Icinga vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Icinga and Progress Software are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Icinga is ranked #37, while Progress Software is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.0. Icinga holds a 1.2% mindshare in NMS, compared to Progress Software’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Icinga users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

6,705 Views
5,096 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

11,469 Views
6,537 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Icinga

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and Icinga are both robust network monitoring tools with distinct strengths. WhatsUp Gold holds the upper hand in ease of use, while Icinga excels in flexibility and advanced customization options.

Features: WhatsUp Gold features ease of setup, intuitive dashboards, and comprehensive monitoring with minimal configuration. Icinga offers flexibility, extensive plugin support, and customizable options catering to varied network environments.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold needs more advanced alerting mechanisms, better integration capabilities, and enhanced operational sophistication. Icinga requires better documentation, improved UI, and a lower learning curve for new users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold provides smoother deployment with less effort and prompt customer service. Icinga, although more complex to deploy, has strong community support but lacks the direct responsiveness of WhatsUp Gold's customer service.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold offers better immediate value with straightforward pricing and quicker ROI due to ease of use. Icinga has a higher upfront investment but potentially offers better long-term ROI through advanced features and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold

June 2026

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Helped 900,747 peers since 2012

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

Icinga

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

37th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

16th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

48th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

34th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

22nd

Ranking in Server Monitoring

14th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

18th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

23rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.2%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
WhatsUp Gold	2.2%
Icinga	1.2%
Other	96.6%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201

Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect

It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated. The alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains."

"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."

"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."

"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."

"Icinga2 was designed to delegate, distribute and balance tasks between several nodes."

"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."

"People should know that it is simple and advanced."

"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."

More Icinga pros

"The installation and configuration process are easy."

"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."

"The user interface is good enough."

"Overall, we have been satisfied with the functionality of the product."

"This product has aided us in procurement and is overall a well-priced solution."

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the application monitors that allow for discreet roaming on network devices."

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

"The visual map and email alerts are very useful to have in real time so we always know the state of our network."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."

"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."

"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."

"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."

"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."

"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."

"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."

"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."

More Icinga cons

"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 want to track my complete user activity, so I'm looking for a product to implement in the near future, which will have full integration with my network and active directory users. It became very difficult to track user activity."

"Setting up WhatsUp Gold is complicated and not easy because it requires managing SNMP and many complex settings in the devices it's monitoring, and fine-tuning it to fit our needs is also not very easy."

"The price could be improved. When we first started using this product, the company was new. The prices were very low then, in comparison with HP OpenView or IBM, but now the policy is too high, relative to the number of devices we have."

"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."

"The interface needs some work."

"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."

"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 beneficial."

"Sometimes it's a little bit slow."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

"The solution is cheap."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"It's an open-source solution."

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"The solution is free to use."

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

"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."

"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."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

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

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Zabbix vs Icinga

Compared 11% of the time

Checkmk vs Icinga

Compared 7% of the time

Nagios XI vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

LogicMonitor vs Icinga

Compared 2% of the time

More Icinga Competitors

LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

ScienceLogic vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

More WhatsUp Gold Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

June 2026

Download Icinga product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

May 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

No data available

Overview

Icinga is a robust tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, known for its distributed monitoring capabilities and seamless integration with multiple platforms. It efficiently observes servers, network devices, and environments like Linux and Windows, enabling proactive issue identification and resource management.

With a focus on task delegation and clustering, Icinga offers an intuitive interface through its GUI and Icinga Director, simplifying configuration. The extensive plugin library supports diverse technologies, while the API allows automation with tools like Terraform and Ansible. Despite its strengths, users report challenges with data display in the GUI, a need for improved dashboards, and complex configuration processes. Users benefit from its SNMP alerts, email notifications, and automated incident handling, making it essential for managed service environments and enterprises.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Task Delegation: Streamlines monitoring tasks across distributed systems.
Event Handler: Enables automatic service recovery with minimal intervention.
Plugin Library: Offers extensive support for integrating diverse technologies.
API Accessibility: Facilitates automation with popular tools like Terraform.
Custom Plugins: Allows easy creation and personalization for monitoring needs.

What benefits should you consider in Icinga reviews?

Flexibility: Tailors monitoring to specific requirements with community support.
Scalability: Successfully manages growing infrastructure demands.
Proactivity: Enhances issue identification and resource allocation.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing IT operations platforms.

Icinga is widely adopted in IT environments for monitoring servers, networks, and applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology. Its ability to integrate with various operating systems and automation platforms makes it a versatile choice for industries prioritizing comprehensive surveillance and proactive management of their infrastructure.

Icinga

WhatsUp Gold stands out with its comprehensive network monitoring, dynamic mapping, and real-time alerts, offering essential tools for managing extensive IT infrastructures.

WhatsUp Gold provides robust capabilities in network visibility through dynamic mapping and NetFlow analysis. The platform's interactive topology aids in pinpointing issues effectively. Auto-discovery ensures complete network device tracking. While offering an intuitive interface and integration with Cisco ServiceNow, users find server performance monitoring useful for incident handling. However, improvements are anticipated in application monitoring and Active Directory integration. The pricing model and customization options leave room for enhancement. Despite these, users benefit from its integrated dashboards for immediate device health checks and network updates, making it beneficial for large-scale infrastructure management.

What features does WhatsUp Gold offer?

Network Monitoring: Provides continuous oversight of network components
Dynamic Mapping: Offers visual representation of network topology
NetFlow Analysis: Delivers insights into bandwidth utilization
Threshold Alerts: Notifies users upon reaching set performance thresholds
Auto-Discovery: Detects devices automatically for complete network coverage

What benefits should users expect from reviews?

Comprehensive Visibility: Enhanced understanding of network elements
Real-Time Monitoring: Immediate insights into network and device status
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive solution suitable for expansive networks
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the management of complex networks

Organizations in sectors like telecommunications, education, and healthcare utilize WhatsUp Gold for their network monitoring needs. Telecom companies track switches and routers, educational institutions manage bandwidth usage, and healthcare facilities monitor device availability to ensure seamless operations.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

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

Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold

June 2026

Free Report: Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold

Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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