SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

SolarWinds and Progress Software are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.4, while Progress Software is ranked #25 with an average rating of 9.5. SolarWinds holds a 1.6% mindshare in APM, compared to Progress Software’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,510 Views
2,527 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 24 WhatsUp Gold reviews

921 Views
737 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are robust network monitoring tools. SolarWinds is superior in feature set, despite WhatsUp Gold having competitive pricing and better support.

Features: WhatsUp Gold is favored for intuitive device discovery, integration capabilities, and straightforward monitoring. SolarWinds has advanced application performance management, deeper network monitoring, and comprehensive analytics, making it the preferred choice for feature richness.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold could benefit from more advanced reporting, a scalable architecture, and enhanced alerting mechanisms. SolarWinds needs improvement in product stability, better error handling, and optimization of resource usage.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is praised for straightforward and quick deployment with excellent customer service. SolarWinds requires a more complex setup but offers detailed documentation and a knowledgeable support team.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold is noted for cost-effectiveness and quicker ROI, making it attractive for budget-conscious buyers. SolarWinds, though more expensive with a slower ROI, is valued for its comprehensive capabilities, justifying the higher cost.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. WhatsUp Gold

May 2025

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Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

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 Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Active Directory Management (11th)

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

25th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (26th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (27th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.6%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Subhajit Nag

Senior Process Associate at Tata Consultancy Services

The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow

SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

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Tom Condo

Supervisor Information Services Operations at Seminole County Public Schools

If CPU, memory, or disk space is over-utilized, it alerts us immediately via text or email if there is an issue

When it comes to the intuitiveness of the topology mapping feature, our network architect created a vision diagram of our entire network and then created the links tied into the WhatsUp active monitoring to different spots on our topology map. It's one of the more critical functions we do here. We have the map displayed in different places in our room and help desk. We get alerted via emails but we can also see it visually. It does what it says it's going to do. We find this feature very helpful. 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. All the information is provided. This feature really helps. You can see the correlation between that link and what failed. This feature is very helpful. The interface is fairly intuitive. Some of our users used SolarWinds and Nagios, and WhatsUp is easy in comparison. Once you get set up, the look, feel, and configuration are good. Our network architect had never used it before but he was able to create the Visio and map. It was very simple. He has no problems with it.

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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

"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."

"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."

"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"It is stable."

"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."

"Our local support team provides excellent service."

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

"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."

"It handles the basics of monitoring."

"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."

"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."

"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."

"Regional product team support is not very good."

"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."

"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."

"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."

"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 interface needs some work."

"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."

"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."

"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."

"The product is expensive."

"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."

"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."

"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."

"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

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

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

"This is a well priced solution."

"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."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

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

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

35%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...

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?

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 benefici...

See all answers

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Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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Grafana vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 13% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 8% of the time

Nagios XI vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 6% of the time

More WhatsUp Gold Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

April 2025

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

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

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

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

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. WhatsUp Gold

May 2025

Free Report: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. WhatsUp Gold

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