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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 6.8%, down 10.3% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.7% mindshare, down 6.0% 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

"The initial setup is easy and the deployment is quick."
"ConnectWise Automate's interface is pretty easy to use. It's pretty intuitive to get around and navigate it. It does what I need, which is usually connecting to the client and customers systems."
"Maybe they could improve the capability to be multi-tenant."
"Scripting and patch management are really important for us. Patch Manager is something that we use a lot, and we would love to have it continually improved. It is one of the most useful features for us for controlling patches and other things for different clients."
"Remote access and detailed monitoring help us support our equipment."
"A good automated scripts feature."
"The implementation is nice and easy."
"It is very scalable."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"It is scalable."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is the vital states of the devices as it provides overall CPU and device health information."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"The alerting system in SolarWinds NPM aids in proactive network management."
 

Cons

"Technical support was helpful."
"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."
"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 fixed client for Automate is slow. The web client is not very intuitive."
"Scheduling of automation could be improved and made more simple."
"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."
"In Patch Manager, there should be more reportability so that it is easier to see the updates that I have applied to a machine and when the next update will happen. A lot of times, it seems like all the information is kind of thrown all over the place, and you can't really see it all at the same time. There should be a simplified patch data view that allows us to quickly confirm that our various clients are getting patched as they should be."
"The wait time for a support ticket to be addressed needs to be reduced. They take a couple of days to get back. It is a little frustrating when we have to wait for a couple of days. A lot of times, the issue is critical for us. If we're reaching out to their support team and submitting a ticket, it is because we need it handled quickly."
"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"My team has had a lot of issues with support."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features."
"Application Performance Monitoring should be included in this solution."
"The response time of the support team needs to improve"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I've overheard, it is pretty comparable to other solutions in terms of price."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"I pay $85 a month per user for a ConnectWise package that contains multiple solutions."
"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"Quite highly priced"
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
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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
57%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
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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842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.