ControlUp vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

ControlUp and Paessler GmbH are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. ControlUp is ranked #37 with an average rating of 7.7, while Paessler GmbH is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.8. ControlUp holds a 1.0% mindshare in IM, compared to Paessler GmbH’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ControlUp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Paessler GmbH users who would recommend it.

ControlUp

Read 11 ControlUp reviews

1,347 Views
907 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

Read 101 PRTG Network Monitor reviews

6,499 Views
4,437 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

ControlUp

PRTG Network Monitor

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

PRTG Network Monitor and ControlUp both offer comprehensive monitoring solutions in the IT management category. PRTG appears to have the upper hand in cost predictability with its bundled features, while ControlUp is favored for its advanced capabilities, particularly in integration with VMware.

Features: PRTG is noted for easy deployment and scalability, and provides robust alerting and real-time data presentation, supporting a broad range of technologies with minimal customization. ControlUp focuses on endpoint and real-time performance monitoring, offering rich insights into user experience and resource usage, especially in VDI environments. ControlUp also supports automated responses through scripting.

Room for Improvement: PRTG could enhance its application monitoring, improve dashboard intuitiveness, and expand distributed monitoring capabilities. Reports of slower technical support responses indicate a need for development. ControlUp would benefit from stronger network infrastructure monitoring and more advanced data export options. Both could improve in integration and automation features to enhance overall usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PRTG is recognized for its straightforward setup and comprehensive knowledge base, though it could improve support response times. ControlUp is praised for its easy cloud-based management, with generally effective technical support, although service charges sometimes lack transparency. Both solutions offer smooth deployment experiences, with PRTG often noted for its particularly seamless installation process.

Pricing and ROI: PRTG provides a cost-effective solution with predictable expenditures, despite potentially increasing fees in complex environments. Its perpetual licensing is ideal for monitoring large infrastructures, offering quick ROI through reduced downtime. ControlUp, frequently integrated with VMware, offers premium features that justify its costs, providing efficiency across numerous devices. Both solutions demonstrate ROI flexibility depending on application and integration, aiding in strategic resource management.

To learn more, read our detailed ControlUp vs. PRTG Network Monitor Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp vs. PRTG Network Monitor

March 2025

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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

ControlUp

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

37th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)

PRTG Network Monitor

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.3%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi

Solutions Developer at HCL Technologies

Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices

We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.

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Tochukwu Uzomba

Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited

Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set

PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

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 most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."

"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."

"When using ControlUp, the core feature that we have found valuable is its UI. It is a valuable tool to view the analysis reactions of a base core Level 2 or Level 1 team so that they can complete the necessary troubleshooting."

"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."

"It has a great career time monitoring tool."

"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."

"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."

"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."

More ControlUp pros

"Its proactiveness is its most valuable feature. We already know when we come in, in the morning, if a server or site is down, as opposed to someone telling us."

"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is its ease of use."

"It is great for service level agreements and can comply fully with internet monitoring or any interface."

"Technical support has been very helpful so far."

"It is nice to have one place where all the information is right there in front of us."

"It has made our infrastructure more reliable."

"The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature."

"The technical support seems to be quick, clever, and has a comprehensive knowledge base online, which is fantastic."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

Cons

"Solve is a quick and intuitive tool for quickly mapping data together, however, once you have the view of the data that you like, it is difficult to share this with colleagues."

"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."

"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."

"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."

"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."

"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."

"There was some lag earlier, and reports pulled from the dashboard would sometimes be half an hour old. But now, the information provides real-time status, which is greatly appreciated. Overall, I've seen improvement in the product."

"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."

More ControlUp cons

"Integration into service management ticketing systems could be better. They should simplify the integration into big service management platforms like ServiceNow, Remedy, and Cherwell. They're really into monitoring, but they don't do any self-resolution. It would be better if the company moved more into the AIOps space so that you could actually kick off some remedies. I know that you can execute some commands from the tool, but you need to develop those all yourself. It would be really handy if they had some auto-remedy scripts that they could develop on top."

"If PRTG could help me see the bandwidth for each host I have on my network, either for a wireless or a wired network, that would be very helpful."

"In a very few cases, customers want more detailed reports, which we cannot meet."

"Their penetration within the market could be much better. If their pricing was lower, even though it's reasonable now, it might help them achieve this."

"Having a Unix implementation or Unix installation could be an improvement. Right now, it's based just on Windows, and that's a problem for some customers."

"The solution could be better and faster when it comes to performance."

"I would like to have a VM version that can be installed on a cloud such as Azure. We're using Azure, and we're eliminating on-premise servers. It would be helpful to have a PRTG version that can be installed on the Azure cloud."

"The free version only gives us 100 free sensors to use. It would be nice if there was double that."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."

"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."

"The pricing is very low compared to other solutions."

"We pay nothing for it. Its 100 sensors have allowed us to put a magnifying glass on some systems, providing an extra layer of detail. Therefore, our outgoing is nothing and our incoming is a lot of useful data that we can react to proactively."

"If you are not too sure about it, try the free version. Then, if you like it, you can go to the paid version and roll it out."

"We are using the basic PRTG that we can download for free. For now, we only need to monitor less than 100 devices. For more than 100 devices, we would need to buy a license. PRTG is much cheaper than SolarWinds."

"In my company now, we are using the free version."

"There is a license to use PRTG Network Monitor and it is annually."

"The pricing for PRTG in our case is reasonable because we have a lot of applications to monitor within PRTG. It is not that expensive."

"It's a cost-efficient tool."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Healthcare Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

52%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?

Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?

We use the tool to monitor approximately 2,00,000 devices for a client. We check how the devices are doing in terms of hardware and software. We also check their health and alerts every day. If som...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...

See all answers

What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor. That's why I'm using the free100 sensor license.

See all answers

Comparisons

Nexthink vs ControlUp

Compared 27% of the time

Citrix uberAgent Monitoring vs ControlUp

Compared 21% of the time

eG Enterprise vs ControlUp

Compared 9% of the time

Liquidware Stratusphere UX vs ControlUp

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs ControlUp

Compared 2% of the time

More ControlUp Competitors

Zabbix vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

More PRTG Network Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp

April 2025

Download ControlUp product report

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor

March 2025

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

Overview

ControlUp is a digital experience monitoring management platform that makes it possible for IT teams to deliver a work-from-anywhere experience for employees. The solution makes fixing and preventing issues easy, enabling IT teams to make smarter decisions. It also provides monitoring performance, availability, and useful productivity metrics.

The ControlUp platform supports:

Any digital workstyle
Physical endpoints
Virtual desktops
Apps
SaaS
Web apps
Unified communications tools

ControlUp Features

ControlUp has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Out-of-the-box device and performance metrics
Custom metric and device data collection
Non-intrusive, secure agents with offline mode
Custom reporting
Easy-to-use dashboards
Scalable SaaS infrastructure
Built-in troubleshooting & remediation actions
Remote assist
Custom script actions
Multiple scripting languages
Automation and alerting

ControlUp Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing ControlUp. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Wide range of platform options: ControlUp offers multiple platform options including Windows, macOS, Linux, and IGE, independent of device location.

Powerful analytics: With ControlUp, you can analyze across your entire infrastructure or you can collect detailed individual device performance.

Optimizes performance: The solution enables you to remediate issues and optimize performance with its support of both manual and automated actions.

Minimize user downtime: ControlUp helps you catch common issues that lead to workflow interruptions. Self-correcting capabilities and comprehensive early-warning systems address issues before they impact employee productivity.

Resolve issues faster: The solution enables you to spend less time on support calls and more time driving value via its real-time troubleshooting and remediation solutions.

Increased visibility of remote environments: Gain real-time visibility across your entire network and find new ways to deliver the best end-user experience possible.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the ControlUp solution.

A Chair, IEEE Consumer Technology Society - Dallas,Texas, USA at a non-profit says, “In terms of the public cloud, ControlUp's features make us feel very secure. Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service. ControlUp offers a return-on-investment type of approach that helps us.”

A VP Virtualisation and Citrix Engineer at BlackRock mentions, “Solve is quickly becoming one of the most-used features. Its interface allows us to connect to all 54,000 monitored endpoints in real-time. The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities. Combined with the triggers, we have been growing their usage to fix things before they become an issue. Lastly, the controller view allows us to compare the configurations of settings side-by-side which is extremely helpful when tracking down the RCA of an issue.”

A Senior Citrix Remote Access Engineer at Rabobank comments, “The high-level view of the estate coupled with powerful administration tools has been great. We can see real-time performance and trends and can create triggers for common issues with associated scripts that can automate a lot of the previous manual remediation steps.”

ControlUp

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

Paessler GmbH

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp vs. PRTG Network Monitor

March 2025

Free Report: ControlUp vs. PRTG Network Monitor

Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. PRTG Network Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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