is an expensive tool."

"The product pricing is fair and reasonable for the value it provides."

"ServiceNow Discovery is expensive, but the company has a monopoly and we need to use the solution. We use it because we do not have a choice."

"It's a bit expensive compared to other products in the market, but it's worth the money you pay because it's far advanced in terms of features, automation, and capabilities compared to other products."

"The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	25

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 ServiceNow Discovery?

Regarding pricing, I have not dealt much with it. I am more focused on the feature side of things, so I cannot comment on the latest pricing because it is dynamic as well. Sometimes it is cheaper f...

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What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?

ServiceNow could improve ServiceNow Discovery by integrating artificial intelligence capabilities. The system could study frequently created queries for the CMDB, whether related to applications, c...

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What is your primary use case for ServiceNow Discovery?

I mainly use ServiceNow Discovery for asset inventory in the estate. I primarily use it for linking applications versus inventory and creating disaster recovery plans, recovery time objectives, and...

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

Comparisons

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 8% of the time

Lansweeper vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 7% of the time

BMC Helix Discovery vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Integrated Lights Out (iLO) vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 6% of the time

Tanium vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 6% of the time

More ServiceNow Discovery Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 2% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 2% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 2% of the time

More WhatsUp Gold Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery

October 2026

Download ServiceNow Discovery product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

October 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery automates relationship building with agentless discovery and accurate dependency mapping. It seamlessly integrates with CMDB, offering secure operations and efficient data management, suitable for multi-cloud operations.

ServiceNow Discovery transforms IT infrastructure management by automating the mapping of hardware and software components, enhancing application visibility, and supporting predictive monitoring. It boasts expansive plugin options, low maintenance, and centralized data storage, all while operating effectively across cloud and on-premises environments. Users benefit from robust performance, comprehensive impact analysis, and easy setup. However, improving unnecessary data elimination, simplifying debugging, and enhancing global deployment could make it more effective. It requires more intuitive interfaces and code-free customization for better reconciliation and discovery of remote devices. Improved reporting, competitive pricing, and seamless integration with legacy and newer applications are valued enhancements.

What are the key features of ServiceNow Discovery?

Automated Relationship Building: Facilitates seamless integration with CMDB.
Agentless Discovery: Offers accurate mapping without the need for additional agents.
Dependency Mapping: Provides detailed infrastructure insights.
Multi-cloud Support: Ensures operations are streamlined across cloud environments.
Centralized Data Storage: Supports efficient data management.
Comprehensive Impact Analysis: Enhances capacity management.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Integration with CMDB: Enhances asset tracking and management.
Secure Operations: Minimizes security risks across IT environments.
Efficient Data Management: Streamlines processing and analysis of data.
Low Maintenance: Reduces operational overhead and downtime.
Robust Performance: Ensures reliability in diverse settings.

Companies in diverse sectors use ServiceNow Discovery for asset tracking, CMDB population, and identifying Configuration Items. This enables IT teams to map hardware and software components, enhance visibility, and facilitate predictive monitoring and auto-remediation processes. Integrating with other systems, ServiceNow Discovery provides valuable insights from IT environments, supporting both cloud and on-premises operations.

ServiceNow

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

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

November 2026

Free Report: ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

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