Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Device42 vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Device42
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (6th), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (3rd), Data Center Infrastructure Management (3rd)
SolarWinds Web Help Desk
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Device42 and SolarWinds Web Help Desk aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Device42 is designed for IT Asset Management and holds a mindshare of 5.8%, down 6.6% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Web Help Desk, on the other hand, focuses on Help Desk Software, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 1.0% since last year.
IT Asset Management
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Krishna Gopal Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 4, 2022
Good reporting and discovery capabilities, and helpful for understanding device dependencies and asset management
Its price needs to be improved. It is more expensive than some of the other tools out there. Their support is good, but their knowledge base should be better. There should be a common area where we can search and find solutions for our queries or issues. We don't always need to raise a ticket with the Device42 support team. Currently, if you want to ping devices, you need to log into Appliance Manager. This feature should be available on the Device42 side. You should be able to use the ping utility without logging into Appliance Manager. The features that are there in Appliance Manager should also be available on the main Device42 server so that you have more control on one screen. You don't need to switch to another portal, but it is not something critical.
Shadi Shaar - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 3, 2024
Supports case and incident reporting with responsive support
SolarWinds Web Help Desk is a case management system. Each user logs their concerns or problems into the portal, which are then assigned to one of our support engineers responsible for managing the IT department. With this system, we can track issues, generate reports, collect feedback, and conduct…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The IP address tracking [is valuable]... We have a lot of different devices and some of them have many IP addresses, so keeping track of which ones are assigned where is very critical for putting new devices on the network and giving them new addresses. All of our devices are statically assigned, so if we don't keep good records then we could accidentally assign a duplicate, which would cause problems on the network."
"The continuous asset discovery is good because it means not having to manually input all the small data, such as IP addresses, leases, etc. It helps and saves us a lot of time."
"One of the most valuable features in my experience is the precise tracking of hardware devices and their locations registered in the solution. The solution allows to determine the exact placement of assets based on the building maps and the room details. This feature has allowed us to gain upper hand on the customers and provide them with a great satisfaction because they can visually see the arrangement of their assets within the organisation or building."
"It has agentless discovery; you don't need to put agents on your servers. You can open one or two ports to discover all your infrastructure."
"The most helpful feature in Device42 was the import feature, where you can seamlessly import your information into the configuration database manager."
"The auto-discovery is brilliant. You can have it scheduled to run on a regular basis, and the infrastructure is always getting updated within the platform. I would rate the asset discovery very highly. It's very comprehensive. It covers quite a lot of different methods for doing discovery and it supports a lot of different types of hardware as well."
"I like the tool's agentless discovery feature. The tool configures the devices based on the documentation provided. I am also impressed with its auto-discovery feature. The tool also keeps on tracking and finds whatever is in the environment."
"The solution is agentless."
"Once installed, it runs like a charm and doesn't ever crash."
"It has a pretty good search function. If you do the advanced search, you can basically search for anything in any field. If I do a search on the request field and just put in some terms I'm searching for, I can usually find the ticket that I'm looking for."
"It is easy to use."
"SolarWinds is scalable as far as adding devices and servers."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the assets management module."
"SolarWinds supports case and incident reporting. This includes logging incidents and tracking them efficiently. Additionally, it is compatible and approved by the ITIL foundation and standards, meeting world-class standards."
 

Cons

"Configuring rPDUs in the data center for Device42 required us to add multiple discovery jobs. The rPDUs were referred to the ISPDUs and daisy-chained. They would automatically assign a unique SMP port, but Device42 didn't allow SMP ranges, so we had to create a discovery job for each rPDU individually. We submitted a feature request to mitigate that."
"The reporting could be better. The Insights+ component is an improvement, but they even admit it isn't the greatest. The documentation on their website could also be improved, but Device42 is constantly changing, so the documentation would have to change almost daily."
"While the automatic IT asset discovery is great, the first time using it can be confusing when you are configuring the SNMP. I don't remember for sure but I don't think it said "SNMP community," it said "password". The first time I used it I was thinking about communities but the tool said "password," and when you say "password" in SNMP you are thinking about SNMP version 3. This is the only thing that is confusing, although there were some devices that were not included in the discovery."
"The dependency mapping can be quite slow sometimes, if you've got a lot of things connecting to services. It can be very slow to build up the map."
"The architecture is a bit old-fashioned. Device42 is on one server, appliance, virtual machine, or guest. We are loading more into Device42 than it can hold. Overloading Device42 with REST API calls or tasks will directly impact every aspect because the server will be too busy to answer requests."
"Device42 is a main part of our processes. We need reliability, not only in terms of the data but with the solution itself. It's really difficult when we have 10 minutes of Device42 downtime because none of our teams can work for those 10 minutes, and it's more time lost if there is longer downtime. An improvement would be to have a cluster implementation of Device42 to have high-availability and ensure that we don't have downtime in case of failure."
"When servers have two network adapters, automatically discovered will be only one network card because the other one is a backup. Device42 has some problems to find the other connection."
"I would like to see API management as an additional feature in the tool's future versions. It will give more API security."
"The interface feels clunky to me compared to some other systems that I've used. I used ManageEngine Service Desk prior to this at my previous job and that had stuff like categories that we use that I don't see in SolarWinds."
"We would like to see automation included in the next release. We would like to eliminate the L1, and L2 support, by at least 80%. To do this, we need automation with AI (Artificial Intelligence) in combination with ML (Machine Learning)."
"It would be good if there were training and tutorial videos on the Web Help Desk."
"A little outdated compared to newer products that include protection and detection."
"This solution needs to have mobile application support added."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $100,000 per year."
"Functionality-wise, Device42 is on par with industry standards, but price-wise, the solution is expensive. I'm rating the pricing for the solution as eight out of ten."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing is $10,000. However, our license is now nearly full with devices. We need the next bigger license with 5,000 devices, which will cost us $19,000. We pay for a set of licenses, a maximum number of devices, and a maximum number of IP addresses. We have the smallest amount of features, which is enough for us at this time."
"The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
"I am not involved in its pricing, but I have seen their plans during a discussion with the customer. For 500 servers, they were asking 50,000 USD. The cost of BMC Discovery was less than half. For the same thing, they were charging only 10,000 USD. Its pricing needs to be improved. As compared to other discovery tools, such as BMC Discovery and ServiceNow Discovery, its price is a little bit higher."
"It's in the top-three most expensive solutions in terms of cost, but it has all the features that are needed."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
"When you compare with ManageEngine and ServiceNow, SolarWinds is reasonable."
"They charge by the technician. It costs $117 per technician per year."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Asset Management solutions are best for your needs.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Educational Organization
78%
Retailer
3%
University
3%
Computer Software Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Device42?
Based on the use case for Device42, I found the solution a bit expensive. However, when you look at the support and the industry standards, Device42 was on par with the industry. Device42 is a litt...
What needs improvement with Device42?
The product must provide AI features. It would be very useful if I could create datasets or queries from an AI interface.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
Some features in the product are supposed to run. However, if they don't, it may require some time to configure or fix them, such as asset management. We have been struggling with asset management ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
SolarWinds Web Help Desk is a case management system. Each user logs their concerns or problems into the portal, which are then assigned to one of our support engineers responsible for managing the...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
SolarWinds Web Help Desk could be beneficial for generating automated responses, such as ONIQ. Since we receive multiple cases from similar backgrounds, it would streamline the process if the syste...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Computershare, Concur, Doosan, Fitch Ratings Inc., Fujitsu, HomeAway, Jasper Wireless, Mercedes-Benz, Square, Twitch, UCSB, Zayo Group Inc.
Instacart
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, BMC, Qualys and others in IT Asset Management. Updated: November 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.