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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Configuration Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (2nd), Server Monitoring (4th), Patch Management (2nd)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Configuration Management
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (37th), Network Monitoring Software (25th), Server Monitoring (14th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (26th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
NS
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.
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

"While I don't think you can ever have full visibility and control, Intune certainly allows us to see the applications being used and tells us if things like Windows patches aren't applied to machines. It does a good job. That visibility makes life a little easier."
"What I have found most useful in Microsoft Intune is creating an environment where customers or clients need someone to work immediately with an out-of-box experience."
"I am easily able to manage devices and assets, especially laptops and desktops."
"One valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is the enrollment process, which is user-based, making it easier to manage compared to AirWatch."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"Fortunately, now everything is streamlined into a single, unified platform."
"Microsoft Intune has positively impacted my organization by giving a centralized way to manage and secure devices across the organization, improving consistency in how devices are configured, updated, and monitored, and making it easier to support remote users as many management and troubleshooting tasks can be performed without needing physical access to the device."
"We handle the distribution software, collect metrics for app usage, and create policies to make the device compliant for Microsoft Intune."
"Microsoft is being very competitive right now, and they are really investing in a lot of new features to be more competitive in the marketplace."
"The patch management is great."
"The tool's most valuable features include security updates and patch management, which are critical functions for maintaining security. The automated software distribution and the ability to manage deployments are also highly useful. Enforcing compliance with set policies on systems is another key functionality we leverage."
"If you have this solution in your environment, it's a win-win situation."
"It works well for the endpoints for the customer I'm consulting. It has a bunch of knobs, and you can tune it to do lots of things."
"In summary, this product works well and I recommend it."
"Technical support was helpful and responsive."
"Excellent reports for compliance, status of updates, and software metering."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"This is a good, stable network monitoring solution for devices."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the application monitors that allow for discreet roaming on network devices."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"Their tech support is very good."
"It's a good product, and if one has the expertise to use it, it will be a good investment and it will help IT to save and plan for the future."
 

Cons

"Reporting and troubleshooting for the application deployment could be better. It's very difficult to understand."
"A major challenge is making all the products work within device management solutions like Intune. It would be beneficial if Microsoft removed support for older products much earlier in the process."
"I think that there is room for improvement with the reporting. If this is done, it will be a better product."
"At the moment, we need more flexibility. We have some offices migrating to Windows 11 remotely. Sometimes, it is difficult to manage image installation because we have to collect some information before starting image deployment. Currently, Intune cannot collect the information needed for deploying new images."
"I've dealt with Microsoft way too many times, and needless to say, I'm not too fond of Microsoft support most of the time."
"Microsoft Intune can be improved by making it even more seamless for users to download their certificates."
"Each feature has a separate license, making logistics and cost management difficult if not strategically bundled together."
"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."
"There is no asset management package included. You have to buy that separately so we need to use another system to manage that."
"It would be better if automation options were available."
"Sometimes the time it takes to find the fault is a bit too long. The resolution time needs to be shortened quite a bit."
"There are also some limitations of Intune, such as the inability to deploy operating systems the traditional way via task sequences, making it such that we have to use Autopilot to deploy operating systems."
"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."
"Microsoft should extend support for additional platforms."
"It is a bit of an old and outdated product."
"I would like to see an agentless version of the solution."
"The technical support does not bother to respond."
"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."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune is not cost-effective as a standalone product."
"There are licenses required for this solution. We enable licenses on the devices we need to manage."
"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."
"With one user base license, we can use Intune for up to five devices. However, with Soti MobiControl, each license is tied to a single device, meaning one license is dedicated to one device only."
"The price of Intune is included with the license for Office 365, so we don't have to pay anything extra for it."
"It's a bit expensive from a licensing perspective, especially as we look to have organizations with tenants across the globe."
"I have no comment on pricing of the solution."
"Cost is not my department, but the product is included in the E5 license that we already pay for every user, so no additional cost is incurred."
"The price is competitive and reasonable."
"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."
"The price could be better."
"We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."
"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."
"SCCM comes with its own version of SQL Server. If you use that SQL Server with SCCM and don't use it for another applications than you get an SQL Server for free."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other 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."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"This is a well priced solution."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise69
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

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 ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
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 ...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCCM?
The setup cost is considered sufficient. It is not significant enough for us to consider a change at the moment.
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.