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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) (8th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), 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 8.0%, down 10.6% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 5.2% mindshare, down 6.1% 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

"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."
"The implementation is nice and easy."
"It's a very good IT tool for a company that provides IT services. It is very helpful for technicians to work with the tool to see all of the customers in one place and then manage all of the computers in one place."
"This product saves us a lot of time and increases our efficiency."
"The most value we get from this solution is that everything is on a patch cycle."
"Maybe they could improve the capability to be multi-tenant."
"The database is great. It's a nicely ordered database."
"Remote access and detailed monitoring help us support our equipment."
"It is scalable."
"Everything has been complete and stable for our needs over the past four years."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical."
"I like SolarWinds support because it's 24/7. You describe your issues, your situation and maybe two or three hours later you can discuss a solution with a technical engineer."
"The alerting and usage tracking notifications on disk space capacity, network and processor utilization."
"The abnormal traffic notifications are good. Most of them are remote, and it is very good for notifications and monitoring for the traffic."
"The alerting system in SolarWinds NPM aids in proactive network management."
 

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."
"Scheduling of automation could be improved and made more simple."
"They could use some automated alerts particularly when we're talking about an MSP that might shoot over."
"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."
"Their support needs to be better."
"Patching and reporting need improvements, especially reporting. The reporting engine is quite outdated, so you end up having to use your own dashboard."
"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."
"I have a problem with the reports available on the solution. I don't understand how to work with the reporting functionality. For example, when I want to give a report for a specific machine, ConnectWise doesn't seem to have this as an option. I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or if the reporting functionality is just poorly conceived."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the short retention period. Currently, it's just for seven days of data, which is very low, making it hard for my organization to keep that data. SolarWinds recommended a seven-day retention period, but my organization needs a fourteen-day data retention period. Hence, I'd like an increase in the retention period or the database limit in SolarWinds NPM because you can't go back to the data for any investigation if seven days have passed. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the database, which needs to be a bit more mature. I want a modified database in the next release of SolarWinds NPM. I'd also like more options added to groups because, currently, it's very limited."
"The tool can only monitor up to 1000 instances in a single SolarWinds console. Customers may have over 1000 instances. Hence, it needs to support a minimum of 1500 instances. It should also improve support."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"A feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting."
"We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area. We had to work with our security team, so that they could help us check and backup the data, and check what they needed to secure."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"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."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"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
8%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Media Company
3%
Educational Organization
58%
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

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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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831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.