AirCheck G3 vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

"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."

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

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"AirCheck has a feature that lets you play a tone so you can track down a rogue AP based on the RF signal. That's a cool feature. It can also help you identify interference like microwave ovens or Bluetooth devices. I also like the ability to link it to your online account. It sends a report via email and saves it on the cloud."

"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."

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 biggest improvement would be an easier upload over wireless to Link-Live. Currently, the device has to be patched into the Ethernet. The wireless upload has been giving us some issues."

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

"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."

"I would like to see more features in terms of wireless reporting and more historical information for client connectivity in SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."

"The solution could improve by being more secure."

"For each device, when you open the network performance monitor, it will give you all of the information about the device, but many of the natural configuration management features are not on that page."

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

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

"Further improvements in automation are needed. Currently, there are limitations in performing tasks without logging into routers directly, and we expect more comprehensive device control."

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

"The AI features do not work well."

"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 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."

"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."

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

"The product has a pretty good price."

"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."

"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."

"Available at a moderate price"

"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."

"Pricing is reasonable and competitive."

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

"The pricing is good."

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