ServiceNow Discovery vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

ServiceNow and Progress Software are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. ServiceNow is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Progress Software is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.7. ServiceNow holds a 3.2% mindshare in SM, compared to Progress Software’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Discovery

Read 44 ServiceNow Discovery reviews

3,767 Views
1,997 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

5,476 Views
821 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Discovery

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and ServiceNow Discovery are both prominent network management tools, but they cater to slightly different user needs. ServiceNow Discovery has an edge due to its comprehensive features.

Features: Users like WhatsUp Gold for its intuitive monitoring capabilities, ease of visualization, and user-friendly interface. ServiceNow Discovery is praised for its in-depth automation, extensive infrastructure mapping, and comprehensive discovery processes.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold needs enhancements in scalability, deeper integration with other tools, and improved fault management. ServiceNow Discovery requires better reporting functionalities, a more intuitive setup process, and enhanced speed during asset discovery.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is often noted for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. ServiceNow Discovery can be complex to set up but offers robust long-term support once implemented.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold has competitive setup costs and provides a solid return on investment for small to medium businesses. ServiceNow Discovery, though more expensive, is considered worth the investment due to its powerful enterprise-level functionalities, providing substantial ROI benefits in large-scale deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

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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

ServiceNow Discovery

Ranking in Server Monitoring

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (6th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Server Monitoring

16th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Network Monitoring Software (26th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (24th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (32nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 3.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ServiceNow Discovery	3.2%
WhatsUp Gold	2.9%
Other	93.9%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

reviewer2759271

Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Has supported enterprise needs well and addresses discovery across environments

Small companies will not be able to afford ServiceNow Discovery from the pricing perspective. Hence, they will not opt for ServiceNow Discovery as a solution, either as an ITSM solution or ITOM solution. It will not be affordable. I am specifically talking about the Middle East and Africa region. ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool. They use event management from getting events from other tools. In that front, they had a roadmap for going for an open-source solution, but I have not seen that materialize. There is a lack of tools perspective for monitoring. Perhaps they do not have a plan because there are hundreds of tools available, and they prefer to focus on integration and event management.

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Erik Cheng

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable asset is relationship building because the solution discovers and builds auto relationships in a way that makes cleanup very easy."

"It's a single system of record and it captures the relationships."

"I am impressed with the tool's incident problem change management."

"ServiceNow Discovery works better than other products I've used."

"The product's discovery feature is valuable due to its accuracy, reliability, and the high prestige associated with the information it provides."

"We can find servers or services we were unaware of and stumble on vulnerabilities from those devices."

"The process involving the original setup of the solution is excellent."

"I like ServiceNow Discovery's overall structure and the way data comes in without creating a different dashboard or interface."

More ServiceNow Discovery pros

"Our local support team provides excellent service."

"It is stable."

"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."

"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."

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

"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."

"The documentation is very good."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"ServiceNow Discovery could improve the interface. The navigation bar could improve. It would be helpful to have a landing page to go to find all the elements in one place."

"I am not seeing significant ROI beyond breaking even on what I spend."

"Its integration with legacy apps is one area for improvement. ServiceNow Discovery offers out-of-the-box reports, and though that's okay, allowing easier report customization would improve the solution."

"The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups."

"ServiceNow is very costly."

"Instead of AI, even GenAI should be introduced in ServiceNow Discovery."

"I feel that credential-less discovery could be improved."

"It is one of the most costly applications in terms of subscription costs."

More ServiceNow Discovery cons

"The initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 interface needs some work."

"I might like to see a better interface in the future."

"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."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It costs a lot. It is probably close to over a hundred thousand. It's an expensive platform, but you can't compare ServiceNow's Discovery functionality to other discovery tools. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison of ServiceNow to a configuration management tool to an asset management tool because it does those things, but it's not those things."

"There is a need to make payments every quarter of a year towards the licensing costs of the solution. ServiceNow Discovery is an expensive tool."

"It's a bit expensive compared to other products in the market, but it's worth the money you pay because it's far advanced in terms of features, automation, and capabilities compared to other products."

"The solution is not inexpensive so pricing is rated a three out of ten."

"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."

"As per a general discussion I had with the stakeholders, I figured out that it is a costly tool. There is a need to make additional payments apart from the licensing fees for better support services from ServiceNow."

"It's on a yearly basis. We renew our contract for three years at a time."

"The solution is very expensive."

More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice

"This is a well priced solution."

"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."

"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."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

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

"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 price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	23

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?

The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?

The pricing information for ServiceNow Discovery was requested but not provided.

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What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?

A CMDB debugging tool to give indication about the errors that appear would be appreciated.

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

Tanium vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 16% of the time

Lansweeper vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 13% of the time

BMC Helix Discovery vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 6% of the time

Flexera One vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 6% of the time

More ServiceNow Discovery Competitors

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 4% of the time

LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 4% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

ManageEngine OpManager vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery

January 2026

Download ServiceNow Discovery product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

ServiceNow

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

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY

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

ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

January 2026

Free Report: ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Discovery vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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