IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs N-able MSP Manager comparison

IBM and N-able are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #27, while N-able is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.0. IBM holds a 0.7% mindshare in HDS, compared to N-able’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of N-able users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

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197 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

N-able MSP Manager

Read 4 N-able MSP Manager reviews

315 Views
219 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

N-able MSP Manager

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and N-able MSP Manager are products in IT service management and MSP environments, respectively. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk seems to have the upper hand in comprehensive ITIL support and integration capabilities, while N-able MSP Manager excels in simplicity and efficiency for MSP tasks.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk provides robust IT service management functions like change, incident, and problem management. It integrates well with enterprise systems enhancing service delivery. Additionally, it includes valuable IT asset management. N-able MSP Manager offers streamlined ticketing and billing systems, real-time network utilization reporting, and a unified management portal with RMM integration, all focused on efficient MSP operations.

Room for Improvement: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk could improve its deployment process for smaller enterprises and offer more accessible customer support resources. Enhancing user interface customization and simplifying integration processes would be beneficial. N-able MSP Manager may improve by expanding ITIL functionality, adding more advanced reporting tools, and offering enhanced customization options in SLA and workflow settings.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk's deployment is complex and more suited for larger enterprises due to its expansive feature set. In contrast, N-able MSP Manager offers quicker deployment, ideal for smaller MSPs. N-able emphasizes customer support with accessible resources, whereas IBM relies on traditional enterprise-level support systems.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk typically has higher setup and operational costs, with significant ROI for large organizations leveraging its full capabilities. N-able MSP Manager presents a cost-effective option with quicker ROI for smaller businesses, balancing features and costs effectively for budget-conscious decision-makers.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. N-able MSP Manager Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. N-able MSP Manager

April 2025

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Helped 846,617 peers since 2012

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

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

27th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

N-able MSP Manager

Ranking in Help Desk Software

23rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Service Management (ITSM) (25th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.7%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able MSP Manager is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz

Director of operations at Vetasi

Helps standardize our workflow, track client tickets, and it's very flexible

Initially we used HPE Service Desk. Then, Remedy (IBM SmartCloud Control Desk) version 5. When selecting a vendor, the most important thing for us is the flexibility of the tool. It must be very flexible to change the workflow or to add new workflows for the clients. It must have stability and scalability as well.

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Yazan Albaw

Customer Success Director at We Cybers

N-able MSP Manager centralizes service management, automates ticketing, and enhances client communication for streamlined IT operations.

For improvement, there's a feature I've already requested from N-able that I'd love to see in future releases. When adding a client, there should be a way to add multiple contacts under each client. Currently, we have to manually enter each contact’s details one by one, including their name, last name, password, and other information. It would be much more efficient if we could import contacts in bulk, perhaps using an Excel sheet or another import method. Additionally, it would be highly beneficial if MSP Manager could integrate with multiple RMM solutions. At the moment, we're limited to integrating with just one RMM, Expanding this capability would greatly enhance the versatility and value of MSP Manager.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."

"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."

"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."

"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."

"The solution has been stable."

"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"I like that you can do all the things with it. You can patch, and you can run the scheduled tasks. You can remote in, upload files, and download files. You can log onto a computer PowerShell, or command prompt, without having to log into RDP. I also like its ease of use."

"I am impressed with the tool's integration with our mail system."

"This is a premier product and it has been around for a long time."

"The best advantage for us, since we use all N-able products, is that the MSP portal centralizes everything."

Cons

"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."

"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."

"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."

"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"Its reporting is lousy and bad. It is not as good as it should be. There is too much work involved to get what you want. Most times, you have to call them to customize some stuff. I just don't like that part. They need to work on their reporting. They have a way to go."

"What I would like to see is a simplified solution that is packaged better, where you can easily implement or turn on the functionality that you need."

"I'd like to see a way to import contacts in bulk using an Excel sheet or another import method."

"The tool needs to improve its customization of the user interface."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."

"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."

"I don't know the exact cost, but I know it's reasonable. Its cost of entry is not bad. I've had other organizations sign up for it. I don't know how much they paid, but it wasn't bad. You charge for every object. You charge for AV, and you charge for servers. There is a charge for everything or every object in that. I know we make money from it, but I don't know what it is."

"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten since it's not the cheapest one in the market."

"Don't get scared of the price tag because it's definitely worth it."

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Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about N-able MSP Manager?

I am impressed with the tool's integration with our mail system.

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What needs improvement with N-able MSP Manager?

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What is your primary use case for N-able MSP Manager?

At We Cybers, we utilize multiple N-able products, including RMM, EDR, and Passportal. N-able MSP Manager seamlessly integrates our ticketing system with both RMM Insight and N-central, enabling au...

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Comparisons

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

April 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

March 2025

Download N-able MSP Manager product report

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

SolarWinds LOGICnow, SolarWinds MSP Manager

Overview

IBM Control Desk on Cloud offer an access to a user friendly self-service, automated service management, and seamlessly-integrated, best-practice based service desk capabilities. IBM Control Desk provides the IT service management (ITSM) needed to simplify support of users and infrastructure. It also offers a unified IT asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets and enables control, governance and compliance to applications, endpoints and assets to protect critical data and prevent outages. Control Desk is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-compliant, accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools.

IBM

Managing your business and providing excellent support shouldn’t bog you down. MSP Manager’s ease of use will free your team to deliver on your promise of great service.

Intuitive, lightweight ticketing with seamless RMM and N-central^®platform integrations.
Painless time tracking with convenient timers and functionality for recurring tickets and appointments.
Closed-loop email with automatic ticket monitoring and routing, with a streamlined Microsoft 365 setup via OAuth.
Complete customer and knowledge management with a branded portal.
Accounting integrations with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and Xero.

N-able

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

Longleaf Systems, ITproMedia, Choice Technology, Halski Systems, Allixo Technologies, Nettech, Concept Technology

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. N-able MSP Manager

April 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. N-able MSP Manager

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