What'sUp Gold made network monitoring accessible, but today's networks demand more than basic device checks and aging dashboards. NetCrunch delivers real-time visibility, unified monitoring, and effortless scalability — without rigid licensing, limited depth, or outdated user experience.
Monitoring has evolved — but WhatsUp Gold hasn't.
Initially built for smaller networks and simpler times, WhatsUp Gold today struggles to meet the real-time demands of modern infrastructure.
NetCrunch takes a different approach: unified monitoring in real time and at scale across devices, flows, servers, the cloud, and applications.
Instead of adding feature packs, modules, or extensions, NetCrunch provides everything you need in one platform, ready to adapt as your environment evolves.
Modern networks need unified visibility, instant insights, and seamless scalability — not legacy frameworks stitched together by upgrades.
NetCrunch is built for today's dynamic networks, offering performance and simplicity that WhatsUp Gold can no longer match.
NetCrunch delivers full-stack monitoring of devices, flows, servers, the cloud, and applications without the need to buy separate modules or extensions.
Unlike older polling-based models, NetCrunch updates dashboards and alerts in real time, ensuring instant insights across thousands of monitored elements.
With NetCrunch, scaling your monitoring environment doesn’t mean renegotiating licenses or stacking costs — one platform, one license, built to grow.
Unified visibility across devices, flows, servers, and cloud
Policy-driven setup, scaling, and changes without scripts
Smarter event handling, fewer false alarms
Responsive dashboards and instant updates
One platform, one license — subscription or perpetual ownership
NetCrunch delivers full-stack functionality without backend complexity
NetCrunch delivers real-time, full-stack monitoring across network devices, traffic flows, servers, applications, virtualization, and cloud environments. Logs are collected natively without the need for separate clusters or external databases.
| ✅ NetCrunch | ⚠️ WhatsUp Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| Network Device Monitoring (SNMP, WMI, Ping) | ✅ Included | ✅ Included |
| Traffic Flows (NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX) | ✅ Included | ✅ Included at higher tiers |
| Server & Application Monitoring | ✅ Included | ⚠️ Included only in Enterprise tier |
| Cloud Monitoring (AWS, Azure, GCP) | ✅ Native multi-cloud support | ⚠️ Basic plugin support |
| Log Management | ✅ Built-in Syslog, Event Log collection | ⚠️ ElasticSearch cluster required |
| Virtualization Monitoring | ✅ VMware, Hyper-V native | ⚠️ Basic plugin-based support |
WhatsUp Gold provides basic device and flow monitoring but relies on external ElasticSearch deployments for scalable log management, adding operational complexity. Hybrid cloud monitoring coverage is available only at higher subscription tiers.
WhatsUp Gold provides surface-level visibility but adds operational complexity for full-stack or hybrid environments, especially in log and cloud monitoring.
WhatsUp Gold struggles to offer full-stack visibility, especially across cloud and hybrid environments, and its outdated data presentation limits operational value.
NetCrunch uses a policy-based engine that automatically discovers devices, applies appropriate monitoring templates, adapts to changes, and enforces consistent configuration across thousands of nodes. Policies dynamically adjust as devices are added, removed, or modified, ensuring minimal manual maintenance.
| ✅ NetCrunch | ⚠️ WhatsUp Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic Device Discovery | ✅ Policy-based and adaptive | ⚠️ Basic scanning only |
| Monitoring Template Assignment | ✅ Dynamic by role | ⚠️ Manual or limited template use |
| Mass Configuration Changes | ✅ Policy-driven bulk updates | ⚠️ Manual edits required |
| API & Scripting Support | ✅ Full scripting and REST API | ⚠️ Partial API, limited scripting |
| Scaling Policies with Environment Changes | ✅ Native and automated | ⚠️ Requires manual adjustment |
WhatsUp Gold requires manual configuration of devices, monitors, and notifications. While discovery scans exist, real policy-driven automation is missing. Bulk changes often require manual editing or template cloning, and maintaining consistent monitoring across larger environments quickly becomes labor-intensive.
WhatsUp Gold's lack of true policy-driven automation forces administrators to do constant manual configuration work, especially as networks grow and change.
NetCrunch offers real-time event correlation, suppression policies, multi-step escalations, and automated response actions, ensuring teams stay focused on real, actionable incidents. Its alert system can intelligently group related events, suppress known conditions, and trigger remediation workflows.
| ✅ NetCrunch | ⚠️ WhatsUp Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Event Correlation | ✅ Automatic correlation engine | ❌ No built-in correlation |
| Multi-Level Escalations | ✅ Policy-based escalation paths | ⚠️ Basic alert escalation only |
| Noise Reduction | ✅ Suppression and grouping rules | ⚠️ Manual threshold tuning needed |
| Automated Response Actions | ✅ Over 40 actions supported | ⚠️ Limited notification actions |
| Cross-System Alert Visibility | ✅ Unified event view | ⚠️ Fragmented per device or type |
WhatsUp Gold provides only basic threshold-based alerting. Without built-in correlation or noise reduction, large environments can quickly become overwhelmed by redundant alerts. Manual tuning of thresholds is required to keep alert storms manageable, and automation options are limited to basic notifications without intelligent suppression or escalation.
WhatsUp Gold's basic alerting system lacks intelligent correlation and suppression, often leading to alert floods that overwhelm operations teams in larger environments.
NetCrunch offers a modern, real-time web interface built for speed and clarity. Dashboards are designed to display key information without overwhelming users, using dynamic tables with live filtering, sorting, and drill-downs for immediate action.
| ✅ NetCrunch | ⚠️ WhatsUp Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| Real-Time Dashboard Updates | ✅ Instant without refresh | ⚠️ Periodic full page reload |
| Navigation Speed | ✅ Smooth, logical navigation | ⚠️ Disjointed, easy to get lost |
| Modern Web Architecture | ✅ SPA-based, real-time UI | ⚠️ Likely old jQuery MPA model |
| Dashboard Design | ✅ Focused, actionable views | ⚠️ Bloated tiled dashboards |
| Table Functionality | ✅ Filtering, sorting, live drilldowns | ⚠️ Basic sorting only |
| Mobile Optimization | ✅ Fully responsive | ⚠️ Limited mobile usability |
In contrast, WhatsUp Gold's tiled dashboards often overload users with redundant views that could be better managed with a single dynamic table. Navigation between views is clunky and disjointed, making it easy to lose track of previously opened dashboards. Its legacy UI — likely built on older jQuery technologies — feels heavy and outdated, requiring full page refreshes for updates instead of real-time rendering.
WhatsUp Gold's outdated dashboard design, slow navigation, and clunky table functionality make it difficult to manage dynamic environments efficiently.
NetCrunch offers flexible licensing options, including annual subscriptions and perpetual licenses with optional Upgrade Subscription renewals. Both models include full-stack monitoring — covering devices, flows, servers, cloud, applications, and logs — without requiring modular add-ons or costly backend setups.
| ✅ NetCrunch | ⚠️ WhatsUp Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| License Types Available | ✅ Subscription or Perpetual | ⚠️ Subscription only |
| Included Upgrades & Support | ✅ Always during subscription or active Upgrade Subscription | ✅ During active subscription |
| SQL Server Requirement | ✅ No | ❌ Yes (production deployments) |
| Log Management Requirement | ✅ Built-in storage | ❌ Requires ElasticSearch cluster |
| Database Infrastructure Overhead | ✅ Minimal | ⚠️ SQL + Elastic + IIS complexity |
| Total Cost Predictability | ✅ High | ⚠️ Low (due to backend scaling costs) |
WhatsUp Gold uses a subscription-only model, with higher tiers required for full functionality. In addition to licensing, it demands SQL Server licensing for production use and ElasticSearch clusters for scalable log management, significantly increasing the total cost of ownership.
NetCrunch offers customers flexible ownership options and lower infrastructure costs, while WhatsUp Gold's reliance on external databases and clusters significantly increases its long-term total cost of ownership (TCO).
NetCrunch consolidates essential monitoring capabilities — network devices, traffic flows, servers, applications, cloud, virtualization, and logs — into a single platform without requiring expensive additional components.
| WhatsUp Gold Feature Pack | ✅ Covered by NetCrunch? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Network Monitoring | ✅ Yes | Core device monitoring included |
| Flow Monitoring | ✅ Yes | Full NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX support |
| Application Monitoring | ✅ Yes | Servers, services, processes monitored |
| Cloud Monitoring | ✅ Yes | AWS, Azure, GCP support built-in |
| Virtualization Monitoring | ✅ Yes | VMware and Hyper-V monitoring included |
| Log Management | ✅ Yes | Syslog, SNMP Traps, Event Logs included |
While WhatsUp Gold bundles core features into subscription tiers, achieving comparable visibility often requires deploying SQL Server, ElasticSearch clusters, and Windows/IIS services, introducing infrastructure overhead that NetCrunch avoids entirely.
NetCrunch eliminates the need for costly backend components like SQL Server and ElasticSearch, delivering full-stack monitoring in a streamlined deployment.
Explore why NetCrunch is the best all-in-one monitoring alternative.
Looking for more than just a SolarWinds comparison? See how NetCrunch stands against other legacy monitoring platforms, and why it's the smarter choice for modern networks.
