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Clarity CA vs ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

 

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

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Client Desktop Management
Client Desktop Management
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

TN
Multipurpose and useful for managing projects and resources; easy to integrate with other systems, and has a knowledgeable technical support team
I support Clarity CA, but I'm on the administrator side rather than the end-user side. My company has a partnership with Clarity CA. Clarity CA is deployed on-premises in my company, but I have a customer who deployed the solution on the cloud. Deploying the solution requires two or three resources. For ongoing support, it depends on how many people use Clarity CA. A minimum of three or four resources would be enough to support the solution, particularly two LIFF developers and one administrator. My advice to people looking into implementing Clarity CA is to make sure there's a team who'll support it, otherwise, you have to look into a Broadcom partner that can provide you with a service support deal. This way, you don't have to deal with the many administrative and maintenance responsibilities that go with Clarity CA as that could be a hassle. You have to be ready by having a team who will support the solution. My rating for Clarity CA is nine out of ten. Its interface is getting better. It has everything you need in terms of program or project management. The solution works for any organization. It's stable, flexible, and has been around for a long time. You can do a lot with Clarity CA, and that gives you a little bit of power.
Gabriel Clement - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for patch server management
For Endpoint Central, as an end-user system, we set automatic deployment from Friday. If, for any reason, there are instances that are missed, we check every day from 07:00 AM to 05:00 PM. We don't need to submit automatic deployment, so it's still part of my deployment process. We set up a test server. Once we are okay with the patch that they need to test, they approve it, and then it applies to production. We used Microsoft. So, for asset processing reports and things like that, we had to move to ManageEngine. They changed the name to Endpoint Central. So, it's like that in terms of being much better and having more functionality as a product.
MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements
While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"To me, the most valuable feature of Clarity CA is the timesheet. It's the only feature I use because I just support the tool, and I just enter time on it. Others use Clarity CA for other purposes, such as resource management, project management, scheduling, and financials. The tool also has a fairly simple integration with other systems, so at the moment, it's working fine. I also like that you can write your own code in Clarity CA, and you can make changes to it based on your needs."
"All of Desktop Central's features are valuable, especially its simplicity."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central automatically alerts you if there are newer releases or updates. You do not have to go to their website and check."
"The solution's most valuable features are its patch management capabilities, especially for third-party applications, along with quick and easy configuration and deployment processes."
"Well, what we like is that it catch actually a lot of features constantly upgrading. So all the three maybe there there were some features as the tenant on the earliest version. Now it's it's almost everything that we we need. So managing security ManageEngine configuration. It's we are very satisfied because it has the Telstra that's what we we need."
"One of the benefits of Desktop Central is it made the provisioning process simpler because now we have a provisioning package. We have around 1,500 laptops at the moment and all these PCs were provisioned by a provisioning package. In the provisioning package, we have integrated every aspect of renaming, deploying applications, patching, etc., so we simply execute the provisioning package and as soon as it's executed, it will install the management agent. Once the agent is installed, it will take care of all the tasks, so we don't have to sit in front of the computer to prepare the machine. This really helps us to provision the PC quickly with our agent."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"Identification of gaps and filling the gaps with updates are most valuable. We are able to identify known updates or missing updates and then update."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the Patch Management."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward."
"Microsoft is being very competitive right now, and they are really investing in a lot of new features to be more competitive in the marketplace."
"It uses detailed descriptions of the workstations, and that is good for me."
"Microsoft Configuration Manager helps with patch management."
"Software deployment and WSUS are most valuable."
"The dashboards have information about our assets."
"Valuable features include configurations enforcement, compliance data gathering, and deployment of a standardized OS."
"The ability to make collections and deploy to them has been great."
 

Cons

"What could be improved in Clarity CA is its UI, but I know the Clarity team is working on a new UI, so I'm expecting its UI to get better. The software also has too many functions, so it would be good if the functions or features could be split up, rather than needing to buy the whole Clarity CA package, when you'll only use a few of its functions. This increases the cost of the software, so that's another area for improvement. How Clarity CA is marketed could also be improved."
"Not many things are needed for improvement, everything seems to be great as it is. One thing that would be good to have would be the ability to add MDM to a tablet running Android 5.0 using the EMM Token Enrollment. If we wanted to add MDM to an older tablet, we just have to go the "long route" to get it added."
"There are times when we have a particular software installed in our system, however, we do not receive patches for it from Endpoint Central."
"The OS deployment could be better."
"Sometimes computers fail to receive patches, and we need to investigate why."
"I really feel like asset explorer should be a component of desktop central. That would make it the ultimate desktop management tool. This would also simplify the asset management role since an agent is already being deployed and assets could be added at the same time."
"The solution lacks some configuration."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central should keep up with some of the features that other major vendors are providing, such as Microsoft."
"Computer imaging is powerful but breaks frequently. The reason for this breaking is not clear and requires heavy amounts of attention to keep operational. There is a lot of room for this tool to do more but the reliability of this process should be focused on first to ensure core competencies are being fixed before more features are added."
"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."
"The deployment process is lengthy and should be quicker to complete."
"I would like to see an agentless version of the solution."
"SCCM can improve on third-party application support."
"SCCM should strive to enhance the accuracy of its reporting functions in order to avoid any issues with incorrect or inaccurate data."
"It would be nice to have everything in one place. Now they have Intune for the desktops and SCCM to handle their servers."
"Management of Linux devices could be improved."
"Could do with some cosmetic improvements on the user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's fairly expensive to use Clarity CA. There's a yearly license fee for the solution based on the users, and there's a one-time implementation fee as well."
"The pricing is average."
"Choose wisely between the Professional and Enterprise editions, based on your needs."
"The solution is very affordable."
"The price is moderate."
"There are multiple flavors of the app. They have a distributed version for enterprises. It depends on your size. They price it on a per machine basis. 250 or 500 is probably their least amount."
"The product is cheap."
"Affordable for any customer."
"We had perpetual licenses. The cost was around 36,000, and then you'd have the yearly maintenance fee of 2,000 or 3,000."
"I rate the price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten."
"We have to pay for a license."
"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."
"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"Along with buying a license for MECM, we also have to buy a service called CMG (Cloud Management Gateway) which is a virtual machine in the cloud with which you can link your MECM to the Azure tenant so as to manage teleworkers."
"SCCM comes with its own version of SQL Server. If you use that SQL Server with SCCM and don't use it for another applications than you get an SQL Server for free."
"The price could be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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. Wh...
What do you like most about ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
Well, what we like is that it catch actually a lot of features constantly upgrading. So all the three maybe there the...
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 ...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...
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.
 

Also Known As

Client Automation, CA Client Manager, CA Client Automation
ManageEngine Desktop Central, Desktop Central, ManageEngine Desktop Management MSP
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

First Horizon National Corporation, Olympus, Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago LimitedŒ _Petrotrinî, Racing and Wagering Western Australia
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Strathallan School, BMI Healthcare, Comercial Kywi, First Priority Federal Credit Union, Gerab National Enterprises
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
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