WhatsUp Gold vs SolarWinds: Network performance monitor comparison

When you and your team are working online, an issue with your network’s performance can really slow down progress. Whether it be due to slow network traffic, a crashed server or a security threat, remediating the problem once it is detected would likely waste precious time and money. For this reason, organizations and businesses often turn to network performance monitors to scan their networks for signs of trouble that could cause slow performance, delays or other issues. This way, users can take action before progress is disrupted.

But with all of the software options available on the market, which network performance monitor would be most beneficial for your organization? Let’s compare two options: Progress WhatsUp Gold and SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor.

What is Progress WhatsUp Gold?

Progress offers network performance monitoring solutions to its customers through its software, Progress WhatsUp Gold. Progress WhatsUp Gold grants users visibility of their network and monitors application performance status, servers, network devices and more.

What is SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor?

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is a scalable network monitoring solution for multi-vendor network monitoring and insights. The product conducts performance monitoring for on-premises, hybrid and cloud networks and devices.

Read on, as we compare the features and capabilities of each of these options so that you can choose the best network performance monitoring solution for your needs.

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WhatsUp Gold vs.  SolarWinds: Which has better performance monitoring?

Progress WhatsUp Gold monitors devices, application performance, network traffic and more in cloud and wireless environments. It can automatically discover device dependencies and issues before users are affected and alert admins of compromised service. Users can view the monitoring through their unified dashboard, and performance monitor alerts are issued to them within their Alert Center when thresholds are exceeded.

WhatsUp Gold supports active, performance and passive monitors, and the performance monitoring captures performance metrics like CPU and memory utilization. It can monitor the performance of business-critical commercial and in-house applications as well.

Additionally, the tool can integrate with the Flowmon Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics/Network Detection and Response (NPMD/NDR) advanced network performance and traffic analysis solution to extend network visibility with their security detection and response capabilities.

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor provides visibility into the health and performance of users in multi-network environments and real-time, availability and historical statistics from SNMP-, API- and WMI-enabled devices. The tool automatically discovers and maps devices for real-time monitoring and can show the critical network paths of all networks, vendors, devices and applications.

Users can develop insights from their performance data by comparing different data types within the platform. SolarWinds software can monitor the performance of all network devices and applications, including Cisco network devices, Wi-Fi networks, and more. Through this, users can gain key performance metrics, including network availability metrics, as well as current and historical performance metrics, which are then displayed in customizable charts and dashboards. The tool can also generate scheduled network availability reports using customizable templates and supports Microsoft Azure with performance metrics.

WhatsUp Gold vs. SolarWinds: Which has better diagnosis and analysis?

Progress’ performance monitoring solution lets users diagnose issues with their networks and devices more easily through its interactive map. Through its integration with the Flowmon NPMD/NDR solution, users can benefit from advanced traffic analysis data, security threat detection/response features, and better views of their network infrastructure, traffic and applications. The tools together can make it easier for users to identify data leakage, outages and performance degradation to diagnose issues quickly.

The Network Traffic Analysis module provides data on bandwidth consumption, indicating which users’ protocols and applications are consuming bandwidth, which can help users establish bandwidth usage policies and carry out effective bandwidth management. In addition, knowing historical bandwidth usage trends and bandwidth consumption can be beneficial for troubleshooting and identifying bottleneck issues and suspicious connections.

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The SolarWinds NPM tool can provide data reports and insights to users with its software packet analysis, hop-by-hop network path analysis, cross-stack network data correlation and more. The software packet analysis can help users determine the root of a problem and the cause of bottlenecks. The network path analysis provides visibility into the performance, traffic and config intelligence across hybrid networks by analyzing critical network paths. Through the cross-stack network data correlation, users can examine data side by side. And with its Quality of Experience (QoE) dashboard, users can view network response time, analyze and identify network traffic, and run network latency tests to gain insights and determine the source of their network response time issues. The system also develops reports on key performance metrics, such as node and interface availability,  current interface, node and volume statuses. Through this, users can more easily troubleshoot and solve issues within their networks and devices.

WhatsUp Gold vs. SolarWinds: Which has better security features and alerts?

Aside from providing network visibility and performance monitoring, Progress WhatsUp Gold also offers security features. The utilization of WhatsUp Gold and Flowmon NPMD/NDR together can provide users with anomaly detection capabilities, which can help them identify threats and act appropriately. WhatsUp Gold also has embedded log management capabilities, which can help with investigating security incidents, troubleshooting and visibility. Users can receive alerts on specified conditions, like network configuration changes, application components and application-level dependencies. They can also customize their alert settings to control which conditions produce alerts.

SolarWinds performs network fault monitoring and performance management. While its network performance monitoring tool does not provide features specific to security, its network monitoring maps and pathways can be helpful when troubleshooting and looking for signs of threats. Additionally, the software comes with network performance monitoring alerts, which can warn users about security situations like intrusion attempts, system changes and the presence of malware. Users can adjust their alert settings, modify built-in default alerts, and set custom alerts for significant network monitoring changes. They can also set dependency- and topology-aware alerts to notify them only of specific events. Users can even specify the days and times when they wish to receive alerts. They can set alerts for things like high CPU or memory use, delayed response times, crashed servers, device outages, critical hardware failures, status request failures, low server health, user activity and downtimes exceeding custom thresholds.

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WhatsUp Gold vs. SolarWinds: Concluding thoughts

Now that you have read up on some of the key features and capabilities of these two software systems, you’ll have a better idea of which would be better for your organization. If you’re still in doubt, think about your organization’s needs for network performance management.

For example, if your organization requires performance and security features, Progress WhatsUp Gold’s Flowmon NPMD/NDR integration may provide more beneficial security capabilities. However, suppose you would like to gain insights into your organization’s network using performance metrics from multiple data types and sources. In that case, SolarWinds’s cross-stack IT correlation feature may be a better option.

Considering the needs and requirements of your network when deciding on a performance monitoring solution will help you identify the best choice for your organization.