Nagios Core vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Nagios and Progress Software are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Nagios is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.3, while Progress Software is ranked #32 with an average rating of 8.7. Nagios holds a 2.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to Progress Software’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Nagios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

3,994 Views
3,475 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

2,686 Views
1,585 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and Nagios Core are competing network monitoring solutions. WhatsUp Gold has the upper hand in user-friendliness and customer support, whereas Nagios Core is preferred for its advanced feature set, appealing to users who seek complex customization.

Features: WhatsUp Gold offers intuitive network mapping, robust performance monitoring, and efficient alerting features. Nagios Core provides vast plugin architecture, comprehensive monitoring capabilities, and strong community support, allowing extensive customization options.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold could enhance its customization options, expand its plugin integrations, and offer more competitive pricing. Nagios Core might benefit from improving its user interface, simplifying configuration processes, and providing direct customer support options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is known for a straightforward installation process and proactive customer support, minimizing setup time. Nagios Core requires more technical expertise and primarily relies on community-based support, necessitating more time for deployment.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold typically has a higher initial cost but promises a quicker ROI through ease of use and support efficiency. Nagios Core's open-source model allows low-cost setup, offering long-term flexibility but with slower ROI due to necessary technical investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Nagios Core vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. WhatsUp Gold

September 2025

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Helped 868,787 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

Nagios Core

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

12th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

32nd

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

30th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Server Monitoring (16th), Configuration Management (17th), Log Management (28th), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 2.5%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.2%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nagios Core	2.5%
WhatsUp Gold	1.2%
Other	96.3%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Nishith-Vyas

Tech Lead at STL Digital Limited

Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements

The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

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Tom Condo

Supervisor Information Services Operations at Seminole County Public Schools

If CPU, memory, or disk space is over-utilized, it alerts us immediately via text or email if there is an issue

When it comes to the intuitiveness of the topology mapping feature, our network architect created a vision diagram of our entire network and then created the links tied into the WhatsUp active monitoring to different spots on our topology map. It's one of the more critical functions we do here. We have the map displayed in different places in our room and help desk. We get alerted via emails but we can also see it visually. It does what it says it's going to do. We find this feature very helpful. 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. All the information is provided. This feature really helps. You can see the correlation between that link and what failed. This feature is very helpful. The interface is fairly intuitive. Some of our users used SolarWinds and Nagios, and WhatsUp is easy in comparison. Once you get set up, the look, feel, and configuration are good. Our network architect had never used it before but he was able to create the Visio and map. It was very simple. He has no problems with it.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."

"Nagios Core integrates with tools like Splunk, Datadog, or Dynatrace. It is usually used as a feed to provide more technical information about devices or hosts to another system."

"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."

"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."

"The application performance monitoring feature is valuable."

"The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities."

"Provides timely notifications."

More Nagios Core pros

"The product is reasonably priced."

"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."

"The solution effectively monitors network devices and servers."

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

"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."

"It handles the basics of monitoring."

"It is easy to access and discover devices, as well as monitor them automatically. The topology discover is also a useful feature."

"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."

"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."

"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."

"The mapping is a little hard."

"Would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."

"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."

"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."

"The scalability needs improvement, it's not scalable at this time."

More Nagios Core cons

"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution."

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

"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."

"I would like to see better integration with switches so that you can see what is connected to each port, what the traffic is, and have a network map automatically generated."

"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."

"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."

"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."

"I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's free."

"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."

"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."

"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."

"The solution is expensive."

"Most the plugin features are free."

"The product is cheaply priced."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"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 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."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."

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

"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	22

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios Core?

What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?

Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nagios Core?

The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.

See all answers

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 issue is good. When we see a network there will sometimes be a spot that has one l...

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 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

Comparisons

Icinga vs Nagios Core

Compared 21% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 14% of the time

Zabbix vs Nagios Core

Compared 12% of the time

Centreon vs Nagios Core

Compared 7% of the time

Checkmk vs Nagios Core

Compared 6% of the time

More Nagios Core Competitors

Grafana vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 12% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 11% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 9% of the time

ManageEngine OpManager vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 6% of the time

More WhatsUp Gold Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

September 2025

Download Nagios Core product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

September 2025

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Overview

This is IT infrastructure monitoring's industry-standard, open-source core. Free without professional support services.

Nagios

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

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

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

Nagios Core vs. WhatsUp Gold

September 2025

Free Report: Nagios Core vs. WhatsUp Gold

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