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

ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus vs N-able N-central 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

ManageEngine Patch Manager ...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Patch Management (7th)
N-able N-central
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus and N-able N-central aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is designed for Patch Management and holds a mindshare of 4.6%, down 7.9% compared to last year.
N-able N-central, on the other hand, focuses on Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), holds 7.4% mindshare, down 11.5% since last year.
Patch Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus4.6%
NinjaOne7.9%
Microsoft Configuration Manager7.8%
Other79.7%
Patch Management
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N-able N-central7.4%
Kaseya VSA15.0%
NinjaOne12.0%
Other65.6%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

ManojNair2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder/Director at Augesys Solutions Pvt Ltd
Centralized patching has unified multi‑OS management and delivers detailed security reporting
Based on my experience, a better function would be to address the problem that the product only scans a machine once a day. It has a central scanning activity that scans every laptop for changes in assets, meaning both hardware and software, as well as installed software for patches. However, this activity works only once per day and does not work on local time. If you are a global organization with the UK office and a colleague in the US, for example, and you set the task at 11:00 AM UK time, that translates to 6:00 AM in the US East Coast. If that colleague's laptop is on, the task completes; otherwise, it fails. This represents a major drawback because the task does not run on the local time of the system. Regarding the ability to create multiple tasks, you cannot create them, which is another significant issue. Only one task exists for these two activities. That one task performs both the hardware and software scanning for any changes and also conducts a patch scan. Both activities occur through the same task, but the problem is that if you have a global user base, this becomes a bottleneck.
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

"It does not restart unexpectedly, allowing automation anytime, even during weekends."
"The solution has provided the ability to pull updates directly in and push them to the server, which makes it easier for us to complete the patching in a short period of time."
"ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is lightweight and has a remote push feature that helps me manage several main sites and subsites."
"For anybody researching this type of solution, if you need one product for Windows, Mac, and Linux, then this is the best choice."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is centralized management."
"The pricing for ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is reasonable."
"The fetch repository is a good feature."
"ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus provides patching for Windows, Mac, and Linux from a single console, including cloud servers like AWS EC2, which makes it particularly valuable because you can patch and monitor all platforms from one tool."
"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
"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."
"N-able N-central is an easy tool to implement with customers."
"N-able N-central is very scalable."
"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."
"N-able N-central has numerous good features. The asset tracking capability is powerful, allowing you to track hardware and software on devices connected to your network. The remote control is smooth, securely enabling remote access to servers and routers. It can be integrated with ticketing systems and other tools like CrowdStrike and N-able EDR for comprehensive network monitoring and security. The automation feature is handy, allowing you to schedule tasks, respond to system triggers, and automate problem resolution, such as handling disk space issues automatically."
"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
 

Cons

"ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus needs to improve speed."
"The solution's UI is an area that requires improvement."
"The ability to do out of network patching needs to be added to the solution."
"I think ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus could improve its testing capabilities. If they could test different SQL versions and server versions in their sandbox, it would be better. For example, it didn't work well with Server 2012, but it works fine with 2016 and up."
"The cloud version should have option to add all the endpoints using the agent. Not only for Windows, but also the Linux version. There are some versions which are not compatible with SaaS Manager. So some customers do not want to use the latest version of Linux latest version of CentOS. Actually, CentOS is not available. But some are using and patch manager is compatible for some versions only, not older older versions. So there are some pros and cons that are referred to patch management."
"Based on my experience, a better function would be to address the problem that the product only scans a machine once a day."
"The agent can be a bit more intelligent."
"There are limitations to this solution when we are working with iOS, Apple laptops or desktops such as the Mac and iMac."
"At this moment, we encounter stability issues with N-able N-central from time to time."
"The solution's overall integration should be improved."
"N-able N-central could improve the remote access, my technicians have complained about it. They have used other free tools instead to compensate, such as TeamViewer. Additionally, when using remote access on the web, it is lacking reports."
"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."
"N-able N-central could improve the remote access, my technicians have complained about it. They have used other free tools instead to compensate, such as TeamViewer."
"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."
"The integration with other applications could be better."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis, and the charge for support is extra."
"I rate the product price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"I rate the price of the product a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The price of this product is reasonable."
"The solution cost is around $5,000 per year."
"ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is a little bit cheaper."
"The pricing for ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is on the moderate side."
"Patch Manager is cost-effective."
"N-able N-central is not an expensive solution."
"The pricing and licensing are average, almost six out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Patch Management solutions are best for your needs.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus?
Pricing for ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is pretty reasonable. Currently, I am paying around three dollars per agent per month.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus?
Based on my experience, a better function would be to address the problem that the product only scans a machine once a day. It has a central scanning activity that scans every laptop for changes in...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus?
ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus was the first solution on the cloud six years ago when I started using this product. Although other competitors existed in the market, they were either behind in ter...
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

IKEA Honda UNICEF The University of Georgia Evander
Premier Technology Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Microsoft, Vicarius and others in Patch Management. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.