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The WhatsUp Gold product family delivers comparable functionality but at a much lower cost – as much as 6 times less.

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Feature Benefit WhatsUp
Gold 		Solarwinds
Orion
Includes Application Performance Monitoring  With SolarWinds you have to pay extra- anywhere from $2,995 up to $19,995! included not included
Real-time alerts on configuration changes

Immediately identify and resolve issues, instead of spending time manually reviewing charts and reports

included not included
Blackout alerting & reporting capabilities Receive a summary of problems and alerts suppressed during blackout periods when you are back, so you know what happened while you were away included not included
Simple and fair price per device- no overuse hidden costs Regardless of the number of monitored interfaces we only count each device one time, so you can pay 1/3-1/8 of Orion’ price for the EXACT same configuration of WhatsUp Gold. included not included
Complete and Modular Log Management You can purchase the full suite or the modules that are right for you – from alerting to archiving capabilities, ad-hoc  forensic analysis, or full compliance reports included not included
Real-time alerts on bandwidth usage violations Resolve network traffic issues much faster included not included
Convert raw traffic into standard NetFlow records Gain  full insight into your network traffic for every device – whether they natively support flow monitoring or not included not included
Complete true layer 2 discovery and inventory Discover, map and document asset connectivity down to the individual port all from a single pane of glass included Partial
Integrated, extensible, and scalable architecture WUG lets you manage your entire infrastructure (devices, servers, applications, network traffic, configuration settings, VoIP, virtual resources) from one single pane of glass just by running one single installation included not included
Alert Center Multiple levels of escalations to promptly respond to any problem anywhere (performance issues, traffic bottlenecks, configuration errors, etc), provide status and acknowledge ownership of the resolution process to increase efficiency included Partial
Monitor Dependencies Easily configure monitor dependencies – down to to the port level – to simplify monitoring of large and complex IT environments included Partial

Want more details on how WhatsUp Gold and Solarwinds Orion match up?

Read our comparison paper

The difference in price is directly attributed to our different licensing philosophies. WhatsUp Gold believes in simple, direct device-based charging, while Solarwind’s licensing is based on the number of "elements" managed (e.g. interfaces or volumes). So is Solarwinds making profits at your expense?

The Clear Cut Winner is WhatsUp Gold

  • The most intuitive, easy to use and best value IT management solution available today
  • Matches and exceeds Solarwinds capability across the breadth of IT management functions
  • Complete visibility and control across networks, physical and virtual systems, applications as well as Windows Event and Syslog monitoring to make not only fast decisions, but better ones
  • Fault, configuration, traffic analysis, performance, security and compliance management as part of a complete solution
  • Proven in over 100,000 small business, enterprise and service provider networks worldwide
"When comparing Solarwinds Orion and WhatsUp Gold, the choice to go with WhatsUp Gold was an extremely easy one to make. The product offered us everything we needed in terms of functionality and saved us a significant amount of money when considering the cost to purchase and deploy and then cost of operation." – Doug Carter, Assistant Manager of IT, Toyotetsu North America
"We were using different, separated network applications in Nordea's New European Markets. These included such disparate offerings as Solarwinds, MRTG, old SNMPc versions, and syslog collectors. We therefore needed a unified monitoring system to monitor critical services in, and between, NEM countries. We simply didn't have the people or resources to keep small separated systems up and running, or to implement big and complicated solutions quickly (...)WhatsUp Gold was chosen as an easy-to-implement and easy-to-manage application."– Edgars Smilgzdruvs, IT Network Engineer, Nordea Bank

Try WhatsUp Gold now and find out how it can assure the health and availability of your network and everything on it.

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Unmask the Truth: WhatsUp Gold vs. Solarwinds Orion

  • Solar Winds Licensing Explained Video Solar Winds Licensing Explained

    You wouldn't pay for $3oo bucks for a new iPod and then fork over a fee to Apple every time you played a song, would you? Didn't think so. But that's what SolarWinds asks its customers to do every time they purchase Orion, their network management software.

  • Comparative Case Study in Licensing Comparative Case Study in Licensing

    Curious why one IT management platform costs more than other? In most cases, the licensing mechanism not features explain the cost difference. Hear Kevin Gillis of WhatsUp Gold explain how many vendors use verbal smoke and mirrors along with overly complex licensing to mask the true cost of their solutions

  • Device vs. Element Based Licensing Device vs. Element Based Licensing

    Calling all IT managers. Do you need to better understand the difference between device and element based software licensing? If so, this video is for you. Kevin Gillis of Ipswitch unmasks the truth in software licensing and explains how the hidden costs of element based licensing negatively impact your budget.

  • Customer Case Study Customer Case Study

    Tired of an expensive management solution that doesn’t get the job done? Hear how a former SolarWinds customer made the switch to WhatsUp Gold. Why did they make the change? WhatsUp Gold provided more features and functionality at a much better price. Narrated by Brian Harrell, Network Engineer at JISD

  • The Evolution of IT Operations, Part 1 The Evolution of IT Operations, Part 1

    In Part 1, we review the history of IT operations management and how it has adapted to enable the management of new infrastructure technologies. What’s the future? Watch Part 2, where we look at how applications, virtualization, and log management fit into the picture. Narrated by Kevin Gillis, WhatsUp Gold.

  • The Evolution of IT Operations, Part 2 The Evolution of IT Operations, Part 2

    In Part 2, we look at how application, virtualization, and log management have impacted the practice of IT operations management. Using real-world examples, we show how an integrated platform, like WhatsUp Gold, enables more efficient IT operations management across all of your infrastructure technologies. Narrated by Kevin Gillis, WhatsUp Gold.

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WhatsUp Gold vs. Solarwinds Orion Price Comparison

Solarwinds Pricing Details

Solarwinds Orion NPM (network monitoring) licensing is based on the maximum number of interfaces, devices and logical volumes monitored. It’s typically the case that the number of interfaces provides the highest count.

Solarwinds Orion APM (systems and applications monitoring) licensing is based on the number of individual monitors deployed against different system and application components and for each user experience transaction.

WhatsUp Gold Pricing Details

Our licensing is simple. It's based on the number of devices you need to monitor, meaning you pay much less for WhatsUp Gold than you would for the comparable SolarWinds Orion solution.

Here are just some examples of how WhatsUp Gold can save you money over Solarwinds Orion. If you want to check how much you can save in your environment with WhatsUp Gold over Solarwinds Orion use our Pricing Comparison Calculator.

Small-sized Networks

  Solarwinds WhatsUp Gold
Need to monitor 100 network devices with about 10-12 interfaces, nodes and volumes per device = 1,000 elements 100 network devices = 100 devices
50 servers with 20 monitors per server covering OS, hosted application components, user experience transactions and NIC cards = 1,000 elements 50 servers = 50 devices
Software required Orion NPM SL2000 with 1 year maintenance and Orion APM Enterprise with 1 year maintenance
 WhatsUp Gold Premium 300 devices with a 1 year Service Agreement
Total cost to you $30,970 $4,995

Over 6 times less! And while both WhatsUp Gold and Solarwinds include the first year, a second year of maintenance will cost you $6,194 with Solarwinds and only $1,245 with WhatsUp Gold!

 

Medium-sized Networks

  Solarwinds WhatsUp Gold
Need to monitor 200 network devices with about 10-12 interfaces, nodes and volumes per device = 2,000 elements 200 network devices = 200 devices
300 servers with 20 monitors per server covering OS, hosted application components, user experience transactions and NIC cards = 6,000 elements 300 servers = 300 devices
Software required Orion NPM Enterprise with 1 year maintenance and Orion APM Enterprise with 1 year maintenance
 WhatsUp Gold Premium 500 devices with a 1 year Service Agreement
Total cost to you $44,970 $7,495

6 times less! And while both WhatsUp Gold and Solarwinds include the first year, a second year of maintenance will cost you $8,994 with Solarwinds and only $1,870 with WhatsUp Gold!

 

Enterprise-sized Networks

  Solarwinds WhatsUp Gold
Need to monitor 1,500 network devices with about 10-12 interfaces, nodes and volumes per device = 15,000 elements 1,500 network devices = 1,500 devices
1,000 servers with 20 monitors per server covering OS, hosted application components, user experience transactions and NIC cards = 20,000 elements 1,000 servers = 1,000 devices
Software required Orion NPM Enterprise with 1 year maintenance and Orion APM Enterprise with 1 year maintenance
 WhatsUp Gold Premium 2500 devices with a 1 year Service Agreement
Total cost to you $44,970 $15,995

Almost 3 times less! And while both WhatsUp Gold and Solarwinds include the first year, a second year of maintenance will cost you $8,994 with Solarwinds and only $3,995 with WhatsUp Gold!