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Nagios XI vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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 XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
16th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
21st
Ranking in Server Monitoring
14th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
17th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
25th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (34th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 2.5%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.1%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios XI2.5%
WhatsUp Gold2.1%
Other95.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emmanuel Appiah Boateng - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simplifies setup and requires user interface enhancement
Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried. Typically, setting up a monitoring system on Linux involves cloning files from GitHub, building it, and installing many dependencies, but with Nagios XI, it wasn't like that. Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring 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

"Nagios XI allows my customer to monitor literally thousands of network and computing endpoints (both hardware and software) in real time, including custom derived SNMP polling and traps."
"It is a very stable solution and the best solution for monitoring any IT infrastructure for all companies."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"Nagios has good scalability."
"Nagios XI is stable."
"Nagios is stable and it's easy to use the monitoring software, which is why we chose this product."
"The technical support is good."
"You can save a lot of time using Nagios monitoring because otherwise you need to check all of your services or system one by one."
"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."
"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."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"It is stable."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the application monitors that allow for discreet roaming on network devices."
"This product has aided us in procurement and is overall a well-priced solution."
 

Cons

"Technical support is an area that needs improvement. It is not available 24/7."
"The Configuration Wizard needs improvement, because not all vendors are present."
"The NCC does have issues where it locks up or an admin cannot be sure if the system configuration was exact."
"We're still experiencing stability issues with regards to collecting performance graphs."
"We often need to develop custom plugins to get Nagios to work the way we want it to work because the features we need are not always available in Nagios."
"The product's stability could be even better."
"I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it."
"The product does not have SAP monitoring."
"The interface needs some work."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"Sometimes it's a little bit slow."
"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."
"The initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."
"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."
"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."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future. It's not necessarily easy to integrate the product with other vendors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For our country in North Africa, it's expensive and we could purchase another solution for that price. But it's a reasonable price if we're speaking in international terms."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"This is a well priced solution."
"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 choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing 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 Business22
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
What is your primary use case for Nagios XI?
I normally use Nagios XI for our servers. It's not particularly used for network equipment, however, I use it for monitoring our server performance, including CPU, memory, data, and services runnin...
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 ...
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.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
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 Nagios XI vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.