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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 (5th), Patch Management (2nd)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Configuration Management
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (34th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), Server Monitoring (14th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (17th), Log Management (39th), Cloud Monitoring Software (25th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)
 

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

"Microsoft Intune is best for Windows devices and security in Office 365 and Microsoft-related enterprise environments. It's a nice platform for endpoint management."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The ability to work from all over the planet is valuable. You just need a functioning and working Internet connection."
"Within Intune, managing policies and having a consistent way to manage devices is valuable."
"Easy to use."
"It is very stable and scalable because this is a cloud-only solution."
"There are no complaints about the stability. It works one hundred percent of the time."
"We have one MDM that works with Windows, iOS, and Android."
"I like a lot of the reporting capabilities and baseline configurations."
"There is a faster time to rollout, and if we get a new PC, it can be ready for productivity right away."
"The cloud account management is a valuable feature."
"The product is useful for patch management."
"The solution may be one of the top products from a management standpoint."
"Offers good patching."
"This solution helps to ease the day-to-day system operations and standardization of the organization."
"The solution doesn't require any maintenance from our end because it is a cloud-based solution and Microsoft takes care of everything."
"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."
"We primarily use the solution to check the state of the network, monitoring thousands of devices and all of the internal network, and it is the first tool we use to see the state of the network for real-time monitoring."
"This product has aided us in procurement and is overall a well-priced solution."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
"There is a flow monitor option, so we can trace the source IP, the destination IP, and top talker feature in this."
"In terms of pricing, I'd say that the pricing is nice and the product is good."
"It is stable."
"It is very good at monitoring the network and keeps us up to date on the status of internal devices."
 

Cons

"What frustrates me the most is just waiting and tapping my fingers, uncertain about whether my changes will take effect."
"The reports aren't complete, and it's not easy to build custom reports."
"Regarding what I dislike about Microsoft Intune and its downsides, I would say that more Mac controls are needed because we have limited Mac and Linux control."
"If we can not seem to get even half a dozen users working with the product in a way we consider stable, the scalability is in question."
"I know that their AI pieces are at the infancy stage, but allowing users to do more tagging for information would be an interesting thing because Intune also directly integrates with Azure. Because a lot of the devices are hosted with that, you also get a lot of tagging of user data and other things like that."
"There should be more focus on mobile device security and integration."
"The solution's app deployment needs to be improved."
"The initial setup of Microsoft Intune could be more simplified, but apart from this, everything is outstanding and performs well as per our expectations."
"There is no asset management package included."
"The main SCCM lacks some things, which they incorporated into Microsoft Intune. When I evaluated these two products, one from VMware Workspace One and one from Microsoft, I found that there is something missing in SCCM, which is available and works very well in VMware Workspace One."
"I'm looking for a single solution for all discovery needs. It fulfills about 40% of the requirements, and I'd like to see the other 60% so that I don't have to keep doing this."
"One area of improvement is regarding the patching of Office 365 products. We have some difficulties on this side, and it can be improved."
"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."
"Troubleshooting in general needs improvement. There's just a ton of logs to go through, and so finding the error log that corresponds with that you're doing can sometimes be difficult."
"Regarding this, I'd like to mention the agent situation. When the agent on an end-user device is not functioning correctly, it can be quite problematic. It would be highly beneficial if there were a self-healing mechanism in place. Essentially, if the agent becomes corrupted or encounters issues, it should be able to rectify itself autonomously. This is particularly critical because, in order to utilize a tool like MECM (assuming you're referring to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager), we need to deploy agents, known as AsMs, on all the devices we use, such as Windows 10 or Windows Server. Sometimes, when we deploy configurations or updates, they don't apply properly due to agent issues. This issue has been present since we began using MECM around 23 years ago. Unfortunately, there is currently no built-in mechanism for the agent to detect its own problems and initiate self-repair. Microsoft doesn’t have any feature to scan vulnerabilities and hence, they could include those."
"The tool's deployment can be cumbersome."
"Sometimes it's a little bit slow."
"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"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."
"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."
"There is a very big gap in the support."
"Honestly, I do not particularly like WhatsUp Gold. I think we should get rid of it."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future. It's not necessarily easy to integrate the product with other vendors."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a bit expensive from a licensing perspective, especially as we look to have organizations with tenants across the globe."
"We work with the subscription rather than a server license. I think it's economical this way because we don't have to have a server license for that, and I think that works in our favor."
"Every customer used to purchase licenses based on their needs."
"The price for Intune is fair."
"Its price is in the medium range. It is acceptable because you're paying for the features. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."
"There is a license needed to use the solution and we are on an annual license."
"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."
"We have to pay for a license."
"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."
"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."
"The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive."
"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."
"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."
"We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"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."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"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."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise186
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: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.