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VMware vCenter 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

VMware vCenter
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Server Monitoring
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (34th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (17th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Cloud Monitoring Software (25th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of VMware vCenter is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 3.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vCenter2.0%
WhatsUp Gold3.7%
Other94.3%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

VinayKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Data Centre at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Centralized control has improved data center virtualization and streamlined DC DR replication
The pricing of VMware vCenter is high. What was earlier, before it was acquired by Broadcom, was different. Now, Broadcom has acquired it, and the earlier arrangement was that we used to bundle the license and purchase it according to our choice. Now, they bundle it with vSAN, which many organizations may not use. Although we purchase it along with the bundled license, we pay for something which is of no use to us because we have our own storage. If they had separate pricing for each module, organizations could purchase only the modules they need, and the price would lower. For smaller organizations, this can become a huge cost issue. For larger organizations, there is no issue, but for medium-sized organizations, they have to shell out a lot.
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

"In vCenter, I can easily manage storage and move it from one server to another, which is beneficial for the environment."
"The DRS, high availability and manageable switches are the most valuable features of VMware vCenter"
"VMware vCenter is the best from a management perspective, scoring ten on a scale of one to ten."
"The filtering capabilities also enhance scalability by optimizing resource allocation."
"It has significantly impacted our organization by facilitating troubleshooting and monitoring processes."
"VMware vCenter has significantly improved our infrastructure management by enabling virtualization. We can virtualize our infrastructure, eliminating the need to access servers physically. Everything can be managed remotely."
"The product is scalable."
"The most valuable features of VMware vCenter for our organization include its centralized management capabilities and the ability to handle virtual machines across multiple ESXi hosts efficiently."
"Their tech support is very good."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution, but after that, it's possible to do almost anything with it."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the visibility it offers of everything in the network and infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
"We've been using it for many years and we use it typically for early warning, as it notifies customers of problems prior to failure."
"The documentation is very good."
 

Cons

"Areas for improvement with vCenter include changes in licensing models."
"The web interface is not convenient."
"It is not easy to upgrade VMware vCenter from an old version to a new version."
"The technical support team could respond faster."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"The stability could be better."
"The monitoring features are limited."
"Sometimes, vCenter management can be difficult if you forget the password. You can't change or recover the password easily. We then have to reinstall vCenter, which means reconfiguring everything. That's a challenge we've encountered."
"The interface needs some work."
"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."
"This product should add other options for monitoring. It does not currently meet the broader needs of the banking industry in the version we have deployed."
"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."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform is expensive."
"For the healthcare industry, the price is considerably higher than the education industry."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing is significantly high."
"The tool used to be worth the money, but after Broadcom acquired it and changed the pricing structure to subscription-only, it became too expensive for us to continue using. Unfortunately, we haven't found any alternative solutions that meet our needs, so this is a significant drawback for us as we explore other options."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is affordable for now."
"The product is expensive."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware vCenter?
The initial package for VMware vCenter is not less than $10,000, which can be prohibitive for smaller organizations. The licensing model now requires purchasing 96-core solutions, even if fewer cor...
What needs improvement with VMware vCenter?
The pricing of VMware vCenter is high. What was earlier, before it was acquired by Broadcom, was different. Now, Broadcom has acquired it, and the earlier arrangement was that we used to bundle the...
What is your primary use case for VMware vCenter?
My main use case for VMware vCenter is mainly for virtualization and what we call DCDR replication. I can say we are not using all the features. Our main aim is only that we are using it for virtua...
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Amazon 2. Apple 3. ATT 4. Bank of America 5. Cisco Systems 6. CocaCola 7. Dell 8. ebay 9. Facebook 10. Google 11. HP 12. IBM 13. Intel 14. JPMorgan Chase 15. LinkedIn 16. Microsoft 17. Netflix 18. Oracle 19. PayPal 20. SAP 21. Siemens 22. Tesla 23. Toyota 24. Twitter 25. Visa 26. Walmart 27. WeWork 28. World Bank
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 VMware vCenter vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.