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

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs N-able Take Control comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 7, 2024

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 Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Remote Access
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Microsoft Remote Desktop Se...
Ranking in Remote Access
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (5th)
N-able Take Control
Ranking in Remote Access
30th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Remote Access category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.1%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is 8.2%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Take Control is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Remote Access Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Intune9.1%
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services8.2%
N-able Take Control1.3%
Other81.4%
Remote Access
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24
Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license
The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.
MN
technology consultant at Bank of America
Remote access has simplified certificate checks and daily support tasks across our organization
The best features Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers include providing me administrator access, certain inbuilt client tools, and the ability to remotely access enterprise applications, as well as helping me validate whether certificates exist or are missing, or near to expiry. The product also allows for multiple session virtualizations even if users are based in remote locations and offers support for legacy applications that need to be upgraded. Out of those features, the one I rely on the most is certificate validation and plugin installation or removal in certain IDEs which developers or coders generally use. Being able to do this remotely makes my job significantly easier than going to everyone's desk in the office.
Brian Hershey - PeerSpot reviewer
Platform Manager at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
It covers you for HIPAA and PCI certification
Take Control is a way to remotely take over the console of a managed machine, but it also gives you other abilities. You can take over the console, access the registry, throw commands at it in the background, and manipulate the file system Take Control enables you to collaborate with end users.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a useful device management feature."
"Intune has significantly benefited our organization by providing comprehensive visibility into our device ecosystem."
"The best part of Intune is application deployment. We can deploy an application to several users with a single click. We can use conditional access, granting access to users based on certain conditions, such as location, platform, etc."
"Implementing Microsoft Intune has provided a more streamlined and consistent method for device management across our multiple domains, effectively consolidating our administrative efforts."
"First of all, the integration with the rest of Microsoft's products is a major win."
"It's easy to manage."
"The mobile application management, MAM, is the most useful aspect of the solution."
"This solution saves us a lot of time once it's implemented."
"The performance meets our requirements and the stability is good."
"It's almost an out of the box function once you have installed the other components."
"The most valuable features of the solution are ease of use and the simple environment."
"It allows employees to log on to corporate resources remotely."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is its security and simple configuration."
"Everything is really good and it works well."
"It's simple and easy to use."
"You can scale the product."
"Take Control enables you to collaborate with end users. It's for supporting a workstation where you want the person on the other side to see you moving their mouse, and you can work with them."
"The most valuable part of N-able Take Control is being able to remotely access your customer's site. You are able to view their network. Once you have it set up, it's always available. N-able Take Control can be used even when other remote access controls have been made."
 

Cons

"There is improvement needed in integrating with the installed Office solutions versions, such as Office 2019. The Office 365 integrates without a problem."
"There are challenges with Intune, specifically in reporting. Many third-party companies offer single-pane-of-glass reporting that shows you what your update environment looks like, how your patch is doing, application status, etc., but Intune's reporting is not intuitive."
"I want more secure, reliable, and efficient security policies."
"Sometimes, it takes time to synchronize the policies between the portal and the devices, you don't have a way to estimate how long it will take to deploy. You have some kind of gray area, where it can deploy in 30 minutes or three days."
"We are facing issues with Apple products. With macOS and iOS, there are some difficulties with the updates because we cannot get full control of Apple products. In the case of Windows, it is fine, but in the case of Apple, we have some difficulties. We cannot control everything through Intune."
"It just doesn't handle software updates well at all by itself. You need to be a scripting wizard to make those happen properly, or you use third-party tools. The Windows feature updates are very difficult to implement. I would like to see a proprietary built-in remote control tool. I know that they have Team Viewer integrated, but it is not seamless. It would be nice if they had a seamless remote desktop capability directly from the Intune console."
"When we implemented Intune, it would have been helpful if Microsoft had provided some videos or data about Intune."
"It would be awesome if Microsoft opened their API so we could filter more properties. If we have to do anything outside of Intune that requires a third-party solution to talk back to it, we're very limited in what we can do. Trust your people. We promise not to break your stuff. Open it up just a tiny bit wider."
"The only problems that you're going to have with the remote desktop are going to be firewall ports, security, and NLA, which is a net network level access control, or TLS transfer layer security or some other SSL-type of security."
"We would like configuration to be automatic and the price to be close to zero, however, that's not realistic."
"We'd like more granular security control of the desktop services."
"It could be made simpler from a management perspective."
"There are problems with using Microsoft Teams within a virtual desktop on a mobile device."
"We are searching for a product with better remote access and remote sessions."
"We've had issues with security breaches."
"We find the services are not as transparent as we would like for our integration with Citrix."
"The dashboards I do not use because there are issues. The solution monitors your antivirus and other programs but it does not seem to work well."
"We've seen some latency problems in AWS environments. Aside from that, it's a pretty solid service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Intune is included with the license for Office 365, so we don't have to pay anything extra for it."
"For organizations that are a Microsoft shop, the pricing is compelling."
"Intune is included with our F3 and E5 licenses."
"With one user base license, we can use Intune for up to five devices. However, with Soti MobiControl, each license is tied to a single device, meaning one license is dedicated to one device only."
"If you're subscribing to Premium or E3, there are no additional costs for Intune, it's included."
"While I don't have access to high-level financial information, I believe we have achieved lower costs with this implementation."
"Microsoft's licensing is more flexible and adaptive than its competitors."
"The price of Microsoft Intune is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive. My company pays toward the monthly licensing costs of the solution...The additional cost, apart from the solution's licensing cost, is related to the technical support a user wants."
"I would say it's expensive as there similar products available for free."
"There is a licensing cost."
"It will probably cost about $500 USD to get the resources set up in the cloud."
"The solution is overly expensive."
"Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is less expensive than some other solutions on the market."
"I am aware that for Azure we do have an extra license because we are leveraging on different tenants."
"It's not an expensive solution."
"N-able Take Control charges you a monthly fee for every customer that you have booked in, and it used to be inexpensive but it's a little bit more expensive now."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Remote Access solutions are best for your needs.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
10%
Non Profit
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business121
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise157
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise32
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
In limited use cases, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is free as it is defaulted by any Microsoft license. The paid...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services could be improved because we have keyboard compatibility issues with some platforms...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Remote Desktop Services
SolarWinds MSP Take Control, SolarWinds MSP Anywhere, SolarWinds Take Control
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bank Alfalah Ltd.
Bainbridge Technology Solutions, NKIT Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs. N-able Take Control and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.