AirCheck G3 vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

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

"I also like the remote session and the ability to log in to the device remotely. You can log in to the tester with your computer and can see the screen and operate the tester remotely. This is a very cool function, but it's very advanced."

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

"There is just so much this device does that it's unbelievable sometimes."

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

"The airCheck is the real-time spectrum analyzer to see clients that could be connecting to our network, not just rogue networks out there, but rogue clients and other interference in that particular spectrum."

"Few products provide an all-in-one platform like AirCheck, and for all intents and purposes, there's no competition in the space because no other enterprise-quality handheld testers do Wi-Fi and wired testing so comprehensively."

"The solution saves us a factor of 10 in time. If a typical WiFI ticket would cost me two hours with AirCheck, then it would cost me 20 hours without it. At 20 hours, you start to refuse to do tickets because it is just too expensive."

"It's perfect for network configuration management, and it's easy to use."

"NCM also helps with vulnerability assessment and remediation."

"The features we find most valuable is the configuration backup automation, the configuration compliance, the security vulnerability detection and upgrading devices."

"The feature that I really enjoy is the ability to script changes across all of your devices."

"Configuration pushing, upgrade capabilities, job backup, configuration backup, and real-time configuration change monitoring are highly beneficial features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."

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

"NCM has provided for the following benefits - Mainly to to with audit readiness on 3 fronts - regular configuration backups, configuration hardening and Vulnerability management."

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

"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."

"The biggest improvement would be an easier upload over wireless to Link-Live."

"A feature I would like to see is the ability to charge the device via a PoE outlet. Usually, I need to charge it at home. It would be good to leave the device plugged in and charging at a PoE source at the customer site after a quick look at the network when I have moved on to other tasks."

"I would like them to modify the interface. The button to change profiles is fairly small. When you have interventions, it is not always possible to have a ballpoint pen or perfect precision touch with it, since sometimes you need to touch it quite a lot when your hands are very dirty. I would like a special pen that is compatible with that responsive screen. That would make it easier."

"We use .1x authentication, so I need to download the certificate onto the device. It would be nice to have this functionality through the cloud as well. Right now, you need to do it through the software by connecting your laptop physically to the AirCheck. This is one thing that is a bit slow."

"The display size could be larger."

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

"We use these out in the field, and because they're not allowed on our network, we usually have to have the person take them home and provide backhaul to them. In other words, they are not allowed through our firewalls to dump the data. So, we have to have them go to a separate wired network to dump the data. There could be an option to put an LTE and have a phone engine in it so that you can buy a SIM card for it and have it use cellular to download the data. That is something that would be nice to have. That's a little kink in this system right now. Other than using the Ethernet port to download data, it'd be nice if we could use either LTE or some other way to get the data that was collected by AirCheck G2 to our Link-Live portal."

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

"The solution could improve by being more secure."

"We want to be able to store it in a data warehouse format and integrate it with Google single sign-on."

"The Network Configuration Manager needs to improve the access control list compliance."

"When we run the SolarWinds NCM jobs at the cellular line, it runs in the morning. They're just not finishing. We're getting false processing."

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

"Its customer service response could be faster."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"The overall cost of the solution, compared to the time saved—the number of man-hours devoted to other means of troubleshooting—is incomparable."

"The product has a pretty good price."

"The upfront cost of the solution is around $4,000."

"It is definitely well worth the price. It is approximately $2,500. It pays for itself since it eliminates troubleshooting costs and labor due to all the money you would spend kind of troubleshooting the device if you didn't have any of these tools with you."

"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."

"There is a license for the use of this solution and it is priced well, there is a lot of value for the money."

"You have a base license for 50 devices, and then you can add more licenses as you go."

"The pricing is good."

"I have a yearly subscription."

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

"Pricing is reasonable and competitive."

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