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N-able N-central vs Spiceworks 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

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) (4th)
Spiceworks
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (14th), IT Asset Management (10th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. N-able N-central is designed for Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) and holds a mindshare of 7.7%, down 12.6% compared to last year.
Spiceworks, on the other hand, focuses on IT Infrastructure Monitoring, holds 0.5% mindshare, up 0.5% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
N-able N-central7.7%
Kaseya VSA15.8%
NinjaOne11.4%
Other65.1%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Spiceworks0.5%
Zabbix6.8%
Datadog4.0%
Other88.7%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Q&A Highlights

SK
Technical Solutions Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Nov 01, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Jeetendar Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Analyst at The Aga Khan University Hospital (Pakistan)
Customizable, easy to use, easy to manage, and provides multiple features
I have used many software, but Spiceworks is the best. The tool provides multiple features. It is a valuable product for inventory. It is also useful as a ticketing system. The solution is easy to use and easy to manage. Many people can use it very easily. The features are not complicated. It is very easy to run, install, and understand. That is why my organization decided to use it. The solution’s asset management capabilities have benefitted us in many ways. We are able to manage all the inventory. We have a complete database. We have a record of everything. It is very valuable. I rate the usability of the user interface and dashboard a nine out of ten. The tool is easy to learn compared to other software.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
"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."
"N-able N-central is an easy tool to implement with customers."
"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 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 solution is very stable. It's reliable and efficient."
"The solution is easy to use and easy to manage."
"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."
"If you're in the market for a low-cost service desk system, Spiceworks is a good software solution to start out with, especially when it comes to startups and those organizations that don't currently have any existing service desk software in place."
"It lets us know whether devices are getting out of date and tracked warranties. Spiceworks also gave me visibility in terms of what software was installed on each device and its status."
"Spiceworks is generic and free."
"The nice thing about Spiceworks is always it's free. Monitoring of printers for low toner. Finding machines that have low memory or low hard disk space."
"Spiceworks' dashboard allows you to drill down to the notes, where I can take an inventory of the network and see the devices I need to monitor."
 

Cons

"Involving AI in the platform could improve it further."
"At this moment, we encounter stability issues with N-able N-central from time to time."
"It was previously expensive and tedious to manage different licenses."
"The solution's overall integration should be improved."
"The integration with other applications could be better."
"There is room for improvement in the development of custom monitoring services."
"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."
"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."
"There are a lot of disadvantages to Spiceworks because it's not an agent-based solution."
"The network mapping could be improved. Putting together an actual bonafide network map would be really nice."
"Sometimes, it can be difficult to integrate what you need."
"It would be nice to have remote access to the solution via a tablet. They also need remote control from a PC. Right now, to complete the technical support process, you have to have a tool to access the PC, and check the problems."
"Once a device was recognized on the network, Spiceworks never got rid of it even after you took it off the network. You had to go in and manually remove it."
"The GUI must be improved."
"I would like the solution to allow for more direct interaction with computers. I can open tickets and I can see their status, but I can't interact directly with the computers themselves."
"The SNMP sniffer requires a lot of work to get right."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing are average, almost six out of ten."
"N-able N-central is not an expensive solution."
"The tool is cheap."
"The product is free! Get it now."
"It's free."
"It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."
"Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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…
 

Answers from the Community

SK
Technical Solutions Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Nov 1, 2017
Nov 1, 2017
Unfortunately pricing is never that simple with each product having a multi-tiered offering. Also with vastly different feature sets between vendor products it can be impossible to make side-by-side comparisons. Before even looking at pricing or referring to the good book of Gartner you should put together a list of: 1. Everyday tasks at a functional level 2. How your team perform them today ...
2 out of 9 answers
it_user719895 - PeerSpot reviewer
Diretor de Sistemas de Informação at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 30, 2017
You are comparing 3 different products. Solarwinds play in the major league of NMS. Spiceworks is adware and plays in the minor league. Airwatch is an MDM/MAM product. What is your goal?
it_user357969 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Partner at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Oct 30, 2017
Agree with Antonio. Plus, if you’re talking about client desktop management, I think you might be missing better players.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Performing Arts
7%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Spiceworks?
The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.
What needs improvement with Spiceworks?
I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Premier Technology Solutions
Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino
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