Netdisco vs WhatsUp Gold

Netdisco is free, self-hosted network management software for administrators of small through very large networks. It gathers IP and MAC address data into PostgreSQL through SNMP, command-line interfaces, or device APIs. A lookup by MAC address or IP can show the connected switch port, which administrators can disable or change for VLAN or PoE status. Netdisco inventories hardware by model, vendor, software, and operating system, and preserves historical system IP and location data. It can draw network diagrams and expose search and retrieval through an API. The distribution includes a web interface, backend daemon, and command-line interface; the maker says it runs on Linux or Unix and provides Docker images. Installation requires Perl 5.10 or later and PostgreSQL 9.6 or later. The first setup requires manually discovering a network device that knows its neighbors. Plugins can add interface or backend commands and actions.

WhatsUp Gold monitors IT infrastructure across on-premises and cloud environments, covering networks, systems, traffic, applications, wireless networks, virtual machines, physical servers, cloud resources, storage and SSL certificates. Layer 2/3 discovery creates interactive topology maps of device relationships, dependencies and status. The software can run scripts and policies to address common issues, including restarting services and running SSH commands. Integrations include ServiceNow, OpsGenie, Microsoft Teams, Flowmon, AWS CloudWatch and Azure Monitor; a REST API supports integrations and automation. It monitors Microsoft Hyper-V and connects with VMware vCenter or ESXi for host, VM, datastore and network metrics. Deployment can be on-premises or in the cloud, with distributed pollers for larger environments. Server software requires Windows Server 2019, 2022 or 2025. The Free Edition costs nothing for 10 devices. Business costs $1,229 a year for 50 devices; a 30-day trial is listed. Licensing and technical maximums can require additional licenses, and a single server can poll up to 100,000 metrics with additional scalability pollers.