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ConnectWise Automate vs ManageEngine Endpoint Central comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ConnectWise Automate
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (10th)
ManageEngine Endpoint Central
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (6th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. ConnectWise Automate is designed for Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) and holds a mindshare of 5.5%, down 7.4% compared to last year.
ManageEngine Endpoint Central, on the other hand, focuses on Client Desktop Management, holds 18.7% mindshare, down 31.6% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ConnectWise Automate5.5%
NinjaOne10.0%
Kaseya VSA9.8%
Other74.7%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Client Desktop Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine Endpoint Central18.7%
Symantec Client Management Suite13.4%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)11.6%
Other56.3%
Client Desktop Management
 

Featured Reviews

MikeChacker - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager Global Service Delivery at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Facilitates valuable patch cycles, but the web client is not very intuitive and needs updating, and the scripting has room for improvement
The fixed client for Automate is slow. The web client is not very intuitive. It could use some updating and some thought around the UX. Also, with the scripting, I would like to see something where it could have third-party scripts already pre-built, and all you have to do is say, "Hey, I need this," and go load it. It's not as automated as I'd like it to be.
reviewer1908987 - PeerSpot reviewer
Ict Manager at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
Centralized endpoint management has improved patching, software deployment, and asset control
ManageEngine Endpoint Central is what I am personally working with and using, along with the Service Desk, which is another tool we use. We have been working with ManageEngine Endpoint Central for four years or more. The customizable packages in software deployment are very positive; you can apply different policies for the package that you are going to deploy. This is something we are still using and working with. ManageEngine has a very large portfolio of products. There is some functionality that is not managed from ManageEngine Endpoint Central, but you can find that functionality in another module of ManageEngine's portfolio.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The automated scripts feature means that we can set up for a lot of different things and they have reduced tech input drastically, in the sense that a task only needs to be done once instead of 100 times."
"The most value we get from this solution is that everything is on a patch cycle, so all my team has to do is go through patches, whereas previously, they were doing all the patches manually."
"This product saves us a lot of time and increases our efficiency."
"The solution is very stable; it's reliable, there are no bugs and glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"Technical support is really good; they are helpful and responsive."
"Technical support has been good. Everyone we have been in contact with has responded to our queries in a reasonable amount of time."
"It is very scalable."
"Maybe they could improve the capability to be multi-tenant."
"Desktop Central is easy to deploy, manage, and integrate with other ManageEngine products."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central's most valuable features are remote desktop control and image management; we can send things out from the desk here, and it is a very good tool for us."
"ManageEngine Endpoint Central has its own database to check patches without needing to go to the vendor."
"DC9 is a simple, cheap and complete software distribution tool, also to configure all necessary options to control all kinds of OS options on the workstations like in Microsoft Group Policy Editor."
"One of the benefits of Desktop Central is it made the provisioning process simpler because now we have a provisioning package. We have around 1,500 laptops at the moment and all these PCs were provisioned by a provisioning package. In the provisioning package, we have integrated every aspect of renaming, deploying applications, patching, etc., so we simply execute the provisioning package and as soon as it's executed, it will install the management agent. Once the agent is installed, it will take care of all the tasks, so we don't have to sit in front of the computer to prepare the machine. This really helps us to provision the PC quickly with our agent."
"Patch management features are an important feature."
"From a sys admin point of view, it now requires less effort and time to perform these administrative tasks."
"Desktop Central has improved these organizations and this is why it has been repeated multiple times at multiple organizations. If something works and is getting better it is worth repeating."
 

Cons

"I would say that it really needs to improve on it. They need better visibility and reporting and alerts and different things."
"The fixed client for Automate is slow. The web client is not very intuitive."
"There could be better linkages between ConnectWise Automate and Manage from a ticketing perspective. Automate and Manage each has its own ticketing system. We use the one in Manage, but it'd be nice if they were linked directly to the one in Automate."
"The solution needs to improve Event ID monitoring big time. They're behind the game on the other RMMs, and we support multiple RMMs."
"Reliability: Open a computer window new screen and it's slow."
"They always change the GUI to some dumb-down version of tiles which are more "user-friendly", but slows my team down in the end."
"Scheduling of automation could be improved and made more simple."
"The wait time for a support ticket to be addressed needs to be reduced. They take a couple of days to get back."
"Not many things are needed for improvement, everything seems to be great as it is. One thing that would be good to have would be the ability to add MDM to a tablet running Android 5.0 using the EMM Token Enrollment. If we wanted to add MDM to an older tablet, we just have to go the "long route" to get it added."
"Overall, our experience has not been good. The solution isn't fully stable, and, when it goes down, it's hard to get it up and running."
"Its licensing should be improved."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central should keep up with some of the features that other major vendors are providing, such as Microsoft."
"The pricing is lower than other well-respected solutions in this category."
"I would like to see them come out with a SaaS version of the product in the future."
"In relation to ManageEngine Endpoint Central, ManageEngine NGAV seems to be completely useless right now."
"The MDM feature isn't very good. It doesn't support Amazon vendors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"I pay $85 a month per user for a ConnectWise package that contains multiple solutions."
"From what I've overheard, it is pretty comparable to other solutions in terms of price."
"Affordable for any customer."
"There are multiple flavors of the app. They have a distributed version for enterprises. It depends on your size. They price it on a per machine basis. 250 or 500 is probably their least amount."
"The pricing of the product is not bad compared to the other similar solutions in the market."
"I have been using the free version and am in the stage where I have to decide if I will proceed with the paid license, or instead choose another product."
"The product is not costly. The product is properly priced, especially for SMBs."
"The product is cheap."
"The pricing is average."
"We had perpetual licenses. The cost was around 36,000, and then you'd have the yearly maintenance fee of 2,000 or 3,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
8%
Performing Arts
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
I would rate the pricing as seven; it is quite expensive from my point of view for ManageEngine Endpoint Central.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
It would be great to see some additional options within ManageEngine Endpoint Central. A better monitoring tool to analyze network traffic related to patch management would be something good to see...
 

Also Known As

LabTech for IT Service Providers, ConnectWise Automate for Corporate IT Departments, ConnectWise Automate for IT Service Providers
ManageEngine Desktop Central, Desktop Central, ManageEngine Desktop Management MSP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

I-M Technology, Mainstay Technologies, PC Works Plus, Integrity IT, Kerkhoff Technologies Inc., Marathon Consulting, Christenberry Sales Company, EDTS, Secom Technology, Ready to View, ARRC Technology, DaVinci Digital, JNR Networks, Quinn Technology Solutions, PCIT, Liberty Technology, Capital Computers & Networks, Atlanta Technology Force, Doberman Technologies, First Column Enterprises, CisCom Solutions
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Strathallan School, BMI Healthcare, Comercial Kywi, First Priority Federal Credit Union, Gerab National Enterprises
Find out what your peers are saying about NinjaOne, Kaseya, TeamViewer and others in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM). Updated: September 2026.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.