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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
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
28th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
29th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (28th), Server Monitoring (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.
Tom Condo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution offers a very good view of our network and allows us to effectively monitor performance."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."
"The SolarWinds NPM framework, upon which most of their flagship products are built, empowers a wide variety of admins and users to quickly find value in their installed products."
"The most valuable feature is the vital states of the devices as it provides overall CPU and device health information."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
"The documentation is very good."
"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."
"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the short retention period. Currently, it's just for seven days of data, which is very low, making it hard for my organization to keep that data. SolarWinds recommended a seven-day retention period, but my organization needs a fourteen-day data retention period. Hence, I'd like an increase in the retention period or the database limit in SolarWinds NPM because you can't go back to the data for any investigation if seven days have passed. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the database, which needs to be a bit more mature. I want a modified database in the next release of SolarWinds NPM. I'd also like more options added to groups because, currently, it's very limited."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"The solution's customer service is not very good because the support takes too long."
"Currently lacks integration with SMS services."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
"We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future."
"Time: A worldwide deployment can be confusing for dispersed users with non-local times. Each node should have a local time (with summer offset if appropriate) & each user should view & report in their local time."
"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."
"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future."
"The technical support does not bother to respond."
"The initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."
"Regional product team support is not very good."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"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."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"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."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"This is a well priced solution."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
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...
 

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: August 2025.
865,670 professionals have used our research since 2012.