We are using it to make sure that devices, services, and network paths are available.
Security Operations Specialist III at a pharma/biotech company with 201-500 employees
Good support and stability, easy to deploy, and helpful for looking for rogue devices on your network
Pros and Cons
- "Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been dealing with it for 22 years.
Buyer's Guide
WhatsUp Gold
May 2025

Learn what your peers think about WhatsUp Gold. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is made for small and medium businesses. It does have a scalability problem with using it in enterprise situations.
How are customer service and support?
Their tech support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
It is very straightforward. You just put in credentials, and it goes out and does its thing. It is very easy to use, especially when you have few employees.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
What other advice do I have?
I would give it an eight out of 10.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

IT Senior Systems Administrator at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
Old, clunky, and with unresponsive support, this product touches the basics but not in style
Pros and Cons
- "It handles the basics of monitoring."
- "It is stable."
- "The product is old and not updated."
- "The interface needs some work."
- "The technical support does not bother to respond."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is just for monitoring the host servers, the virtual machines, the network equipment, and the storage. It covers all the basics.
What is most valuable?
Probably the only sorta valuable part of the product is that it is stable, easy to work with, and covers the basics. But there is a lot more downside to it in my opinion than up.
What needs improvement?
Honestly, I do not particularly like WhatsUp Gold. I think we should get rid of it. It is so old. It has not been upgraded in about six years. The interface looks like something from the nineties.
I am quite used to using the Paessler AG product. That is PRTG (Paessler Router Traffic Grapher) and the two have little in comparison. It could be improved by being more like PRTG.
If WhatsUp were going to work on updating the product, I would like to see some improvements in the interface. The dashboards could be a lot better.
For how long have I used the solution?
The company that I work for has been using WhatsUp Gold quite a lot more for the past few years but they have had it as a solution for the past 10 years. I have only been in the company for about six or seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
One thing good about WhatsUp Gold is that it is fairly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have got about five or six people working with it right now. Their roles are mostly system administrative staff. It is used daily in our current situation.
How are customer service and technical support?
When I first started, I did contact the technical support team to see whether I could get the new version of the product, but no one ever even bothered to reply. So obviously the technical support could be also improved.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used a few of the different monitoring solutions at different companies. PA Server Monitor was one that I used and that was by Power Admin. I used to work with PRTG (by Paessler AG). It is quite a good product. Spiceworks is another one I used.
If we are talking about a comparison between the ones I have already used and WhatsUp Gold, PRTG is a better product. It is the best one I have used out of all of them. I would be interested in moving to that instead of WhatsUp Gold.
How was the initial setup?
I have got a few virtual machines on it that I use myself. It is not a very complicated product. It is a bit clunky and takes more steps than it should do, but it is not difficult to set up and use.
It takes approximately 10 minutes to set up. It does not require a lot of maintenance. It has been on-premises so it is not exposed to the internet and because of that it is not much of a risk. But maintaining it is just a long way down the priority line at the moment.
What other advice do I have?
I would not recommend WhatsUp Gold to people who were considering it as a solution. On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate WhatsUp Gold as a four or five. Really, it is a four-out-of-ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
WhatsUp Gold
May 2025

Learn what your peers think about WhatsUp Gold. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Manager at DEWA
Monitors the network database and the GUI is improved
Pros and Cons
- "I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
- "I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy."
What is our primary use case?
I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well.
What is most valuable?
We had a few requirements specifically for our applications and I think they did some development on WhatsUp Gold features for us.
The new version has a lot of improved features. The graphical user interface was quite improved from the old version.
What needs improvement?
I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using it for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The systems are stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Right now we need two people for deployment and maintenance.
How are customer service and technical support?
We had a good experience with their technical support.
How was the initial setup?
It was easy to set up WhatsUp Gold. Due to scanning such a high number of network bearers, it takes quite a long time to do the installation. It took a couple of hours. I would like it to be faster.
What about the implementation team?
We used the local integrator and we got training from them after that. Other things have also been stuck at the deployment.
What was our ROI?
Yes, we've seen a return on our investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also considered PRTG and SolarWinds. I do not remember the report, but we came to the conclusion that WhatsUp Gold was the system for our position.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend WhatsUp Gold.
I would rate it eight out of ten. Although the features are nice, it is quite expensive. It's not cost-effective.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Great interface but has no end to end monitoring from a user perspective
Pros and Cons
- "The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
I primarily use this solution for server performance.
What is most valuable?
The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface.
What needs improvement?
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. WhatsApp is great as long as you use it for Windows servers, but we need to use it for a SQL environment. That's where the lack is. That's the big two points on the board that made us look for an alternative. But, we haven't found an alternative, so we're still using it. That's a part of the service that can be improved.
The one that I have submitted that really bugs me the most is when you make templates for servers and you use equivocal monitors you can't preset the order of the equivocal monitors. So, it will set it alphabetically. That is where I have the greatest trouble with it, is I want the ping to be the first equivocal monitor because if the server doesn't answer to the ping I don't care about anything else. And on the Citrix servers, the second thing I want is to always have the SMNP service running, because we check most of our this by SNMP. On the Citrix server, we have the SQL email service that controls the logins, so if that service is down no user can log onto the server. That last one, how I have named this, that one starts with C for Citrix. All my Citrix monitors start with Citrix in the name to inform me what system they are for. That one comes to the top of the list so when a Citrix server does not respond to ping, unless WhatsApp states that, the login server sets off a ping, which is true, but that's not the reason.
I want a solution for how we can change the order on 600 Citrix servers. But it seems I have to do that manually. I'm not sure we if have a big enough part of servers to be a client of WhatsApp or not. But I can't manually sit and update the servers.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for about 5 or 6 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have experienced it to be rather good on stability. We had some stability issues but they kind of disappeared with the old server so we never claimed those to be instabilities from a WhatsApp standpoint, it was server issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
On the scalability of the solution, I'm not sure what the average user of WhatsApp Gold, what size of network they're using it with. We were doing about 1000 to 1500 addresses. I feel that when you go about 1200 devices I start to feel that things go slower. I think that that's a step in scalability there. That's where it starts to have a few more issues. There's not been a problem so I have not researched if I need to put more CPUs and more RAM into it.
How are customer service and technical support?
In terms of customer support, I've only used the service online and I've never had any phone support. I think I only had three or four service tickets with WhatsApp. On one I was told that it was a feature that I was missing after an upgrade. I think that was when I went from 2016 to 2017 when they changed it to be a more web interface. It's a feature I was asking for where I could find and they say that the feature was no longer available in the newer version and just about the same tie the man arrived I found where I could do the changes I wanted. And after all that, they said the feature is no longer available and I had already found it. After that, most of my support request has ended up being changing from an internet to a bug fix issue thing.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
WhatsUp was my first entry to the world of monitoring, when I was questioned to do change task at work and take over the monitoring, we were already running WhatsApp. So WhatsApp was the product of choice by them and has been ever since.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was pretty easy. I do not know if we're talking about our initial installation of WhatsApp but a couple of years ago we installed everything on new hardware, so I got a fresh start, a new database, a new everything. And based on that one I'd say the first initial installation took quite some time. It's basically the one you just start and you do something else and you look at it from time to time, so I think I spent about half a workday on it. But it probably didn't use that much time but it takes more time when you're not sitting at the monitor and waiting for the next window to pop up to click next.
What about the implementation team?
I've done the implementation by myself but I did get a certification on the 16 version, so I am certified.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
In terms of pricing, I'd say that the pricing is nice and the product is good. If your needs are within what the product delivers I'd say go for it.
What other advice do I have?
I would give the solution a seven out of 10. It does what it's supposed to do so if the product fulfills your needs I have no problem recommending the product.
I'm currently looking at changing it to another solution because it's not giving us what we want it to give us, though I've not been disappointed with it. We probably haven't made an optimum installation, which probably added to giving us not the full experience. We're not using it for the networking performance, we're not using the flow monitor. We are running the next biggest one so we have all the plugins. The only thing we do not have is the ability to run a redundant WhatsUp Server. It's just now we see the needs are, for me, more than they can give. We're not sure if we'll find something that fulfills what we now need. We might keep WhatsApp in addition to that; we're not sure about that.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
VP Business Development at MultiPoint Ltd.
Stable, easy to deploy, and competitively priced
Pros and Cons
- "WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
- "You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with this solution for more than three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't had any problems with this solution's stability.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
How was the initial setup?
WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy.
What other advice do I have?
You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution, but after that, it's possible to do almost anything with it. I'd rate this solution as eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Senior Software Engineer at a aerospace/defense firm with 501-1,000 employees
Feature-rich with a good user interface
Pros and Cons
- "The user interface is good enough."
- "We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for network discovery. It is just one of the features it provides, but it's basically the only feature we use.
What is most valuable?
I haven't explored all of the features.
The user interface is good enough.
What needs improvement?
We use it for network discovery but it's not really good enough. We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology.
There are inconsistencies in advertisement and how much it can do in network discovery. It doesn't do what it indicates it will do. I would like a deeper description of the solution and how they achieve it.
What is advertisement phrases is not reality and we cannot achieve it.
We need more customization. It's all about customization.
I would like to see more features that clearly describe how they are going to discover a node on the network.
Also, we would like to know the probabilistic information. For example, to know that the methods, in general, allow discovery of up to some percentage of nodes. We used different settings from what they provide, but we were never close to getting a network topology that we expected to get.
It would be nice to have the ability to identify devices with multiple network interfaces.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using WhatsUp Gold for the last year.
We are using version 19.2.0.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have not explored the scalability as we don't need it.
We have approximately five users.
We don't have plans to increase usage.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have a paid version of this solution but have never contacted technical support. We haven't needed to.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved with the initial setup. It was done by my colleague and he never complained that it was difficult.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't have information on the pricing. I know that it's a paid version, but I don't have any details.
What other advice do I have?
The decision on whether we will continue to use this solution or not is up to our manager, but in terms of projects, I don't think that we will continue to use this solution. It will be dropped.
I would rate WhatsUp Gold an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Network Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
An easy initial setup with good documentation and a good interface on the older model
Pros and Cons
- "The documentation is very good."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution to check the state of the network. We have thousands of devices to manage and control. We monitor all of the internal network with the solution. It is the first tool we use to see the state of the network for real-time monitoring.
What is most valuable?
The topology of the solution is the most valuable feature. We can not only have a list of the devices, but we can also build the topology of some nodes. It's an action that is very easy to perform.
The documentation is very good.
The interface of the solution is quite good.
What needs improvement?
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.
For us, the change of interface in the newer versions was too much and a lot of our users didn't like it. It was a deciding factor for us in not upgrading.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for 20 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution is good. If you respect the hardware requirements, it runs pretty well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is good. On our network team, we have about eight people using the solution. We use it quite extensively every day.
How are customer service and technical support?
We don't use technical support very often, but when we have, we've had good experiences.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used HP OpenView and also work with CiscoWorks. We switched from HP because OpenView was too hard to manage and use.
We have a lot of monitoring experience with other tools (PRTG, Solarwinds, Cisco). It means that we don't perform low level or low-cost monitoring with WUG, but it's a part of a large vision and activity for the network monitoring of state public services (health and care, education, administration, police).
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple. It's very easy to install. Deployment took a few hours. It takes two people to install the solution.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the implementation with the help of a database manager. We needed help with the SQL server, but that's it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
For us, the tool is free to use as it is at the end of life and we don't pay for technical support.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did look at other HP options. We liked the ease of use and the interface as well as the price of WhatsUp, however.
What other advice do I have?
We use an older version of WhatsUp Gold. The change of the interface of the tool was too hard for some people of our team and they didn't want the new interface.
We have all of the infrastructure on our data centers.
I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Information Security Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Easy configuration and installation that's scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The installation and configuration process are easy."
- "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."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspects of the solution are the application monitors that allow for discreet roaming on network devices.
The installation and configuration process are easy.
What needs improvement?
The pricing could be reduced. They should offer it for less.
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is easily scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support it good. They are very quick to respond.
How was the initial setup?
The implementation of the solution is very easy. It's much easier than other products. Deployment takes about one day.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the implementation ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Users pay a yearly license for the solution.
What other advice do I have?
We use the on-premises deployment model. In Turkey, clients don't want to use the cloud.
We're a distributor of the product in Turkey.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.

Buyer's Guide
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Updated: May 2025
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