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ControlUp vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
37th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
PRTG Network Monitor
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.3%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.
Tochukwu Uzomba - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set
PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."
"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."
"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"It is a central solution in terms of how to actually use it. It has a very easy dashboard. Everything is concise. We are able to create custom sensors. For different parts of the business, we have many products across many environments, and it works for everything."
"PRTG is relatively intuitive and fairly straightforward. It has net flow monitoring and that works all right. I would describe it as a decent middle-of-the-road solution."
"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational."
"I like the mobility of the PRTG Network Monitor and ITOps Dashboard."
"We like the alerting system, the SNMP monitoring and the customization of the bandwidth."
"The up-to-date graphs and the history are very good."
"The solution is very easy to use and the web provides information with ease."
"It is user-friendly. It is easy to set up health checks within PRTG and use scans. It is like a self-service tool, and anyone can configure their own settings within PRTG."
 

Cons

"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."
"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"There was some lag earlier, and reports pulled from the dashboard would sometimes be half an hour old. But now, the information provides real-time status, which is greatly appreciated. Overall, I've seen improvement in the product."
"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."
"The free version only gives us 100 free sensors to use. It would be nice if there was double that."
"Along with more room for automation, more room for advanced configuration can be integrated into the solution."
"In a very few cases, customers want more detailed reports, which we cannot meet."
"We've had some issues previously with the performance of the sensors. We tend to deploy quite a bit of WMI, which is quite processor-intensive, and we've found that that impacts the sensors quite a bit."
"PRTG Network Monitor could improve the price."
"The technical support service should be improved."
"They just released a newer version of the desktop app, a beta version, that I have been trialing out. I prefer the older version, only because of how the layout is designed"
"More training videos for installing and configuring this software would have been nice, especially when working with a lot of devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"The pricing is not too bad. It's not massively expensive, and the ability to upscale or even downscale licenses every year is brilliant for us."
"At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed."
"We have an unlimited perpetual license, so we just pay support costs and it can scale throughout the organization."
"PRTG Network Monitor is cheap."
"We pay for PRTG Network Monitor annually. The price is approximately 10,000 rupees annually."
"Because we are only on the free version, we have a limited number of sensors. Therefore, we are not monitoring as much as we want to be to obtain historical information."
"We used a product called SolarWinds in the past, and its cost was high. Whereas, PRTG came in at a third of SolarWind's cost."
"We pay nothing for it. Its 100 sensors have allowed us to put a magnifying glass on some systems, providing an extra layer of detail. Therefore, our outgoing is nothing and our incoming is a lot of useful data that we can react to proactively."
report
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.
What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 20000...
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
We use the tool to monitor approximately 2,00,000 devices for a client. We check how the devices are doing in terms of hardware and software. We also check their health and alerts every day. If som...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor. That's why I'm using the free100 sensor license.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. PRTG Network Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,960 professionals have used our research since 2012.