Splunk Observability Cloud vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Splunk and Progress Software are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Splunk is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3, while Progress Software is ranked #26 with an average rating of 8.7. Splunk holds a 1.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to Progress Software’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Splunk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 78 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

8,968 Views
2,780 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

5,476 Views
3,176 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

WhatsUp Gold and Splunk Observability Cloud are competing products in the network monitoring and observability space. Splunk Observability Cloud often holds the upper hand due to its advanced features and scalability, which users believe justify the higher cost despite WhatsUp Gold's competitive pricing and customer support.

Features: WhatsUp Gold offers robust network monitoring capabilities, focusing on tracking device performance and network traffic. It provides an intuitive interface, effective alert system, and supports device discovery. On the other hand, Splunk Observability Cloud excels with real-time data analytics, powerful data visualization, and AI-driven insights. Its scalability and comprehensive monitoring solutions make it stand out, offering more advanced analytical capabilities.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold could enhance its automation features, improve integration options with third-party tools, and expand its scalability to suit larger organizations. Splunk Observability Cloud could simplify its deployment process, reduce the learning curve for new users, and offer more cost-effective pricing plans for smaller businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is praised for its straightforward deployment process, making it ideal for organizations with limited IT staff. Its responsive customer service is widely appreciated. Conversely, Splunk Observability Cloud, while offering robust support, requires more technical expertise for deployment due to its complex capabilities.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold is a cost-effective option with a lower initial setup cost, providing good ROI for budget-conscious businesses. Splunk Observability Cloud, with its higher entry cost, offers significant long-term value through its advanced features and scalability, providing strong ROI for those seeking comprehensive observability.

To learn more, read our detailed Splunk Observability Cloud vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud vs. WhatsUp Gold

January 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

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

7th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

7th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

29th

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

26th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

24th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

23rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (16th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (32nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.4%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	1.4%
WhatsUp Gold	2.0%
Other	96.6%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact

Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.

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

"We utilize the APM and auto-detectors, as the core metrics and core alerts are available for us, which are the features of Splunk Observability Cloud that I appreciate the most."

"The ability to create custom dashboards is one of the best features and that's typically why most people deploy Splunk. Users can create dashboards for just about anything."

"The best features in Splunk Observability Cloud are the metrics; I can see any logs or anything related to the server or services we want to monitor, and the metrics are a good function."

"The volume it handles is very good, including the number of metrics, the volume number of traces, and more."

"I have primarily used it to go back into the past and understand why something happened. It provides enough information to do research and figure things out."

"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."

"Splunk Observability Cloud has helped me reduce my mean time to detect, and we have worked on around 80 applications last year for one particular client, and since the MTTR has improved drastically, they have given us 245 applications, which is around 150 applications added to the previous number of applications, which is definitely a performance improvement."

"Initially, before Splunk, we had a long time to resolve issues; now, with Splunk Observability Cloud, we will be able to solve them quickly and know exactly where the issue is."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

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

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

"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."

"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."

"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."

"It is stable."

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

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"There's no standard use case available where you can see the utilization of the number of use cases I have."

"Integrating some third-party add-ons can be challenging, involving many implementation and configuration steps."

"Unfortunately, with our current setup, we just have to implement Log Observer in a couple of instances so that we can have that integration with Splunk Observability Cloud."

"Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and process terms. These categories of dashboards would be very helpful for customers."

"Splunk could be better integrated with configuration manager solutions so we can automatically resolve issues without human interference."

"We still use Splunk Enterprise licensing. A lot of the newer features go into Splunk Cloud before Enterprise. We're not looking to switch our licensing over, so we're falling behind on the newer features."

"Splunk APM's performance could be improved - at the moment, it's very slow and takes forever to give me what I want."

"The solution's machine learning deployment is hard and should be made user-friendly."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

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

"Regional product team support is not very good."

"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."

"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."

"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 technical support does not bother to respond."

"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."

"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."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Splunk has been fairly expensive, but it has been predictable."

"The product is a bit expensive considering the competition but the company may negotiate the price."

"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."

"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."

"It is expensive."

"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."

"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."

"This is an expensive solution."

More Splunk Observability Cloud 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 most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

"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."

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

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"This is a well priced solution."

"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

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	50

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

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?

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

Comparisons

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Compared 3% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Sentry vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

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PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 4% of the time

LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 4% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

ManageEngine OpManager vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

No data available

Overview

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

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

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

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

Splunk Observability Cloud vs. WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

Free Report: Splunk Observability Cloud vs. WhatsUp Gold

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