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Nagios XI vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

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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
15th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
21st
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
25th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
18th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
23rd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
27th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (44th), Configuration Management (22nd), Log Management (41st), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 2.5%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.0%, 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 Gold2.0%
Other95.5%
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

"Though I downplayed the administrative NCC GUI, this is by far the strongest aspect of the Nagios XI product."
"We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful."
"Nagios XI is stable."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its simplicity."
"I can monitor a phone on a desk to very big servers of any company."
"The installation is no problem. I've installed Nagios several times."
"Nagios XI helped me to draw the network and check for system failures."
"Overall, it's a powerful system."
"There is a flow monitor option, so we can trace the source IP, the destination IP, and top talker feature in this."
"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 most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"It is stable."
"It handles the basics of monitoring."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
 

Cons

"From an alerting point of view, some graphics and metrics don't work properly with Nagios XI as they do with Checkmk."
"Nagios XI can improve its GUI for users with a new look."
"Nagios XI can improve network and hardware monitoring, these parameters should be simplified to allow usage for monitoring. Additionally, if there was automatic reporting it would be helpful."
"Backup mechanisms and some kind of templating system for dashboards are needed."
"We'd like to see more integration capabilities."
"While this solution works, I think that it can be improved in terms of maintenance, support, and price."
"The PNP4Nagios plugin not working easily with XI is an issue for me, because some open source monitoring plugins do not work out of the box. But in the end, you learn to live with it."
"The important separation between Interface and Core to maintain historical plugins and methods generate complexity that makes Nagios unusable for repeat work."
"The initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."
"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."
"Improvements are needed in integration, especially for WhatsApp call and messages. Our region heavily uses WhatsApp Messenger for communication, and integration with this platform would be beneficial."
"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 technical support does not bother to respond."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"Nagios Core does not have any payment, but Nagios XI requires payment for the license."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"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."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"This is a well priced solution."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing 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 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."
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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
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
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.
 

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: October 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.