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Centreon vs ConnectWise PSA 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Centreon2.6%
Zabbix12.0%
Datadog5.0%
Other80.4%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Professional Services Automation (PSA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ConnectWise PSA20.3%
Kantata17.2%
Polaris12.5%
Other50.0%
Professional Services Automation (PSA)
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.4%
Zabbix11.4%
LibreNMS4.4%
Other79.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Simon KONAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Plug-ins are free but it has limitations in sending out information to users
The issue my company has with the tool stems from the fact that it didn't give an on-time response to us. The product collects the information, but it fails to send them via SMS, WhatsApp or Telegram. The solution can be used if you want to get email notifications, which is not good for our company because if someone is not in front of their desktop, you can't receive information about an equipment or LAN that is down.
JonMcWilliams - PeerSpot reviewer
Very useful for ticketing and billing purposes
In this case, we have the ability to fire on tasks. An email can be sent, and it is being received into the Kaseya tool or Autotask. Autotask then can parse the email appropriately and route it based on the rules that we set up. In that sense, it's very dynamic, and I can immediately identify which client is making a support request. It can route it to the appropriate queue and then send out the appropriate notifications. As work is done on the ticket, you can also notify the person requesting support or other pre-designated contacts so that they're kept in the loop. ConnectWise PSA is making its updates, and its integration with Office 365 has been really good. I like the fact that the solution integrates with IT Glue. ConnectWise PSA is making improvements, and it's a little bit more dynamic. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Tochukwu Uzomba - PeerSpot reviewer
Rich modular monitoring capabilities offer tailored monitoring needs with good support
SolarWinds NPM is used for monitoring different solutions like database, infrastructure, and network performance. Each of these requires separate solutions, and SolarWinds provides modular options for monitoring Based on my experiences, SolarWinds NPM can handle large network infrastructures…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that most of its plug-ins are free."
"We have the business activity monitoring, the map, and the MBI modules and they are all very good."
"We have all our tickets inside Centreon in real-time and can monitor a lot of ELP and CLN in real-time for application purposes."
"What I like most about Centreon is that it is very flexible and customizable, based on the user and/or business needs. Centreon is very flexible when it comes to monitoring parameters. We can use scripts found on the internet or scripts created by our infra/apps team. Also, the data visualization features are very simple and straightforward, yet very informative."
"We use the remote server functionality on some customer sites, because you can see an independent view and are not dependent on a single connection. If you have branch offices or bigger office outside your headquarters, you can use remote servers because if the connection is broken or disrupted, then remote server will obtain a view of your environment and server availability. This is a good point against using other solutions. Because with other solutions, you don't have this feature. Then, you will be blind if you have this type of a situation."
"It is decentralized, which is better, because you can reduce the load from a single system. Also, you get a better view because it's more independent. Then, for the management, it's nice because they have one central system. With that, they can manage all the other systems, as well. This means they don't have to configure each system by system. They can configure it from one single interface."
"I find the product's scalability to be one of the most valuable features since it allows us to add unlimited devices for monitoring and to set up additional polling servers without additional license cost or downtime in our monitoring."
"The customizable reports and dashboards are really flexible. We started this partnership with Centreon, when we were looking for a solution, because of the flexibility of the reporting. That's what we found to be most attractive in the solution. You can display the data as you want."
"The ease of reporting is valuable. We have a weekly management meeting, and we gather numbers from ConnectWise in preparation for that. It is helpful for measuring how we're doing in our performance."
"I like the search function up top where if you know what you're searching for, you can find it pretty quickly. Because you've got the option to change what the search parameters are, whether you're searching for a project, quote, ticket, or an invoice, you can kind of pick and choose what you're looking for."
"The product has been pretty stable so far."
"All the features of ConnectWise Manage are valuable. However, ticketing, customer management, customer communication, technician efficiency, calendars, coding, billing, invoicing, and contract management are available. It's a complete solution. Additionally, the company is responsive with the ability to progress or make necessary changes happen."
"The most valuable feature is the management of projects from start to finish."
"The platform is easy to use."
"It's a pretty simple web interface. The rules engine was really easy to set up, and it ingests emails very well."
"The initial setup isn't too difficult."
"It combines and presents information from many different sources, giving a corporate-wide vision on a single pane of glass."
"There are a lot of options for customization of the dashboard, alerts, and reports."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
 

Cons

"Centreon introduced network discovery in the most recent update. However, it doesn't work well. Our previous monitoring tool could discover networking equipment on the network and identify the relationships between the devices."
"The Home view could be improved by adding customization functions that allow users to change the size of the widgets for a more uniform layout."
"Release management and quality of testing need improvement, because with each major upgrade we have many issues coming in. Then, it takes several minor upgrades to get rid of them."
"It is necessary to improve service monitoring of database services in the free version."
"There are times when we face issues with Centreon being in development mode. Sometimes we do not receive alerts, causing business impact, and users ask why no alerts were received."
"Opening a ticket on the website of Centreon can be difficult for my colleague, but not for me because my English is good. However, my colleague doesn't speak English well, as our company is in Quebec and our first language is French."
"During the initial setup we faced some issues. Part of it was because we had to become more knowledgeable in the solution. There are some gray areas and if you don't know the product well you may have issues. Another part of it was some bugs that we came across, although that's part of every software solution in IT nowadays. But the initial setup could be easier."
"Sometimes, when the GUI and some of the search fields are being reset, and I return to the page, then I have to set them again. Therefore, some improvement on the UI and the filtering is needed."
"Their reporting options aren't great. BrightGauge was something that we added on, and that enhanced the experience."
"If you've got 40 tickets that come in, that get generated, that don't get properly tagged with the company, you can't just check them all and reassign them to another company. You have to individually reassign each one of those tickets to a new company."
"Sometimes it is a little bit slow, which is the only complaint I have about it."
"It needs to be easier to share tickets between users who need to work together."
"There should be some improvements to the interface. It is not completely intuitive. When you click in a blank area of a screen, you'll find some options."
"ConnectWise PSA’s graphical interface is a little old."
"A lot of times, it'll take a couple of moments for things to go through. If you're not patient about it, it may seem like things aren't working."
"ConnectWise Manage can improve third-party integrations and the UI. The UI is good but it could improve in the graphics."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"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."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is not too high. Licensing is driven by how many hosts you monitor, but because you can run the agentless version, you don't have to declare every host to Centreon, one at a time. That means you can drive your infrastructure supervision with a very low number of declared hosts."
"The solution has a free part and after that threshold, you will need to pay. For example, if you believe you can create an interesting map, most of the time, you will have to pay 10,000 Euros per year for having access to these components."
"It is perfect and very cheap if you are a little company or startup. After that, it is quite expensive for a big company."
"I would like to see improvement in the licensing model. You can purchase X number of licenses, up to 1,000 devices or 1,000 instances. Your next batch is 2,000. But what if you only need, say, 1,200? The model could be changed a little bit."
"The pricing is acceptable."
"I think Centreon's pricing is fair, especially given the criticality of our system. They were cheaper than the other solutions. The licensing terms were pretty straightforward. I believe it was based on the number of hosts."
"The pricing starts at around 5000 euro. However, this depends on: Your environment, the size of your host, how many hosts you have, how many remote pollers you have, and if you want to use the Monitoring Business Intelligence or Centreon MAP functionalities."
"Centreon is better than Nagios XI in regards to cost and support response times, when you have a problem. If you have a problem, it costs money to contact the Nagios XI support."
"I have one monthly license for all of the ConnectWise products I use, and it's $85 per user."
"The pricing is not based on my clients so much as it is on how many people I have accessing the system, and I think it's pretty good."
"The pricing of ConnectWise Manage is reasonable."
"There are some different add-ons and benefits that are optional and come at an additional cost."
"The cost can be the main barrier. It's not a solution for a three person company. It just isn't going to be cost effective. Because ConnectWise Manage does have everything there, the licensing is a little bit restrictive as far as how they want to granularly assign licenses rather than having more of an all-inclusive package."
"We're paying $940 a month for 14 users."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
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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
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
36%
Performing Arts
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Centreon?
Centreon's pricing is not very expensive. Initially, I rated it seven, but corrected to five out of ten.
What needs improvement with Centreon?
I have certain concerns with Centreon, such as being unable to set downtime for multiple devices at once due to the l...
What is your primary use case for Centreon?
We are using Centreon for monitoring devices, both LAN and WAN devices. There are subsidiaries for my company, so if ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ConnectWise Manage?
In our case, the solution is priced out by the user we have in the system. The pricing is not based on my clients so ...
What needs improvement with ConnectWise Manage?
The technical support of ConnectWise PSA is not very good.
What advice do you have for others considering ConnectWise Manage?
In this case, we have the ability to fire on tasks. An email can be sent, and it is being received into the Kaseya to...
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 ar...
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 scalabil...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ConnectWise Manage
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus, Bollore, BT, Canal Plus, Kuehne Nagel, Limagrain, LVMH, Oberthur Technologies, Orange, Darty, Addax Petroleum, Plastic Omnium, Auchan, Valeo, Saint Gobin, Clarins, Hugo Boss, JC Decaux, French Government (Defense, Justice, Environment, Agriculture), OptiComm, Thales, Zeiss.
IT Connexx, High Standards Technology Inc, Solvere One, MyIT, ConnectWise, Simpatico Systems, Fred IT Group, ECS, OneStop, K2 Technologies, Clark Integrated Technologies, Jmark, Geek on Wheels
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
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