AirCheck G3 vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

"I bought one out of my own money, so I found enough value to spend my own money on it."

"The AirMapper Site Survey on the AirCheck G2 is the most valuable feature. It is really nice to be able to upload the maps remotely to the website, and then have the analyst upload the results so we can review the data."

"AirCheck G2 gives me an overview of which channels are used by the access points or who delivers the Wi-Fi, which gives me a clear picture of what's going on."

"AirCheck made a lot of children and caregivers quite happy. While I might not have resolved everything, I have reduced the problems that we had every night. During the day, they would do visible checks and not always rely on the monitors, but every night, they had at least three or four of those alarms. I was able to reduce it to once or twice a week since those appliances are still limited in their wireless capability."

"Compared to the old AirCheck it is a massive step forward."

"The information provided by the solution for resolving connectivity and performance problems is very thorough. The reporting functionality is extremely good as I can pass that information on with little input. The device will identify issues and problems, e.g., the diagnostic material. When you have Internet access, it sends the information to your email address, which is very useful."

"It is portable. It is rugged. It comes with a nice case. It has been dropped, but it doesn't break. I don't have a crack screen or anything like that. It has pretty good battery life."

"I like the cloud functionality. That's very useful because somebody can go onsite, someone who is not really skilled, and I can see the test results from the office."

"The tool is useful for security purposes."

"It is pretty straightforward to set up."

"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."

"I use it for monitoring the entire network for the company. We oversee nodes down, we oversee devices heading up to crossing the threshold for CPU usage. We oversee power so power backups on the switches, we oversee if they're down or if they're failing. We oversee any node down or any router from any vendor."

"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."

"The configuration compliance aspect of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager allows for easy comparison of configuration settings across branches, ensuring adherence to security guidelines and best practices. Automation capabilities have greatly impacted workflows, enabling tasks such as configuration backups, template deployment, and firmware upgrades to be automated, thereby streamlining processes and saving time. Compliance reporting features provide valuable insights into network compliance, offering pre-built security audit reports and customizable options to meet specific requirements."

"What's nice with NCM is you can set up policies that you can then check against the configs to ensure that your device configs adhere to a baseline or standard that you've set in place."

"Compared to other vendors, like NetBrain, managing the solution is easy. They made it very user-friendly."

"It is a bit expensive, to be honest. For a small firms, like a wireless consultant or small IT support company, it is hugely expensive and that's a shame because it is a fantastic tool."

"NetAlly has been behind the curve on visualization, Wi-Fi design, and heat maps for a little while now."

"If it was capable of downloading MIBs onto the device, then we could identify the manufacturer."

"The battery life needs improvement. For example, when you are doing an Ethernet test, that seems to drain the battery pretty quickly."

"I would like them to modify the interface. The button to change profiles is fairly small."

"If it was capable of downloading MIBs onto the device, then we could identify the manufacturer. Sometimes, when I am troubleshooting, there is a Mac address. For example, there is a rogue device and it just gives us a Mac address, which is fine. It gives us something, which is better than nothing. It would be nice if it was able to download a MIB where we could associate it with that Mac address and the manufacturer."

"It would be nice if I could import an AP list with a MAC address. When it looks at access points, it should tell me the AP name instead of the MAC address. When you get a MAC address, you could eventually find out where you want to go. However, a lot of times, if I just have an AP name, I know that's in this area or that's over there. I would like that function because AirMagnet, which is the precursor of this, had that ability where you could basically import a list of APs and MAC addresses, and then it could display those instead of just a MAC address."

"I would love to have a button that pretends that you're an iPhone 5 or an Android Samsung, then tell me what you think the experience is. This is a very difficult thing to do because each of these things has different radios in them and behaves differently. Now, I can go into the user's office, and say, "The tool says everything's green. The WiFI infrastructure is fine, but their iPhone experience sucks." Is it a problem with their particular iPhone or is it a problem with any iPhone model? If I could have this solution emulate an iPhone model so I can walk into that room, and say, "My tools pretending to be your iPhone and it works fine. It must be your particular iPhone that we have a problem with." I found mobile phones in general have lousy radios and the coverage isn't strong enough, but it would be a nice feature."

"It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or privileged assessment in the next release."

"It would be great if they include a network service manager, network performance manager, or a privileged assessment in the next release."

"Its look and feel can be improved. They can also put in more effort into building the THWACK community and use the information about various customer issues and requests to build the new releases."

"The network logs could be improved. When the error logs come across with those false positive alarms in the error logs."

"The third-party plugins available in the solution could improve. I have received some issues with the templates."

"There is room for improvement in automation."

"There are certain limitations of node-related monitoring"

"Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues."

"The price is fairly expensive, if you are a single individual. For me, it's well worth the cost of the unit. Depending on the nature of the work that you're doing, the upfront costs can be expensive. Typically, what happens in an environment is a department might have one device as opposed to technicians having them individually."

"For a few thousand dollars, you save yourself a ton of time. It's a great deal."

"The product has a pretty good price."

"Because I work in a big company, it is a no-brainer. If I were a consultant, I would still buy it, but it would be a huge investment. Overall, it's a good tool to have."

"Pricing is on par with the rest of the industry and the licensing is decent."

"I'd always love a lower price, but as compared to some of the other tools, it is fairly reasonable. I personally bought one. So, I must have thought the value was there because I'm spending my own hard cash on it, not just the company's. You can get support. I don't have support on my personal device. We did buy support for our company devices. It is reasonable. It is not super expensive or astronomical."

"It costs $3,000. It would be nice if its cost was less. I could then buy more. Currently, when we buy one, we make sure that where we need it is big enough, or if it is too small, when a person has a job, they have to get a temporary one mailed to them to use, which becomes a little less convenient."

"If you find a feature you need, you have to call them and add it, but you should be able to use the product. You spend money on and invested in multiple devices and can't even use half of the features. They should negotiate with large enterprises who buy large numbers of units to provide NetAlly support for all of them at a nominal fee."

"The price of the solution is high compared to other solutions."

"We have to pay additionally for its support and maintenance."

"Available at a moderate price"

"I have a yearly subscription."

"Additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee are inevitable."

"With a minimal bundle, we pay about $3000 a year in licensing costs. If you have multiple devices in your network, you must buy the bundle, which is 100% identical for your infrastructure. If you have 15 devices, you need 15 licenses, for example. That's one bundle. You don't pay for anything over and above that."

"The pricing is good."

"In Africa, the cost is a major factor in decision-making for many companies. As a result, some companies may choose cheaper solutions, even if they are open-source, over more expensive ones, such as SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. However, as an engineer, I believe that the functionalities and services offered by SolarWinds justify the cost. Nonetheless, many companies in Africa may still view the prices as unaffordable."