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ControlUp 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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (30th), Network Monitoring Software (23rd), Server Monitoring (15th), Configuration Management (21st), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
WhatsUp Gold2.6%
ControlUp0.8%
Other96.6%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2717526 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Delivers comprehensive and customizable system management with increased efficiency
The best features I have found are that it is very customizable, which would be number one, and very extensible through the use of scripts and triggers. The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening. It may sound facetious, but it really is everything about it. Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place. The benefits I have seen from using it so far include the ability to know in advance and take actions based on the information the tool gives you.
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

"I would recommend this product because it is straightforward to use and stable."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"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 has a lot of automation in it; it detects problems and failures very well, and it's not only monitoring, but it's also detecting, and it could even fix problems with a lot of automation that you can put in place to fix problems automatically before you even detect them."
"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"This product's most valuable feature is that it allows you to consume many resources from a centralized tool."
"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."
"It handles the basics of monitoring."
"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."
"The documentation is very good."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
"This is a good, stable network monitoring solution for devices."
"The visual map and email alerts are very useful to have in real time so we always know the state of our network."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"The new version has a lot of improved features."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"ControlUp doesn't allow us to monitor the network infrastructure, so we are obliged to acquire another solution that allows us to monitor the network."
"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7."
"It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly."
"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."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"Users want SMS available via Whatsapp Gold. They don't want to go through third party SMS servers."
"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."
"My understanding is that there are better products out there that do a better job."
"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."
"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."
"Integrations with other devices. I want to have a product that has full integration with my active directory so I can track user activity."
"I would like to see them do an enhancement to the application monitoring. A lot of other products do better application monitoring so they should do some improvements to the application monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"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."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"This is a well priced solution."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"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 tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
I was taking care of a Citrix infrastructure, and as ControlUp is the best monitoring tool for those environments, I was also using ControlUp to monitor those environments.
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.
What is your primary use case for WhatsUp Gold?
My use case for WhatsUp Gold includes all device availability checks, bandwidth usage, CPU, and memory usage, as well as alarm notifications.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
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 ControlUp vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.