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ConnectWise Automate vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

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) (9th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

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 6.3%, down 10.1% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.7% mindshare, down 5.9% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Sean Saeb - PeerSpot reviewer
Responsive, integrates well with other applications, and the technical support is helpful
There is always room for improvement. I haven't had any problems, and they're doing a great job, in my opinion. They're doing quite well. In most cases, when we discover an issue, we report it to their engineers, who then schedule a fix. Normally, when we request something, I can see it happening within three to four months. This is a raw system. Of course, it has some flaws that could be improved. But, it's something that we will have to work with to get to the point where we need this, we request it and they do their best to make it happen. There is a lot of integration with other applications through Automate, and I believe they are working with all of the industry leaders to get the integration going. I am very pleased to be working with them.
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's definitely improved the help-desk servicing, et cetera."
"The most value we get from this solution is that everything is on a patch cycle."
"A good automated scripts feature."
"The initial setup is easy and the deployment is quick."
"The database is great. It's a nicely ordered database."
"Maybe they could improve the capability to be multi-tenant."
"The implementation is nice and easy."
"This product saves us a lot of time and increases our efficiency."
"The connectivity of the solution is very good."
"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one. I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."
"The solution ranks as one of the top five monitoring tools."
"As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical."
"Network performance is the main issue clients are facing. SolarWinds checks if a node is down, and we can set thresholds for performance metrics. For example, we set it up to get an alert automatically if a value is over 80 percent. It has a full dashboard that covers CP, hard disk, and node monitoring."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
 

Cons

"We would love to get feature updates and cumulative updates fixed. I know they aren't really supposed to be pushed with Patch Manager. We've got recommendations from ConnectWise to use the scripted feature update installs, scripted KB updates, etc. Having these in Patch Manager itself would be great."
"The fixed client for Automate is slow. The web client is not very intuitive."
"Patching and reporting need improvements, especially reporting. The reporting engine is quite outdated, so you end up having to use your own dashboard."
"This is a raw system. Of course, it has some flaws that could be improved. But, it's something that we will have to work with to get to the point where we need this, we request it and they do their best to make it happen."
"The project management needs improvement and there's a section of the product called configuration that also needs to be improved."
"They could use some automated alerts particularly when we're talking about an MSP that might shoot over."
"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."
"Their support needs to be better."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"The solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible."
"Robustness of network element mapping tool could be better"
"There needs to be more integration of widgets, especially for reporting purposes."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"SolarWinds needs to be improved such that it is on par with the leading products in the market."
"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I've overheard, it is pretty comparable to other solutions in terms of price."
"I pay $85 a month per user for a ConnectWise package that contains multiple solutions."
"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"It is not an expensive product."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Educational Organization
55%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Also Known As

LabTech for IT Service Providers, ConnectWise Automate for Corporate IT Departments, ConnectWise Automate for IT Service Providers
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

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
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
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849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.