ManageEngine Endpoint Central Reviews

Our agency did not have any way to manage the actual computers we provided our users. The tech support team would take such a long time to get to a user because they had to physically walk to every office to support the client. 

The primary use case for this product was to have a solution in place to manage all of our endpoint devices. Now the tech team is more responsive and efficient when it comes to supporting our endpoint users. Patch management is another win-win for us due to the way it was done in the past. 

This has a single pane of glass that allows us to manage our computers. We can now remote into computers, patch management, audit, check for issues while being virtually connected to a computer, report, and a ton of other options. 

Remote control was not a solution that was in place before and it's strange to think that you can be an efficient team without a solution like this in place, however, my team did what they could prior to my arrival. The same goes for patching computers, VMs, and physical servers. 

As stated earlier, the two most beneficial options for us are patch management and remote control. What is great about the patch management solution, is that it patches OS, applications, browsers, plug-ins, and firmware updates. 

We can report against it and make sure that all computers, servers, and anything else that has a security concern are patched. As for Remote, this application has a ton of features associated with it, such as: remote CLI, remote execution, chat, voice call, and many more. 

Tech support is mediocre at best. You sometimes get someone who knows what they are doing, but most times they trying to find their way around their own system. It really seems like support is just an afterthought. When the support issue gets escalated, it seems like there is no communication between the first-tier support tech and the second support tech, since we've had to re-iterate the entire issue from the beginning to the second-tier support person. 

We have been using ME (ManageEngine Endpoint Central) for about one year now. 

The stability is OK. 

It scales well within their catalog of apps. 

Technical support is poor. Sometimes I needed to look for my own solution on my own time as support was not able to fix the issue. 

Negative

We did not have an alternative solution prior to ME. 

The setup is straightforward. That said, the agent sometimes works and gets installed on clients and sometimes it does not. 

I did the implementation myself. 

We've had various issues that have prevented us from trying out multiple solutions so we have not had a great ROI. 

The only advice I have for others is to always look at the fine print. Talk to them and get it in writing about getting the best support possible when in need. Also, negotiate the price. 

We evaluated a couple of other products, however, it seems, for the money, that this was the best solution. 

We use the solution because we want a central tool for multiple security needs. We also use it for remote device management.

The product enables us to do AD auditing, vulnerability scans, and endpoint-related activities like MDM and MAM. It is a consolidated tool.

The patch management and the vulnerability scanning features are valuable. ManageEngine Endpoint Central is a one-stop solution for our visibility needs. From a single dashboard, I can get full visibility. The product enables mobile device management and mobile access management. It is a centralized tool. It is compatible with all environments, such as Linux and Windows, for third-party patch management.

The solution has software asset management, hardware asset management, and non-IT asset management. The dashboard is beautiful. We can get good information from the dashboard. The reporting tool is very good. We use ServiceDesk Plus, ADAudit Plus, ADManager, and OpManager. The product integrates different tools seamlessly and gives a comprehensive and correlated report.

The product must provide more API integrations with different ERP tools. It must also provide integration with CRM tools so that the asset can be quickly mapped. The mapping of the assets procured in the financial tool can be improved.

I have been using the solution for three to four months.

The tool is very stable. I am satisfied with the stability. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten. It is very scalable. Everyone in our IT department and security team is using the solution. We have approximately 550 users in our organization.

We deployed the solution recently. The software deployment is seamless. It is very good. The time taken for deployment depends on how we build the package. We follow our strategy. We do not deploy everything in one go. We follow a procedure. We have an SOP. We deploy in the test environment first. The tool gives us full control over patching. I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten.

The price is moderate.

We also use Microsoft.

ManageEngine Endpoint Central is a very good solution. It is a comprehensive solution. It has many features for IT and security. People must choose the security edition to benefit from the comprehensive and correlated approach to managing IT and security needs. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

This company uses the product a lot to do the patch implementation. In terms of the configuration of all machines, they do a lot of remote sections for the end-users.

The patch distribution is so easy. 

The mobile functionality is very easy. 

Remote sections are very good. 

The initial setup is easy.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support has been helpful.

It's quite stable. 

The pricing is good. 

The graphical dashboard is so easy to do analysis from.

I don't have any suggestions to improve the solution at this moment. However, the problem is Desktop Central is a big solution. It is a very powerful solution. It can be overwhelming.

Desktop Central has very good information, however, you can't customize the dashboards. If they had dashboard customization, it would be a very good improvement. When you have a dashboard that shows where, when, and why you had some problem it's quite useful. Customizing it to meet your exact needs would be ideal.

I've been using the solution, more or less, for four years.

It is a stable product. The performance is good. There are no glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

Sometimes we have bugs, however, the support is very, very nice and the support is a very good to us.

With a customer, we have more or less 2,000 desktops, 50 mobiles, and 300 servers.

It is a scalable product.

We do have plans to increase usage in the future. Likely in the next two months, we'll be looking at getting 200 more licenses.

We don't have problems with support. They are very helpful and responsive. 

We also use remote sessions to do support for the final user.

Positive

We also did POCs with HPE and IBM. We also looked into CA, Computer Associates.

Before moving to ManageEngine's Desktop Central and doing the POCs we did not use any different products.

It's an easy implementation. The setup is not overly complex. I haven't had any issues with the process at all. 

It doesn't take long to deploy. The problem is this customer. I spent a lot of time not on the setup. We did a POC and I spent more or less three months on it as this customer compared ManageEngine with three other solutions. ManageEngine Desktop Central was benchmarked in the comparison of the other three products. We proved everything including patch distribution, configuration, machine configuration, OS deployment, and remote sectioning. We proved everything and we did a comparison with two other solutions. That's what took the most amount of time.

We have more or less 20 technicians working with Desktop Central.

In terms of maintenance, the Desktop Central team works with the client to maintain all the machines and keep them up to date in terms of configurations and patches. 

We handled the implementation ourselves. We didn't need outside assistance. 

We have seen an ROI. 

If you do have one company with more 200 computers it's impossible to have all the machines up to date with patches. It's hard to get to every final user's machine. The problem is when you have many sites and solutions and development solutions inside of the company, it gets complex.

If you do one patch optimization without doing a test before the real installation of the patch in all machines, you can run into very big problems inside the company. Sometimes you install one patch and this patch is not compatible with all solutions, for example. If you have to patch for 2,000 machines, you can't say how many people will need which patch, et cetera. This solution solves that problem and removed the hours of work and complexity that you'd have to face if you didn't have it on hand.  

The pricing is very good. It's very reasonable and less than other options. 

We looked into HP, IBM, and CA. We compared them against ManageEngine. ManageEngine ended up being the cheapest.

We are using the last version of the solution.

I'd advise users to try out a POC. If they have a lot of machines in their company and need help with patching, this might be the perfect solution. However, try it on some machines first. See how it goes. It's the easiest way to find a solution that will work for you. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

Desktop Central has been used to solve the following problems within the organization I have implemented it into:

1. Ensures that the inventory of hardware and software is accurate.

2. Ensures that the configuration of this hardware and software is in alignment with organizational policies and procedures.

3. Ensures the vulnerabilities of hardware and software is understood.

4. Ensures that the remediation of these vulnerabilities is planned and accomplished.

5. Sustainably build secure devices rapidly.

6. Create policies and procedures that are easily repeatable because of the use of a powerful all-inclusive tool.

Desktop Central has improved these organizations and this is why it has been repeated multiple times at multiple organizations. If something works and is getting better it is worth repeating.

Because of Desktop Central, these organizations now have an accurate inventory of software in their organizations and can control what software can be on their devices and cannot. They have an authoritative and living inventory of devices and know who is using them. These devices and this software can be reliably configured in alignment with standards. Vulnerabilities are identified and remediated rapidly and devices are able to be rapidly imaged.

This platform is powerful because of the following:

1. It combines many powerful functionalities into one user-friendly and intuitive interface. 

2. The scope of the platform makes the platform worth spending the time to train users on.

3. The platform is easy to train others on and because of these efforts with the platform can be replicated making the team more agile and effective.

4. Granular access can be provisioned so users can have access to the tools and systems that are needed for a user and not everything they do not need.

Computer imaging is powerful but breaks frequently. The reason for this breaking is not clear and requires heavy amounts of attention to keep operational. There is a lot of room for this tool to do more but the reliability of this process should be focused on first to ensure core competencies are being fixed before more features are added. 

Support, when a problem happens, is not efficient at responding to problems and resolving issues efficiently. This is difficult because the time when we need this to be at its best is when we are having a problem and this has compromised our confidence in the product because support might not be confident in resolving issues when they come up.  

I have implemented and operationalized Desktop Central at two organizations that I have had lead technology strategy for over the past 5 years.

Several parts of the solution are very stable and other parts require additional focus on stability.

Desktop Central becomes more and more dependant upon the initial architecture of the platform the more and organization needs to scale up and out. There appears to be no onboarding process that accounts for accommodating users that want to ensure the initial architecture is invested in properly.

Our customer service and technical support experience has been lackluster and were are keen on seeing this improve.

Other tools were used and we switched because the other solutions were weak in some areas and support was unable to help when bugs were found, services were unreliable or when services stopped working for no reason. 

The initial setup for someone new to the platform is complex. This is especially true for more refined setup areas. 

In-house development. Difficult time finding vendor teams that are trusted and can bring expertise and efficiency. I would be interested in even using a resource like this today to help continue in adoption. 

Setup requires you to really roll up your sleeves and to dig in to connect the dots to get things up and running. Resources are not easy to find that are experts in deploying this platform and getting it fully up and running. The more you can refine the deployment the more value that the platform provides and someone that has never deployed this platform will see a high barrier of entry to accomplish these finer elements.

Other options were evaluated and as the market evolves they continue to be evaluated.

We primarily use the solution for managing patches and centralizing updates for applications. We can also blacklist and whitelist applications on our users' laptops.

Besides the office and operating systems, there are lots of other products that need to be taken care of, which are beyond your control. I have 250 endpoints here, sitting here and 100 roaming users, so for me, each and every application in the current scenario is very difficult, wherein the digital signatures are happening, the tokens are happening, which ask for the updates of Java, which ask for the update of a browser. It is very difficult for me to do the update of every PC individually. However, when handled in a centralized location, I get the control I need so that I can see which endpoint needs to be updated, which endpoint has been updated, et cetera. This is very helpful for me, very good.

The solution is very easy to use.

Everything is easily centralized and managed under this one product.

When we do the patching, I can select the applications which are applicable to my network. We will get multiple templates and tons and tons of applications, however, you can select and download and it'll start patching. It'll consume lots of bandwidth and disk space. What you can do, is that, whichever applications are applicable for you, you can select those applications and it will start patching only those applications. It will reduce the bandwidth, it'll reduce the disk space, and tracking will be much easier.

In terms of the warranty, you need to install the agent on the laptop, or desktop and once the agent is installed, when the communication happens, it fetches the entire detail of the hardware, software, and everything. The beautiful thing with that is it gives you the warranty information also, whether the product is out of warranty or not. I can set an alert for devices where the warranty is going to expire. I'll get an alert that it is going to expire in one year, a month, six months, whatever the term I defined.

Since I'm able to see whatever the applications are installed on the user's PC on the endpoint. Sometimes most of the roaming users who are out of my network tend to install applications that are not applicable as per company policy. You can define which applications are allowed. There was a couple of cases where my users had installed a YouTube Downloader, and while downloading and installing that filter, by default or by accident, they installed some of the adware also. That won't happen under this solution.

Desktop Central gives me an option wherein I can prohibit any software. When I blacklist software, the user will get an alert saying "This is prohibited software." Then they call IT and I'll get a notification. For me, I'm very much in control of my network now. I have the power of whitelisting or blacklisting.

For users that work from home and are not in the office, sometimes minor things happen, such as email not working properly, et cetera. Desktop Central will give me remote control of a user's machine and I can troubleshoot or find out what the issue might be. If something needs to be installed, I can do it remotely as well. I don't need to buy TeamViewer or AnyDesk or other software. 

There are so many features available to us. They've added a lot over time. Initially, the asset management was there, however, there were no warranty features. The remote control was there, however, there were various limitations. They've just gotten better and more robust over time. 

For the most part, all of my needs are met with this product.

I would like to see them come out with a SaaS version of the product in the future. There are dependencies with on-prem. For example, since it's on my data center, my bandwidth, it is totally dependent on my network. On the cloud, I don't have to worry about anything. 

One feature we're testing is when we have a laptop with just a DOS OS and we need to do a full installation, including installing the underlying OS. I'd like to have the option where we could create a template to allow the system to install the OS with the typical software. It's a feature we're testing now to see if this is possible. We don't use it yet. However, I'd like it if we could just run one script, one command, and then get an alert when the process is done so that I can go in and configure emails or whatever else I need so that it is ready for the end-user.

I've been working with the solution for around three years. 

The stability is very good. We have been using it for the last three to four years and there is not a single downtime where the product has failed. In terms of service updates, service backups, and whatever the features are coming, we have faced a 99.9% success ratio.

In the initial stage, at that time, we had a hybrid environment internally, where we had Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and some of the servers which had Windows 2003 OS. There were compatibility issues, however, we've since migrated and upgraded the systems and there is no longer an issue.

The solution is scalable.

We are using the solution quite extensively and have about 250 users.

Technical support has been good and we've been satisfied with their level of service. They have a good inbuilt chat option if you need to reach them. They have a technical team right within the solution that you can talk to in real-time. They can provide workarounds or escalate issues quite easily.

We used to have a Windows SUS server for patch management. There were other products that needed to be taken care of - for example, Adobe, the WinRAR, and multiple other software, which needed to be patched, and in which the assets needed to be managed. There are things such as warranties that need to be managed, and their tracking needs to be done, we were looking for an application wherein we would get everything on a centralized product, which is why we chose this solution.

The initial setup was straightforward. At the time, when we were in the phase of testing for the product, we did whatever testing to fulfill our requirements. That way, when we went into production, there were not any hiccups.

Deployment took around ten to 15 days, due to the number of endpoints that needed to be done, and the number of products that needed to be whitelisted. Also, everything needed to be configured. Around four to five people were involved in that project.

In terms of maintenance, if there is any product update, or if the application will have any service package coming, then I need to take downtime, to go through everything and do testing of the service pack to see whether it will hamper any current writing process or not. Once I do it in the test environment, then I have to put it in production.

That said, once we move to SaaS, this process will be obsolete in the cloud.

I have two dedicated resources for maintenance. That includes me. The other person looks at the patch management and the warranties. I look at server maintenance and deal with whatever resources are required for servers. 

We were able to set it up ourselves in-house. 

At the time we signed onto this product, it was a bit more expensive than SolarWinds, however, I'm not sure if that's since changed. 

We looked at SolarWinds, however, we went for the Desktop Central. We evaluated it and we found Desktop Central was quite user-friendly in terms of patch management and in terms of asset management. Right from the user inception, until the exit, everything is tracked under Desktop Central, whatever the asset allocated to the user, whatever the warranty, whatever the application, the install, everything is tracked under the Desktop Central.

Kaseya was also evaluated which was on the cloud. However, it was costlier and there were manageability issues. SolarWinds was a bit very complex in terms of handling. Technical support was also different as they only have an email option.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

Currently, we are using on-prem. I am waiting for SaaS, however, I really don't have the SaaS version. It'll be very good if they offer a SaaS version; my manageability will become very much easier.

If you're looking for third-party patch management, asset management, and/or remote control support, then this is the best app. For remote control, it doesn't require much bandwidth. Often, people sitting in a remote location are using their 3G data cards or mobile data, mobile phone, and they still got connected with the seamless connectivity. There has been no issue.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for patch management, Infinity Scan, and deploying iOS images and MDM. We utilize all the modules, especially for USB blocks and policy management.

Patch management features are an important feature. We have more than three thousand machines, so we need solutions to monitor what's happening in each batch. With ManageEngine Endpoint Central, we can manage Microsoft patches and third-party applications from third-party vendors.

ManageEngine should support various browser features, including those that address browser limitations. 

I have been using ManageEngine Endpoint Central for over three years. We are using the latest version of the solution.

I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten.

It is 100% scalable. Ten users are using this solution.

Support provides all the necessary guides and instructions on building, implementing, and deploying the Software Gateway. Whenever I try to reach support, I always get access.

Positive

We have used SCCM from Microsoft. It's like a basic solution without any features.

We work with vendors in Saudi Arabia, making the implementation very easy. The communication and configuration take just three to four hours.

I rate the initial setup a ten out of ten.

I rate its pricing as six or seven out of ten because the app is very expensive.

By applying policies such as SpeedLocks and compliance rules for browsers to block certain websites, ManageEngine Endpoint Central helps manage speed blocking, browsing, and filtering.

It was easy to integrate other tools.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I use the solution in my company as a ticketing system and for endpoint management. The purpose of the solution is to control user machines for remote sessions, push updates, and inventory management.

The reports provided by the product are an area of concern where improvements are required. The visibility provided by the reports is not very attractive.

Primarily, the product offers only chat support. Support via telephone should be provided to users by ManageEngine's technical team.

I have experience with ManageEngine Endpoint Central for a year. My company is a customer of the product.

It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. Though my organization does not have any machines, the scalability would be good even if we had more machines in our company. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The solution's technical support is very good. I rate the technical support a seven or eight out of ten.

Neutral

I rate the product's initial setup phase around eight to nine on a scale of one to ten, where one point means it is difficult to deploy and ten points means it is very easy to deploy.

The solution can be deployed in fifteen to twenty days or three weeks.

Two to three engineers were required to deploy the product.

Earlier, my company had to make use of a lot of people to deploy products, especially during the installation of Zscaler, endpoint management, and anti-virus tools. With ManageEngine Endpoint Central, my company doesn't have to ask our engineers to go to the desktops of everyone in our organization to manage the deployment part since we can do it remotely using the scripts in the product. The product has helped reduce the costs attached to the engineers since the deployments can be done quickly with the solution. Deployments like the ones involving products like Zscaler, which would have taken our company two to three weeks to deploy, can now be deployed in a week with the help of ManageEngine Endpoint Central.

The product is not costly. The product is properly priced, especially for SMBs.

The product works perfectly for patch management and software deployments. The tool makes the lives of its users easier, and allows us to deploy any software, like the deployment of Zscaler on our company's machines.

The product's most beneficial feature for IT security posture stems from the patch updates give clear visibility of which machines are installed or missing with the important crucial patches.

The product has streamlined application management because it gives me the list of applications in my network. I get clear visibility using ManageEngine Endpoint Central's software summary report if there is an anti-virus product network and if I need to find out the machines on which it is deployed.

The product is very easy to maintain if you know about the solution.

My company does not integrate ManageEngine Endpoint Central with any other products.

ManageEngine Endpoint Central is a cost-effective product. If you are someone who looks at areas like automation and deployment and feels the need to have the correct type of reports, then ManageEngine Endpoint Central is a good product.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

We carried out a POC on Desktop Central before implementing and it's been in production for two months. Our use case is for patching third-party applications and Windows applications. We use the solution extensively so that aside from the monthly scanning we use it to work on Microsoft vulnerabilities.

We are customers of Desktop Central and I'm an IT Manager. 

Previously, our monthly maintenance would have taken about eight hours, and two or three people continuously on a laptop. Our maintenance is now carried out by this solution and once it's done there just needs to be a check for errors. It's time-saving and resource-saving which is pretty good!

The patch management is really wonderful, it's effortless and just a matter of building a few configurations and creating a few templates which can be reused. The UI is quite good and user-friendly. 

There are a few basic things that haven't been configured in the tool. We're dealing with 600, 700 servers. The way the solution has been configured means you can only see 500 systems at a time. The company has acknowledged that this is an issue but they haven't worked on it yet. It's a little strange given the amount of time the product has been on the market. 

We're working on migrating to Azure. It involves a new patch that was not picked up by Desktop Central. I think it's a problem for them because Azure is everywhere right now and they don't seem to be up to date with the new patches. More needs to be included because everything Microsoft is launching now is more related to Azure.

I've been using this solution for six months. 

Performance is good and stable. If it's working on 600 servers at a time, there is a 90-minute window that it uses to communicate with its agent, and that's divided between all the servers. It can hamper performance at times when compared to other tools where you just click and everything is communicated without any wait time. The IT Ops team uses Desktop Central which, in our company, is two or three people. 

We haven't yet scaled but I believe it will be quite easy. 

We were using batchpatch earlier.

All the ManageEngine products are pretty straightforward when it comes to implementation. There are a few configurations you have to do on a network level for the codes, but it's not complicated. I carried out the deployment with one other person. We contacted the vendor a few times for some assistance but that was it. The POC took about a month and the actual deployment took a week to 10 days including configuring everything on the network level.

In terms of maintenance, the server and installed agent need to be updated on all servers. You do have to check it on your test environment to make sure everything is compatible with a virtual environment, otherwise it could crash your VM. 

The solution is relatively cheap because we purchased the full package. For now, we're only using patch management, but it offers many other things such as software deployment, the ability to create configuration packages and install new software. There are no additional costs to the licensing fee. 

We only recently started using Desktop Central, so we're comparing the results with another solution use, BatchPatch. The Desktop Central UI is very good and easy to use. BatchPatch is a cheaper product so it's more complicated and the UI is not as good. What BatchPatch does have that's lacking in Desktop Central is the granular representation of progress and what's happening on the backend. BatchPatch gives you a clear picture of what's happening step by step and progress per server; it gives you specific errors so you can check and troubleshoot. Desktop Central lacks that visibility. If you're carrying out maintenance of 600 servers, you need to have that visibility, so that if something's not right, you can look into it instead of having to wait eight hours.

If you're new to the solution, check your requirements because the solution is not suitable for every situation. We're using it for a data center, so we configured it differently. If, for example, you're dealing with local laptops on office premises and you're looking to do patch management, a product like Ivanti might be more useful. For us, Desktop Central is pretty good because we are working on servers, and the vulnerability checks we do on the security base are pretty high, so the patch management option of Desktop Central is pretty good. 

There is room for improvement, so I rate the solution eight out of 10.