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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) (9th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), 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 6.3%, down 10.1% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.7% mindshare, down 5.9% 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

"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."
"Scripting and patch management are really important for us. Patch Manager is something that we use a lot, and we would love to have it continually improved. It is one of the most useful features for us for controlling patches and other things for different clients."
"The initial setup is easy and the deployment is quick."
"The implementation is nice and easy."
"It's definitely improved the help-desk servicing, et cetera."
"It is very scalable."
"The database is great. It's a nicely ordered database."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"SolarWinds is reasonably priced."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"The other valuable system is the DSS (decision support system). If there's a fault in the network, SolarWinds is basically capable of rectifying and resolving that problem on its own without any intervention from an IP assistant or administrator."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds NPM are network performance monitoring and the overall benefit for servers."
 

Cons

"They could use some automated alerts particularly when we're talking about an MSP that might shoot over."
"There could be better linkages between ConnectWise Automate and Manage from a ticketing perspective. Automate and Manage each has its own ticketing system. We use the one in Manage, but it'd be nice if they were linked directly to the one in Automate."
"Patching and reporting need improvements, especially reporting. The reporting engine is quite outdated, so you end up having to use your own dashboard."
"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."
"Their support needs to be better."
"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."
"Scheduling of automation could be improved and made more simple."
"They always change the GUI to some dumb-down version of tiles which are more "user-friendly", but slows my team down in the end."
"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds. The performance is slow."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"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."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"My team has had a lot of issues with support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I've overheard, it is pretty comparable to other solutions in terms of price."
"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"I pay $85 a month per user for a ConnectWise package that contains multiple solutions."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
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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%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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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