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SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
24th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
19th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (26th), Server Monitoring (15th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (35th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
WhatsUp Gold2.3%
Other94.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.
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 simplicity of this product is a valuable feature; everything you need is easily accessible and the maintenance is low."
"There are a lot of options for customization of the dashboard, alerts, and reports."
"Reporting tools are a great feature along with the ability to create customized reports for you"
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"Being able to provide a history of interface behavior helps the organization in a multifaceted way."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"If you’re looking to get a lot more insight and visibility into your network devices, servers, applications, and other devices, along with real-time alert notifications, SolarWinds NPM should be towards the top of your list."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the visibility it offers of everything in the network and infrastructure."
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."
"We primarily use the solution to check the state of the network, monitoring thousands of devices and all of the internal network, and it is the first tool we use to see the state of the network for real-time monitoring."
"The visual map and email alerts are very useful to have in real time so we always know the state of our network."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."
 

Cons

"It would be beneficial if NPM offered support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), as currently, it does not support this and we are migrating our services there."
"Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful."
"If they could combine everything into one product, that would be very helpful."
"The tool can only monitor up to 1000 instances in a single SolarWinds console. Customers may have over 1000 instances. Hence, it needs to support a minimum of 1500 instances. It should also improve support."
"The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements."
"There isn't a great deal of flexibility to create custom metrics that can be discovered easily or custom aggregation schemes."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds. The performance is slow."
"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."
"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive."
"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."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
"Integrations with other devices. I want to have a product that has full integration with my active directory so I can track user activity."
"I would like to see better integration with switches so that you can see what is connected to each port, what the traffic is, and have a network map automatically generated."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"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."
"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 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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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
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
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

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
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 SolarWinds NPM vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.