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SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (5th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SCOM is 1.4%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SCOM1.4%
WhatsUp Gold1.5%
Other97.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.
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

"The stability has been great."
"The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool."
"It works better than other products I’ve used – namely SolarWinds, which is cumbersome and error prone for web app monitoring. SCOM is not."
"The most valuable features in SCOM are Azure monitoring and integration with Azure Monitor for monitoring Azure-hosted servers from SCOM on-premises."
"Setting up SCOM is straightforward and takes about an hour as long as you have all your firewalls and DNS settings in place."
"The solution has improved our overrides and the ability to start services if they're stopped."
"It discovers the components automatically, which is a fantastic thing. The discovery works in an automatic way, and it has a dynamic way of discovering the components, assets, and applications. It doesn't require any manual intervention."
"We are able to do problem determination on runaway processes."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
"The documentation is very good."
"The most important features of WhatsUp Gold are the server health and uptime it provides. Additionally, WhatsUp Gold is a Windows-based solution which is a benefit."
"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
 

Cons

"It lacks certain details that other products do better, like granular access and better application monitoring."
"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"It'll help if they can provide real-time or closer to real-time monitoring."
"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"​I would like to better be able to monitor Oracle processes.​"
"Non Windows monitoring is fairly weak. Network device monitoring is not reliable."
"There could be more integration of SIM in the solution."
"I would like to see better support for monitoring Unix-based systems."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
"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."
"Improvements are needed in integration, especially for WhatsApp call and messages."
"The product is old and not updated."
"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."
"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 pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Two customers bought the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and paid for Software Assurance. But few customers don't buy it for Software Assurance. They just buy it and deploy it, and they think that we will be using it for the next five years."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"This is a well priced solution."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other 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 is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"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 choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
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...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
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 SCOM vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.