Progress WhatsUp Gold: Monitoring Ledger 2026

Part of the Infrastructure Monitoring Ledger (edition 2026-10-04). How the scores work: methodology.

Snapshot

Tier: Mid-market
Owner: Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), public company; acquired Ipswitch in 2019-05 for 225 million dollars
Licence model: Device-based (Premium) or point-based (Total Plus) licences, perpetual with annual maintenance or annual subscription
Products scored: WhatsUp Gold 2026.0 on Windows with NTA, APM, Configuration Management, Virtualization and Log Management modules; WhatsUp Gold 360 cloud portal not scored
Latest release: 2026.0.2, 2026-08-25; WhatsUp Gold 360 launched 2026-09-30
Next signal: WhatsUp Gold 360 central management layer and hybrid cloud monitoring, 2027; no alternative-hypervisor plans
Archetype: Windows-bound network monitor
Evidence grade: B. Release notes and KEV data are primary, but release dates conflict inside the research record and with the AI evidence, and the AI claims are not in the release notes.

Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	66.0 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+0.4 points	higher is better
Credibility	14.5 / 25	higher is better
Commercial risk	11.5 / 25	lower is better
Technical lock-in	12.5 / 25	lower is better
Integrator fit	11.0 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	5.5 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	53.5 / 100	balanced weights

Capability by domain

Scores 0 to 5 against fixed anchors; total is weighted to 100.

Domain (weight)	2016	2019	2022	Today
Server, virtualization and storage (12)	3	3	3.5	3.5
Network monitoring (12)	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5
Application and service monitoring (10)	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5
Data collection and scale (12)	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5
Alerting and event management (12)	3	3	3	3.5
Visualisation and reporting (8)	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5
Logs and traces (8)	3	3	3.5	3.5
Automation and remediation (8)	2.5	3	3	3
Security and compliance (8)	2.5	2.5	3	2.5
New-platform support (VMware exit) (10)	1	1.5	1.5	1.5
Total / 100	61.0	62.8	65.6	66.0

Year by year: 2016: 61.0 · 2017: 62.0 · 2018: 62.0 · 2019: 62.8 · 2020: 62.8 · 2021: 64.4 · 2022: 65.6 · 2023: 65.6 · 2024: 66.0 · 2025: 65.2 · 2026: 66.0

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
2017	New-platform support (VMware exit)	1 → 1.5	+1.0	2017 Plus: AWS and Azure monitoring; still no Proxmox, AHV or Kubernetes in 2026
2019	Automation and remediation	2.5 → 3	+0.8	2019.1: REST API v1 with Swagger; no official Terraform or Ansible, no ITSM connector named
2021	Logs and traces	3 → 3.5	+0.8	2021.0: Log Management add-on on Elasticsearch with full-text search and archiving; no OpenTelemetry
2021	Security and compliance	2.5 → 3	+0.8	2021.1: OpenID Connect SSO and HTTPS binding; 2022 installer drops local admin account
2022	Server, virtualization and storage	3 → 3.5	+1.2	2022.1: Redfish, BMC and IPMI hardware health out of the box; Unity and Compellent since 2018; no containers
2024	Alerting and event management	3 → 3.5	+1.2	2024.0: topology root-cause suppression overhaul, auto-resolve notifications; Teams action since 2022
2024	Security and compliance	3 → 2.5	-0.8	CVE-2024-6670 on KEV 2024-09: minus 0.5 (the security record); 24.0 makes HTTPS default
2025	Security and compliance	2.5 → 2	-0.8	CVE-2024-4885 on KEV 2025-03: minus 0.5, total minus 1.0 (the security record)
2026	Security and compliance	2 → 2.5	+0.8	2026.0: per-server master secret key for stored credentials; net of the 1.0 KEV deduction

Direction, 2023 to 2026

Each item carries one theme and one driver (V vision, C customer need, M market window, U upstream, P portfolio).

Date	Item	Theme	Driver
2023-09	2023.0: NOC Viewer wall display	D6 Visualisation and reporting	C
2023-09	2023.0: configuration management performance rewrite	D2 Network	C
2023-10	MSP Edition end of sale	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2024-01	Standard and Total editions end of sale	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2024-06	2023.1: automatic device monitoring by role	D4 Collection and scale	C
2024-08	2024.0: topology root-cause suppression overhaul	D5 Alerting and events	C
2024-08	Fixes for exploited flaws CVE-2024-6670 and CVE-2024-4885	D9 Security	C
2024-10	Unrestricted licences retired; tiers capped at 25,000 devices	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2025-01	Failover Manager and VoIP Monitor folded into higher tiers	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2025-06	2024.0.3: HTTPS default, browser trap and MIB import, SFTP config transfer	D9 Security	C
2026-02	2025.0: certificate discovery; log ingestion filters	D3 Applications and services	C
2026-07	2026.0: Hirschmann industrial switch support	D2 Network	M
2026-07	2026.0: master secret key encryption	D9 Security	C
2026-09	WhatsUp Gold 360 cloud portal with path analysis	D6 Visualisation and reporting	M

Centre of gravity: Packaging and licensing (4), Security (3), Visualisation and reporting (2)
Driver mix: Vision 0%, Customer need 57%, Market window 14%, Upstream 0%, Portfolio 29%

Credibility: 14.5 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	3	One or two releases a year with dated notes, but irregular: 2023.1 in 2024-06, 2025.0 in 2026-02
Roadmap transparency	3	Public release notes and lifecycle table; direction through community sessions and webinars
Say-do	3.5	26 of 28 items shipped, none dropped; 10 took over 12 months from first mention
Velocity	2.5	Mostly incremental features per release; no new platform coverage since 2022
Lifecycle stability	2.5	MSP, Standard and Total editions, unrestricted licences and two add-ons retired 2023-2025

Say-do record, 2023 to 2026: 28 tracked items 2023-2026: 26 shipped, 2 pending (360 management layer and SaaS monitoring, 2027), none dropped. Lags were long: 10 items took 13 to 19 months from first mention; the 360 items shipped on time.

Commercial risk: 11.5 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Price and licence volatility	3.5	Editions ended 2023-10 and 2024-01, unlimited licences 2024-10, standalone add-ons 2025-01
Purchase constraints	2	Perpetual or subscription, small device tiers; larger sites also need SQL Server Standard licences
Channel and access	2	Sold through partners with indicative prices; security bulletins on the community portal
Owner stability	1.5	Progress, a listed acquirer of software lines, owner since 2019
Cost of staying supported	2.5	Maintenance about 20-25% of list a year; customers moved off retired editions

Security record of the product itself: Two KEV entries in 2023-2026 (the security record, 07): CVE-2024-6670 SQL injection (KEV 2024-09-16, fixed 2024-08 in 2023.1.3/2024.0.0) and CVE-2024-4885 RCE (KEV 2025-03-03, fixed 2023.1.3 in 2024). Security score reduced by 1.0. Three more critical 2024 RCEs (CVE-2024-4883, -8785, -46909) are not on KEV.

Technical lock-in: 12.5 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	3.5	Configuration, credentials and history in proprietary SQL Server schemas; maps not exportable to open formats
Export path	3	CSV/PDF reports, read-only SQL and REST access; no import tools for other products
Stack coupling	3.5	Requires Windows Server, IIS and Microsoft SQL Server; collection uses standard SNMP, WMI, SSH
Hardware / cloud coupling	0.5	Any hardware, air-gapped with offline activation; Windows only
Skills and tooling coupling	2	Windows administration skills; proprietary roles and Alert Center concepts

Integrator fit: 11.0 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Partner programme openness	3.5	Progress Accelerate Silver, Gold, Platinum with deal registration and NFR licences
Multi-tenancy and self-service	2	MSP edition ended 2023-10; device group rights and distributed sites only
API and infrastructure-as-code	2.5	REST API v1 with OAuth 2.0; no official Terraform provider or Ansible collection
Skills and certification	3	WhatsUp Gold Certified Professional, valid two years

AI leverage: 5.5 / 20

Strand	Today	Latest step
AIOps on monitoring data	2	2022: 2022.1: unsupervised anomaly detection on interface traffic, alerts only
AI platform stack	0	none
AI-assisted operations	2	2022: 2022.1: ML anomaly detection GA; no assistant
Agent openness	1.5	2019: 2019.1: documented REST API; no MCP server

AI say-do: 2 announced, 2 GA (lags 0 and 3 months), 0 preview, 0 pending, 0 dropped. The AI is traffic anomaly detection that raises alerts; no generative AI.

Reading

Progress is keeping WhatsUp Gold as a Windows-based network monitor for mid-size sites and adding a cloud portal, WhatsUp Gold 360, on top of on-premises servers. Its network depth (topology, flow, configuration backup, wireless) has been in place since 2016, but releases since then are incremental and 2024 brought two exploited flaws. Buyers get a mature network tool with perpetual licences, against a Windows and SQL Server lock-in, no Proxmox, Nutanix or Kubernetes monitoring, and repeated edition changes.

Open questions and evidence caveats

Release dates conflict: the research record dates 2024.0 to 2025-06 while its builds and KEV fixes show 2024-08; the AI evidence dates 2025.0 and 2026.0 earlier than the release notes.
The 2022.1 ML anomaly detection and 2024.0 root-cause overhaul come only from the AI evidence; the release notes in the research record do not mention them.
WhatsUp Gold 360 is a cloud add-on launched one day before cutoff and was not scored.