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Grafana vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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

Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (27th), Server Monitoring (15th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Grafana is 6.2%, up from 6.1% 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

Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems
Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.
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

"Grafana is able to connect with multiple data sources, unlike Elasticsearch."
"The most important feature of Grafana is its alarm formatting capability."
"Kubernetes could help us to better visualize the trend of our data by recording and displaying our history over a chosen duration, such as the last 30 days."
"Grafana's best features are live monitoring and alerts."
"The dashboards are very easy to work with."
"Grafana is stable and has great engineers."
"The product's initial setup phase was very easy."
"The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly."
"The documentation is very good."
"The solution effectively monitors network devices and servers."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the visibility it offers of everything in the network and infrastructure."
"WhatsUp Gold is very easy to deploy."
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
"The most valuable feature of WhatsUp Gold is NetFlow and the virtualized maps."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
 

Cons

"The solution should include online support."
"I find issues with Grafana. For example, I am unable to open some services there. Then, we have to open ten different tabs to get it fixed. And it's annoying when there's something going on; we want to check Grafana, and it throws four different errors."
"Its UI features to create charts can also be improved. Some features could have a link to the documentation."
"Grafana could improve by having its own query language. Currently, it uses languages like Prometheus or InfluxDB, which not everyone knows. Their query language should be easier."
"The service dashboard is very hard and needs improvement."
"All the features are complicated."
"I rate Grafana a six out of ten."
"It would be helpful if they simplified the data source."
"The licensing model could be improved. Right now, the levels are too far apart. This causes the solution to be more expensive than it needs to be."
"I might like to see a better interface in the future."
"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"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."
"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 beneficial."
"The interface needs some work."
"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the open source model so it is free."
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"We are using the open-source license."
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
"You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
"It is per device, per year. The pricing is very clear. If you have a service agreement, you get all of your major upgrades and minor upgrades. It was under $10,000 to go all-in with all of the different add-ons for it."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
The costs associated with using Grafana are somewhere in the ten thousands because we are able to control the logs in a more efficient way to reduce it. That is pretty much great for us.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
The whole AI capability would be useful for Grafana in the future, and while I don't think we're mature yet, I would want to see improvements, especially in the tracing part, where following differ...
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?
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
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 Grafana vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.