AirCheck G3 vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

"It is a pretty rock-solid device that is well-built."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The one-button AutoTest feature is an amazing tool. It works well. It tells you whether or not you have shorts in your network, your PoE+ is running low on voltage, and shows you your link speed."

"The ability to push data to Link-Live is really important. On the main screen, you can see all the system parameters, and then you can also go and see all the current systems that are operating. They all have different SSIDs or system identifiers, and you can see all SSIDs that are operating in a certain area. Being able to see that and being able to dive into each one and figure out what frequency it is operating under is valuable."

"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."

"It has made our networking staff more productive. We spend less time because the device helps us by identifying the issue and providing a solution for the customer. Prior to not having this device, we would have to guess when an issue arose. Now, we don't have to guess. This can easily save us hours per call."

"It is a stable solution."

"This solution has helped our organization by allowing us to store all the device configurations for the various network devices in NCM and making it easy for us to retrieve and look them over."

"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."

"It is pretty straightforward to set up."

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

"The scanning features have proven to be highly valuable, particularly due to the comprehensive information they provide."

"The solution's view is very nice, and they have a great customized dashboard."

"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."

"NetAlly has been behind the curve on visualization, Wi-Fi design, and heat maps for a little while now. They're perfectly aware of this deficiency, but what they offer is good enough for a lot of people. It's not suitable for larger shops, but it works in a pinch. The AirMapper and subsequent AirMagnet integration is an afterthought."

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

"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."

"The solution doesn't have much functional information online."

"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 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."

"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 was hard to determine which AP was which because it only shows the MAC address. It'll also display the MAC address of the BSSID, so it looked like I had 12 APs in my house. If I have three access points and each is a dual-band with an SSID or BSSID for each radio, it comes out to about 12 APs. That's one of the bugs fixed in the latest firmware update, but it's only available if you have a NetAlly support contract."

"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."

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

"On NCM, reporting could be a bit better. It's completely become just one report. When I try to create a custom report, the solution just commits old server data."

"The network flow is a problem for this solution."

"There are certain limitations of node-related monitoring"

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

"Its customer service response could be faster."

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

"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 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."

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

"The product has a pretty good price."

"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."

"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."

"There is a license needed to use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."

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

"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."

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

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

"I have a yearly subscription."

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

"The pricing is good."