Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
24th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
19th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (26th), Server Monitoring (15th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (35th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.6% 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
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
WhatsUp Gold2.3%
Other94.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.
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

"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"SolarWinds has greatly helped us, especially in tracing when the SoundCloud Software goes down without any apparent reason."
"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one; I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."
"The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
"This product is of good caliber and we get better results by using it on our network."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical."
"It is stable, scalable, reliable and not too expensive."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"Our local support team provides excellent service."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."
"The user interface is good enough."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
 

Cons

"Currently lacks integration with SMS services."
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"Stability is an issue. We have installed SolarWinds (Server 2016) on a dedicated physical server and as a virtual machine in a brand new Hyper-V environment with brand new servers."
"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds. The performance is slow."
"There were some version releases that had stability issues but the support team was very good at letting us know what we needed to do to fix the issues."
"SolarWinds is not an all-in-compassing product. We are looking to change away from this solution because of the documentation and the solution doesn't have enough integration in our country."
"Dependencies: Created dependencies are not visible for management/editing by default until some tweaking is done. It would be better if this is enabled by default."
"My team has had a lot of issues with support."
"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."
"My understanding is that there are better products out there that do a better job."
"Integrations with other devices. I want to have a product that has full integration with my active directory so I can track user activity."
"The new release cadence needs to be improved. It takes a while for them to add new features and functionality."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future."
"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."
"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."
"Users want SMS available via Whatsapp Gold. They don't want to go through third party SMS servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not an expensive product."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"Price could be improved on"
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"This is a well priced solution."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"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."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
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

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
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 SolarWinds NPM vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.