No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs NetCrunch comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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

Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (2nd), Configuration Management (4th), Patch Management (2nd)
NetCrunch
Ranking in Server Monitoring
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (77th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (61st), Log Management (52nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 4.1%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetCrunch is 2.3%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager4.1%
NetCrunch2.3%
Other93.6%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

NS
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized endpoint control has streamlined deployments and improved security compliance
In my experience, the best features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are software deployments and updates, OSD, hardware and software inventory, compliance and configuration baseline, reporting and monitoring, and integration with Intune hybrid management. These features make endpoint management efficient and scalable. The feature I rely on the most day-to-day is software deployment and patch management. It keeps endpoints updated and secure with minimal manual effort. Inventory and compliance monitoring are also important, but daily deployments are critical. Microsoft Configuration Manager has had a significant positive impact on our organization in several ways: improved efficiency, enhanced security and compliance, standardization, scalability, and visibility reporting. Overall, Microsoft Configuration Manager has helped us save time, reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain strong control over our endpoints. One of the biggest impacts Microsoft Configuration Manager has had on efficiency is the reduced manual work for software deployment and patching. For example, deploying a new application or security updates to hundreds or thousands of devices previously required several days of manual effort, including running scripts, checking devices individually, and validating installation. With Microsoft Configuration Manager, these tasks are automated and managed, allowing deployments to complete in hours rather than days. We also have automated reporting for deployment success and compliance which saved the IT team significant time that used to be spent gathering and reconciling inventory data from multiple tools.
it_user1038504 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator, Technical Lead at Connectivity Wireless
A network monitoring platform with a useful reporting feature, but permission-based options could be better
The initial setup is fairly easy. Most of it's wizard-based. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to set it up. But if you don't know certain things related to protocols and everything else, it might be difficult. If you know how SNMP works, it'll be fairly simple to set up.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution helps us by automating the patching of our system, allowing us to standardize our Windows configuration, with models supported through imaging."
"The most valuable features are application deployment and task-sequenced imaging."
"The scalability to deploy the package."
"The best thing about SCCM is the patch management."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the software deployment. Additionally, Microsoft integrates most of the other solutions well with one another."
"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."
"Microsoft has done a good job with authentication solutions, such as single sign-on, or open authentication."
"This solution has made life easy with respect to patching, compliance, and OSD."
"The setup is very intuitive and quick - it all just took a few minutes we were done."
"Reporting on NetCrunch is pretty good; it's very similar to SolarWinds, just with a different interface, and the majority of everything there was beneficial."
 

Cons

"They should improve their anti-malware policies like the SCEP policies. For instance, you can't have different policies for different servers, there is only one policy in all the servers, and everything is covered under that. For example, say you want to scan one group of servers on Saturday, and then you want to scan another group of servers on Sunday, you can't do that. You have to scan all your servers, a regular scan or a full scan, on the same day and at the same time. That's definitely one thing they need to resolve. In the next release, it would actually be nice if they included Apple products. It will also help if you can use Intune again. Their compliance reporting feature could also be better. They can maybe work a bit on that for patching now. It would be better if SCCM came with the functions of Right Click Tools built-in. If SCCM would have all those functions already built-in, we won't have to go and spend $5,000, just as an add-in from another company to get those functions."
"Based on my experience with SCCM 2016, the main, big issue is not having a good user-friendly environment. It needs much better GUI."
"Our company would prefer not rebooting computers while people are using them. There seems to be no strategy behind it."
"The solution can be improved by speeding up the synchronizing of the policies on the devices."
"The solution can be improved with the addition of a mobile device manager."
"Not everything is readily available, and there are a lot of commands that are only executable via PowerShell."
"It does seem a bit buggy from time to time."
"Since this solution is agent-based, computers without the agent cannot be reached on the network."
"Our network is made up of a lot of Cisco devices, and it needs improvements."
"I didn't care for the role-based, permission-based options, which were not the best."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price model is different for every client."
"The price is competitive and reasonable."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."
"We have to pay for a license."
"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Construction Company
24%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Agriculture
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise69
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCCM?
The setup cost is considered sufficient. It is not significant enough for us to consider a change at the moment.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
manufacturing, banking, utilities, energy, universities, healthcare institutions, school districts, military and police entities, non-profit organizations, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. NetCrunch and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.