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Datadog vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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

Datadog
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
3rd
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
207
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (6th)
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
31st
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
32nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
30th
Ranking in Log Management
28th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (16th), Configuration Management (17th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Datadog is 3.1%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.2%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Datadog3.1%
WhatsUp Gold1.2%
Other95.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Dhroov Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Has improved incident response with better root cause visibility and supports flexible on-call scheduling
Datadog needs to introduce more hard limits to cost. If we see a huge log spike, administrators should have more control over what happens to save costs. If a service starts logging extensively, I want the ability to automatically direct that log into the cheapest log bucket. This should be the case with many offerings. If we're seeing too much APM, we need to be aware of it and able to stop it rather than having administrators reach out to specific teams. Datadog has become significantly slower over the last year. They could improve performance at the risk of slowing down feature work. More resources need to go into Fleet Automation because we face many problems with things such as the Ansible role to install Datadog in non-containerized hosts. We mainly want to see performance improvements, less time spent looking at costs, the ability to trust that costs will stay reasonable, and an easier way to manage our agents. It is such a powerful tool with much potential on the horizon, but cost control, performance, and agent management need improvement. The main issues are with the administrative side rather than the actual application.
Tom Condo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to implement and scale applications with standardized visibility, monitoring and alerting"
"Thanks to frequent concurrent deployments, the DataDog alerts monitors allow us quickly detect issues if anything occurs."
"The ability to easily drill down into log queries quickly and efficiently has helped us to resolve several critical incidents."
"The performance of Datadog is good."
"We've been able to glean from the monitors what servers are down, and can alert the team in Slack."
"We enjoy the multistep API tests."
"The observability on offer is the most useful aspect of the product."
"Its integration definitely stands out. It provides seamless monitoring of all our systems, services, apps, and whatever else we secure and monitor. Visualizations have become simpler with dashboards. We are getting visibility into systems, services, and apps stack through a single pane of glass, which is good. We are able to put logs in context."
"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."
"It handles the basics of monitoring."
"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
"It is easy to access and discover devices, as well as monitor them automatically. The topology discover is also a useful feature."
"It is stable."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."
"The most valuable features are network bandwidth monitoring and monitoring device health."
 

Cons

"It's not that straightforward when creating an alert. The syntax is a little confusing."
"I sometimes log in and see items changed, either in the UI or a feature enabled. To see it for the first time without proper communication can sometimes come as a shock."
"The cost does add up quickly, so it can be some effort to justify the necessary outlay to those paying the bills."
"We had limitations around RUM and our feature flag provider in Datadog because it's a back-end forward feature flag usage in our Next.js application."
"Stability of the product has been a concern for us outside of the primary monitoring agents."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is really expensive."
"The current way accounts are billed could be vastly improved - especially when involving multiple organizations across multiple accounts in combination with reserved commitments."
"I would love to see more metrics or analytics in IoT devices."
"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution."
"The tool should focus on increasing its market share, as it is the only area of concern where improvements are needed."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"Setting up WhatsUp Gold is complicated and not easy because it requires managing SNMP and many complex settings in the devices it's monitoring, and fine-tuning it to fit our needs is also not very easy."
"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."
"Regional product team support is not very good."
"Importing the maps and being able to customize them could be easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Datadog does not provide any free plans to use the solution. When I start with a proof of concept it would be sensible to have a free plan to test the tool and check whether it fits the requirements of the project. Before the production stage, it is always good to have a free plan with some limited features, number of requests, or logs."
"They prefer monthly subscriptions."
"It costs the same amount it would if we were hosting it ourselves, so we are incredibly happy with the cost."
"The price of Datadog is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as AppDynamics."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"While it is an expensive product, I would rate the pricing level at four out of five."
"It has always scaled for us. Cost scales up too, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's reasonable for what they're providing."
"The solution is fairly priced but history and log storage can get costly depending on your needs."
"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."
"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."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"This is a well priced solution."
"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise95
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
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

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
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 Datadog vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: October 2025.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.