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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
15th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
16th
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
22nd
Ranking in Server Monitoring
14th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
18th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 2.4%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.2%, 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 XI2.4%
WhatsUp Gold2.2%
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

"Since the cost is zero and it can use a fairly cheap server to run on the ROI is nearly immediate."
"The overall performance of the product is superb."
"Nagios is my favourite open source monitoring system."
"Nagios XI is easy to install, which sets it apart from other open-source solutions I've tried."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios XI is customization. We can customize based on our requirements. We can do modifications and implement a lot of scripts. Additionally, it is easy to use."
"Our infrastructure is now under monitoring proactively and we don't have to wait for complaints from the customers or internal operation team to inform regarding any issue with the service."
"In my view this product is very good value for money when compared with other commercially provided monitoring solutions."
"The ROI is very good."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"The user interface is good enough."
"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."
"In terms of pricing, I'd say that the pricing is nice and the product is good."
"This product has aided us in procurement and is overall a well-priced solution."
"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
 

Cons

"The product uses the backend as Perl and could be modified to a more lightweight solution like what's being offered by other vendors."
"The reporting structure could be more streamlined."
"We're still experiencing stability issues with regards to collecting performance graphs."
"The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate."
"It's in need of more standard plug-ins."
"For some, it may be difficult to deploy."
"If you are monitoring network devices, often it's not scaled for large corporations. Definitely, a minus in that area."
"We'd like to see more integration capabilities."
"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."
"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."
"The product is old and not updated."
"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."
"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."
"My understanding is that there are better products out there that do a better job."
"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is really cost efficient. The licensing is perpetual and can be renewed very easily."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"Nagios XI is an expensive solution."
"You can grow into the higher-priced scale as they learn how to utilize the features for Nagios XI."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"Nagios XI is open source."
"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 can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"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."
"This is a well priced solution."
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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
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.