Microsoft Configuration Manager vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Microsoft and Progress Software are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while Progress Software is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.7. Additionally, 91% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

Microsoft Configuration Manager and WhatsUp Gold compete in the IT management solutions category. Microsoft Configuration Manager appears stronger for enterprises with extensive software deployment needs, while WhatsUp Gold excels in network monitoring for smaller networks.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager provides application deployment, integration with Microsoft products, and valuable compliance reporting. It also supports comprehensive remote management and security features. WhatsUp Gold offers auto-discovery, topology mapping, and real-time network insights with easy visualization tools, device health checks, and bandwidth monitoring.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager could enhance its performance and provide better PowerShell integration with improved support for non-Microsoft products. A more appliance-like interface and accurate compliance reporting would benefit users. WhatsUp Gold would benefit from simplifying its licensing model, adding deeper integration options, and improving its interface and monitoring capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Configuration Manager is primarily on-premises, with hybrid options and a complex initial deployment process. It benefits from extensive online resources but has mixed reviews for customer service responsiveness. WhatsUp Gold is also on-premises with praise for easy setup and generally good customer service, although some users report occasional delays.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager's pricing can be seen as costly, especially for smaller businesses, but its integration and automation capabilities justify its cost for larger enterprises. WhatsUp Gold, with a clearer licensing model, is considered reasonably priced, especially for educational institutions and smaller businesses, although it can become costly for extended monitoring functions.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold

March 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

Microsoft Intune

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble

Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24

Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license

The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.

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Narendar S

Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Centralized endpoint control has streamlined deployments and improved security compliance

In my experience, the best features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are software deployments and updates, OSD, hardware and software inventory, compliance and configuration baseline, reporting and monitoring, and integration with Intune hybrid management. These features make endpoint management efficient and scalable. The feature I rely on the most day-to-day is software deployment and patch management. It keeps endpoints updated and secure with minimal manual effort. Inventory and compliance monitoring are also important, but daily deployments are critical. Microsoft Configuration Manager has had a significant positive impact on our organization in several ways: improved efficiency, enhanced security and compliance, standardization, scalability, and visibility reporting. Overall, Microsoft Configuration Manager has helped us save time, reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain strong control over our endpoints. One of the biggest impacts Microsoft Configuration Manager has had on efficiency is the reduced manual work for software deployment and patching. For example, deploying a new application or security updates to hundreds or thousands of devices previously required several days of manual effort, including running scripts, checking devices individually, and validating installation. With Microsoft Configuration Manager, these tasks are automated and managed, allowing deployments to complete in hours rather than days. We also have automated reporting for deployment success and compliance which saved the IT team significant time that used to be spent gathering and reconciling inventory data from multiple tools.

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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

"I find Microsoft Intune valuable primarily for its Windows management capabilities, along with its Android Enterprise and Apple device management for mobile devices."

"Among the most valuable features are the Company Portal that is built into Intune, and the update rings so that we can manage what types of future updates the devices get."

"Conditional access helps me control uncontrolled access."

"It is a cloud-based service. It is easy to use and offers privacy."

"There are many features in Microsoft Intune. For personal mobile devices, MDM is what I most prefer."

"The synchronization of Intune with other Microsoft solutions is a valuable feature."

"The biggest benefits of Intune are the ability to push changes and the added security. When we moved forward with Defender, we onboarded all those machines automatically. That helps dramatically. For a while, we were left with machines that weren't protected. We could see where people had done things they shouldn't have done, and Defender saved our skins a few times. It didn't happen a lot, but it happened enough that it made us glad we made that decision."

"Intune does consolidate all endpoint and security management tools into one place, making everything easier to manage."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The initial setup is fairly straightforward."

"It lets you know what your infrastructure is like and what state you are in."

"I like its ease of use. It does what you need it to do, and it's a one-stop-shop for the company and for all your deployments. If you incorporate Intune into it, you can have both. You can bring your own devices and corporate devices, and everything runs out of SCCM and Intune."

"Provides great insight into the functionalities of the data scope."

"Microsoft has done a good job with authentication solutions, such as single sign-on, or open authentication."

"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."

"It gives us the ability to set up schedules, according to what our security requirements are, to automate the patching of our servers and desktops."

"It's helped us solve problems surrounding patching, installing, and reporting different patches, etc., on the virtual machines."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

"It handles the basics of monitoring."

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

"Our local support team provides excellent service."

"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 link. You can go into a particular part of the topology map, scroll in, and see exactly which module it is."

"The product is reasonably priced."

"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."

"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."

"It is stable."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"Some enrollment features could be improved."

"The interface is not as modern as some competitors in terms of single pane of glass visibility across the entire landscape. It has a very Azure vibe and may not be as graphically appealing as other products."

"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."

"In the past, I raised some tickets for the enhancement feature, which was missing in Intune."

"Every time we call, we get bounced to a new team... there is no cohesive end-to-end support, which is very frustrating and time-consuming."

"Lacking in features such as Wi-Fi and network security."

"The reporting could be improved, as it's pretty poor compared to other products of this type."

"We've faced significant pushback with Copilot as our clients aren't seeing a favorable cost-benefit analysis."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."

"The solution could improve the functionality for automating, license management. Additionally, more and better-looking reports are needed."

"The operations could be faster and you need some patience with this tool."

"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."

"There's no way to say, "I want this maintenance window to be on the second Tuesday of the month." It's strict. This window is this and that's it. You can't fluctuate."

"It is a bit of an old and outdated product."

"With Microsoft Premier Support, you get what you pay for. There's Third Tier Support that you pay for. If you pay for that, you get excellent support, and if you don't pay for that, then you get the less experienced staff."

"The solution is a bit heavy on the sources such as RAM or CPU and the software needs to be a bit lighter."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"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."

"I haven't had any issue with stability, except during the upgrade to 2017 when we encountered slow responses."

"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."

"I might like to see a better interface in the future."

"Sometimes it's a little bit slow."

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

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

"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."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is good because customers are not complaining about it."

"Based on the features that it gives, it is cost-efficient. It is not necessarily on the expensive side of the scale. It provides a hefty number of features that any organization would want. It is in a good price range."

"The pricing is inherently reasonable, as Microsoft leverages market insights to maintain the total cost of ownership at around ninety to ninety-five percent of what would be incurred in an on-premise scenario."

"The cost of the license and the features are justified for myself as a technical person."

"There is a cost benefit of using Microsoft Intune because of the packaging with other Microsoft products."

"This cost is approximately $30 USD per user per month."

"It comes as a bundle, so you do not really know what the prices are. Microsoft does not break it down to the user cost for us. It is just bundled with our E5 license."

"We have a limited budget for security investments, so Microsoft should consider reducing pricing in our region. This would make investment more viable, especially since larger businesses in other countries can afford it easily."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."

"There is not a license needed to use the solution."

"Along with buying a license for MECM, we also have to buy a service called CMG (Cloud Management Gateway) which is a virtual machine in the cloud with which you can link your MECM to the Azure tenant so as to manage teleworkers."

"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."

"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."

"The price model is different for every client."

"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."

"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

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

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

"This is a well priced solution."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"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."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	124
Midsize Enterprise	53
Large Enterprise	168

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	66

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

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?

Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...

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What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?

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How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...

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How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?

ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. Wh...

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What do you like most about SCCM?

One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...

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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 is...

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 fir...

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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 complic...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

March 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

March 2026

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Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

February 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service designed for device management, security, and compliance. It supports automation and facilitates endpoint management for Windows, iOS, and Android devices, ensuring data protection and efficient policy enforcement.

Microsoft Intune offers seamless integration with tools like Windows Autopilot to automate device setup and deployment. Integrated with Azure Active Directory, it enhances policy management while providing robust reporting and analytics tools for compliance tracking. Despite its intuitive interface aimed at simplifying navigation and device security management, there are challenges such as compatibility issues with Linux and Mac, limited policy support for Android, and demands for better third-party integration. It's widely used for both corporate-owned devices and BYOD scenarios in dynamic IT environments.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Windows Autopilot: Automates device setup for rapid deployment.
Azure Active Directory Integration: Enhances user policy management.
Reporting and Analytics: Improves compliance visibility.
Mobile Application Management: Ensures app security without compromising personal data.
Cloud-Based Management: Allows management from any location.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Time Efficiency: Automation reduces time in policy enforcement and configuration updates.
Enhanced Security: Ensures data protection across corporate-owned and BYOD devices.
Improved Compliance: Advanced reporting tools enhance compliance visibility.
Flexible Management: Cloud-based nature supports management from any location.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure data protection and compliance with regulatory standards. Manufacturing sectors utilize Intune for managing a distributed workforce across global locations, while educational institutions employ it to secure and manage devices in learning environments supporting both students and faculty.

Microsoft

Microsoft Configuration Manager streamlines IT management with features such as software deployment, patch management, and automation, centralizing operations for Windows environments. Integration with Microsoft products allows efficient oversight of workstations and servers.

Microsoft Configuration Manager provides comprehensive IT management, offering software deployment, patch management, and application pushing. Automation reduces manual tasks, ensuring consistency across systems. Centralized management enables standardized OS deployments, application updates, and configuration integrity. Integration with Microsoft products facilitates seamless operations, while hardware and software inventory, compliance reporting, and remote control functions enhance IT management. Users seek improvements in application deployment for those without deep scripting knowledge and desire better WSUS control, PowerShell and Intune integration, Linux compatibility, and user interface enhancements. Performance improvements are requested for remote user management and third-party application support.

What features enhance Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Software Deployment: Efficiently distribute software across large networks.
Patch Management: Automate and streamline update processes for security and functionality.
Automation Capabilities: Reduce manual effort and enhance consistency in IT tasks.
Centralized Management: Standardize OS deployments and application updates.
Integration with Microsoft Products: Seamless operation with existing Microsoft infrastructure.
Hardware and Software Inventory: Comprehensive tracking for assets and resources.
Compliance Reporting: Ensure compliance with internal and external standards.
Remote Control Functions: Enhance support and troubleshooting capabilities.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Decreased Manual Work: Automation reduces time spent on repetitive tasks.
Enhanced Security: Automated patch management keeps systems secure.
Consistent Configurations: Centralized updates ensure uniformity across systems.
Improved Integration: Seamless operation within Microsoft ecosystems boosts productivity.
Comprehensive Oversight: Detailed inventory and reporting tools aid in strategic planning.
Streamlined Support: Remote capabilities improve IT support and user satisfaction.

Microsoft Configuration Manager is widely implemented in organizations to manage Windows workstations and servers. It is essential for deploying operating systems and applications, managing software updates, and conducting hardware and software inventories. The tool is crucial for endpoint and configuration management, ensuring compliance, and automating processes like patching and vulnerability management. Industries such as finance, healthcare, and education rely on Microsoft Configuration Manager to keep systems secure and operational, adapting it to address their specific needs and challenges in maintaining diversified IT environments.

Microsoft

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

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

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

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold

March 2026

Free Report: Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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