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ControlUp vs Spiceworks 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

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)
Spiceworks
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
45th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (17th), IT Asset Management (11th)
 

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 Spiceworks is 0.4%, down from 0.5% 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.
Jeetendar Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable, easy to use, easy to manage, and provides multiple features
I have used many software, but Spiceworks is the best. The tool provides multiple features. It is a valuable product for inventory. It is also useful as a ticketing system. The solution is easy to use and easy to manage. Many people can use it very easily. The features are not complicated. It is very easy to run, install, and understand. That is why my organization decided to use it. The solution’s asset management capabilities have benefitted us in many ways. We are able to manage all the inventory. We have a complete database. We have a record of everything. It is very valuable. I rate the usability of the user interface and dashboard a nine out of ten. The tool is easy to learn compared to other software.

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 feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."
"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."
"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."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"Helpdesk and inventory are both equally valuable, and they form the true core of the product."
"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."
"Spiceworks is generic and free."
"Tickets by e-mail, with actions by hastag."
"The solution is easy to use and easy to manage."
"The solution can find all asset details automatically, whether it's a Mac address, computer name, IP address, models, etc. It's very helpful."
"Spiceworks' dashboard allows you to drill down to the notes, where I can take an inventory of the network and see the devices I need to monitor."
"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."
"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"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."
"The graphical user interface needs to be improved from version to version."
"There are a lot of disadvantages to Spiceworks because it's not an agent-based solution."
"I would like the solution to allow for more direct interaction with computers. I can open tickets and I can see their status, but I can't interact directly with the computers themselves."
"Since Spiceworks is a free tool, it's not very scriptable or customizable."
"The network mapping could be improved. Putting together an actual bonafide network map would be really nice."
"I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment."
"The SNMP sniffer requires a lot of work to get right."
"Having an integrated asset management tool, where I can plug in things that are offline, would be good."
"I would like to see more information when drilling down into access permissions, assignments management, or tagging. When I click a note or a device, I should be able to see more details about the router and modem. For example, I want to see the version, downtime, availability, latency, etc. I should have easy access to everything about our assets at a glance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."
"The tool is cheap."
"It's free."
"The product is free! Get it now."
"It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."
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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%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

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 do you like most about Spiceworks?
The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.
What needs improvement with Spiceworks?
I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. Spiceworks and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,849 professionals have used our research since 2012.