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Azure Bastion vs N-able N-central comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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

Azure Bastion
Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (46th), Microsoft Security Suite (26th)
N-able N-central
Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) category, the mindshare of Azure Bastion is 2.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able N-central is 6.0%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N-able N-central6.0%
Azure Bastion2.0%
Other92.0%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

Anand Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Technical Support Engineer at Softcell Technologies Limited
Secure remote access has reduced attack surface and simplifies privileged administration
The best features of Azure Bastion are secure browser-based RDP or SSH access, elimination of public IP exposure on VMs, and seamless integration with Azure networking. From a cybersecurity perspective, we especially value centralized access control, reduced attack surface, and the ability to provide privileged administrative access without deploying and maintaining traditional jump servers. Browser-based RDP or SSH through Azure Bastion has reduced operational overhead because administrators can securely access VMs without VPN dependency, jump servers, or exposed management ports. Centralized access through Azure role-based access control makes permission management much easier, allowing us to enforce least-privilege access and maintain consistent administrative controls across multiple customer environments. Another feature we find valuable in Azure Bastion is its ability to standardize secure administrative access across different customer environments. From a security operation perspective, it reduces dependency on legacy jump host architectures, simplifies access management, and helps enforce a consistent remote access security model across Azure workloads.
Dimitri V G - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Manager Fiber & Backhaul Solutions Center & South at Telenet BVBA
Maximizing operational efficiency with comprehensive monitoring and automation capabilities
There are areas in N-able N-central that could be improved. We always started it from the basic purpose of monitoring hardware, where vendors such as HP and Dell try to sell their own services which monitor and provide a dashboard, which is their logic. They want to make their own recurring revenue on that. We notice that SNMP has had a good run and still sometimes is used, but it's becoming an issue to maintain the same capabilities because HP makes it unreliable or even removes certain features that we used to be able to validate redundant array of independent disks. Our service that has been running for 15-20 years suddenly is not working anymore because HP decided in generation 10 plus and above, or generation 10 hardware in servers, storage controllers particularly, they just didn't put the SNMP OIDs anymore. We are now following that market change or business change in hardware monitoring and the future is Redfish, REST API, IPMI type of monitoring with the REST API and Redfish being most common. We have to do the effort ourselves because Enable is not really strategically going there because I assume there's not much money to make to improve that or to convince customers to start with their product. That issue could be better if they would be more prepared for that change and give us customers more tools, preconfigured, pre-available custom services for Redfish, REST API, where we just have to put a few items username, password and address and some dots and commas, but that we don't have to reinvent the wheel, which we are doing at the moment. We are using HP iLO commandlets and REST APIs for Aruba. Dell is making it very hard to monitor their hardware. If it has an iDRAC, I can manage it and monitor it, but if it's something that's less common or due to the portfolio, they have done a good job at not exposing information about health. We would just want to have a red or a green dot that indicates if this device is healthy or not healthy. Since nobody's investing in SNMP because it's a liability in security, they should invest in making a REST API and preferably also do the work on making it easy to pull or push information. That's something that the industry in general and Enable in particular could do a significant job to help us monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Azure Bastion makes it easy to provide quick virtual machine access to our customers."
"As an Azure consultant, for me, it is the best way to give the administrator access as you can manage the permission - including who can access Bastion."
"It provides all the security to us. Without getting on the internet, we can access our servers. We can access our desktop through our web browser. We don't need to run the mstsc command and login to the VM. All those things are not required."
"It is very easy to use as it's in the browser; it is on the menu of the virtual machine, so you just need to type your username and password and you will have a full RDP experience."
"The solution acts as a dedicated server and we have implemented multiple software, users can easily access everything from there, and it's a cost-effective solution as we don't want to purchase any servers because everything is on the cloud, which is the main advantage for the company."
"Azure Bastion is preferable because you just switch it on and off you go."
"The product's setup is easy."
"The connection to virtual machines is very useful."
"The support is at a good level. So normally, we can always get to a solution when we are stuck with some monitoring problems that we encounter."
"It's a very robust product. They're continuing to invest and put new enhancements into the product. They're very open about what their roadmap is, which is very good for us because then as a business, we can plan."
"The transition to N-able N-central was very smooth; we were confident that our migration would not affect any operations, and it was easy to migrate our clients into the new solutions."
"The solution's service is good."
"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
"The most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
"The most helpful features of N-able N-central include providing a single pane of glass for many insights in an environment regarding their patching, their assets, their devices in general, and the active issues that they show."
 

Cons

"When you have a boot issue on Windows, you cannot use Azure Bastion to fix it. You have to use the Azure console or the VM console, and it is very limited."
"Azure Bastion could be improved with more granular session monitoring, rich audit capabilities, and deeper integration with security operation workflows."
"The solution breaks down sometimes."
"The protocol speed could be faster."
"Speaking of AI, having Microsoft Copilot in Azure Bastion would be good."
"Azure Bastion does its job. However, it would be nice to have the capability to cut and paste across desktops, similar to old-fashioned Remote Desktop emulation."
"When we retrieve that data from the cloud, they require some amount of money. That is the main drawback of this cloud solution. You are charged for retrieving your own data."
"While general support is valuable, having a detailed breakdown of the specific issues would contribute to a more streamlined and efficient resolution process."
"It was previously expensive and tedious to manage different licenses."
"The industry has moved towards Redfish for out-of-band and in-band monitoring, yet N-able N-central still relies on older protocols like SNMP."
"The integration with other applications could be better."
"The solution's overall integration should be improved."
"At this moment, we encounter stability issues with N-able N-central from time to time."
"We have to do the effort ourselves because Enable is not really strategically going there because I assume there's not much money to make to improve that or to convince customers to start with their product."
"The support from our direct team is very good, but the support from their day-to-day ongoing help desk isn't that good. They have still got some work to do on that, but they have been focusing on that a lot over the last number of years. So, it has gotten a lot better than it was."
"N-central has limited mobile device management (MDM) support, specifically for Android devices. This limitation affected a deal with a client who had numerous Android devices to manage. It would be beneficial if N-central could expand its MDM support to include Android devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cheaply priced. I would say that the product is free to use."
"Azure Bastion's pricing is good."
"The pricing is a lower decision point than high-quality security for our organization. Better security comes at a cost, but it's worth it, and that's what we tell our customers."
"It does not save money for us."
"The pricing and licensing are average, almost six out of ten."
"N-able N-central is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Bastion?
Microsoft's pricing is on the higher side and could be more competitive. Startups and small organizations often prefer AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-reviews ) or GCP due to their lower costs, while la...
What needs improvement with Azure Bastion?
Azure Bastion could be improved with more granular session monitoring, rich audit capabilities, and deeper integration with security operation workflows. We would also appreciate enhanced reporting...
What is your primary use case for Azure Bastion?
Azure Bastion serves as our primary solution for providing secure administrative access to Azure VPNs and VMs without exposing RDP or SSH ports to the internet. From a cybersecurity perspective, it...
What needs improvement with N-able N-central?
The MSP part of N-able N-central has evolved over the years. They have been trying to move from professional or network server and desktop licensing to make it more comprehensive. With professional...
What is your primary use case for N-able N-central?
We have been dealing with Enable EDR and N-able N-central, which is a management center. It's the NOC solution that we are currently running our asset management on. We are managing tasks in that e...
What advice do you have for others considering N-able N-central?
There's a new node for N-able N-central which they have addressed. Our outstanding items include reviewing our pricing and partnership level, which can provide additional benefits when we exceed 10...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds N-central, SolarWinds MSP N-central
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Premier Technology Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Bastion vs. N-able N-central and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.