ConnectWise Automate vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

Why PeerSpot?

The compared ConnectWise and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. ConnectWise is ranked #10 in RMM , and holds a 5.5% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #4 in SM , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of ConnectWise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

ConnectWise Automate

Read 15 ConnectWise Automate reviews

3,062 Views
2,235 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Read 86 Microsoft Configuration Manager reviews

16,474 Views
3,130 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

ConnectWise Automate

Microsoft Configuration Man...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ConnectWise Automate and Microsoft Configuration Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NinjaOne, Kaseya, TeamViewer and others in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM).

To learn more, read our detailed Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)

September 2026

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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

ConnectWise Automate

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (10th)

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Distribution (2nd), Server Monitoring (4th), Configuration Management (4th), Patch Management (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. ConnectWise Automate is designed for Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) and holds a mindshare of 5.5%, down 7.4% compared to last year.
Microsoft Configuration Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 3.9% mindshare, up 3.5% since last year.

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ConnectWise Automate	5.5%
NinjaOne	10.0%
Kaseya VSA	9.8%
Other	74.7%

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)

Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager	3.9%
Zabbix	10.0%
Nagios XI	6.3%
Other	79.8%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

MikeChacker

IT Manager Global Service Delivery at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Facilitates valuable patch cycles, but the web client is not very intuitive and needs updating, and the scripting has room for improvement

The fixed client for Automate is slow. The web client is not very intuitive. It could use some updating and some thought around the UX. Also, with the scripting, I would like to see something where it could have third-party scripts already pre-built, and all you have to do is say, "Hey, I need this," and go load it. It's not as automated as I'd like it to be.

Read full review

Narendar S

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Their premium support is great."

"I was very happy with how they handled me as a client and am quite satisfied with the level of support we get."

"The reporting on the product is great."

"The implementation is nice and easy."

"Because of the system's capabilities, my team is able to significantly reduce the work that they were previously doing, more than 40%, in my opinion."

"It's a very good IT tool for a company that provides IT services. It is very helpful for technicians to work with the tool to see all of the customers in one place and then manage all of the computers in one place."

"The most value we get from this solution is that everything is on a patch cycle, so all my team has to do is go through patches, whereas previously, they were doing all the patches manually."

"Scripting and patch management are really important for us. Patch Manager is something that we use a lot, and we would love to have it continually improved. It is one of the most useful features for us for controlling patches and other things for different clients."

More ConnectWise Automate pros

"The solution is user-friendly and easy to learn."

"It is a good choice for deployment that performs very well."

"I would tell potential users that for 15,000 or 30,000 machines, you must go with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager as it's the best tool."

"If you have this solution in your environment, it's a win-win situation."

"Provides great insight into the functionalities of the data scope."

"I like the data collection."

"With the SCCM inventory, we found a lot of rogue applications. We were able to identify them, find out who was running them, and either put them on our application list or remove them."

"It's a stable product."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

Cons

"This is a raw system. Of course, it has some flaws that could be improved."

"I have found the solution to be not very scalable."

"The wait time for a support ticket to be addressed needs to be reduced. They take a couple of days to get back. It is a little frustrating when we have to wait for a couple of days. A lot of times, the issue is critical for us. If we're reaching out to their support team and submitting a ticket, it is because we need it handled quickly."

"The wait time for a support ticket to be addressed needs to be reduced. They take a couple of days to get back."

"Reliability: Open a computer window new screen and it's slow."

"This is a raw system. Of course, it has some flaws that could be improved. But, it's something that we will have to work with to get to the point where we need this, we request it and they do their best to make it happen."

"They could use some automated alerts particularly when we're talking about an MSP that might shoot over."

"I have a problem with the reports available on the solution. I don't understand how to work with the reporting functionality. For example, when I want to give a report for a specific machine, ConnectWise doesn't seem to have this as an option. I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or if the reporting functionality is just poorly conceived."

More ConnectWise Automate cons

"The configuration of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could be improved, it is a bit complicated."

"On some hardware, we'd like an easier way to get peripherals attached."

"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager can improve by allowing us to schedule the scripts, we don't have a script scheduling option and have to do it manually."

"Managing role-based access control within Microsoft Configuration Manager was not helpful because we had other identity management solutions specifically designated for identity management."

"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."

"We have had a lot of issues with Mac application deployment support. They need to improve the support for the Mac operating system."

"Since this solution is agent-based, computers without the agent cannot be reached on the network."

"The operations could be faster and you need some patience with this tool."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe Automate is available for around $2."

"From what I've overheard, it is pretty comparable to other solutions in terms of price."

"I pay $85 a month per user for a ConnectWise package that contains multiple solutions."

"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."

"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."

"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."

"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."

"The price could be better."

"The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive."

"The price model is different for every client."

"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."

"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

11%

Construction Company

Performing Arts

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	1

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	69

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

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ConnectWise RMM vs ConnectWise Automate

Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 2% of the time

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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

PDQ Deploy vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 3% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 3% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ConnectWise Automate

September 2026

Download ConnectWise Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

September 2026

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Also Known As

LabTech for IT Service Providers, ConnectWise Automate for Corporate IT Departments, ConnectWise Automate for IT Service Providers

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS

Overview

ConnectWise Automate transforms IT management with automation, remote desktop integration, and an intuitive interface. Essential tools like patch management and remote access are crucial for efficient operations.

ConnectWise Automate offers powerful features for IT management, emphasizing automation to eliminate repetitive tasks and streamline operations. It integrates seamlessly with remote desktop solutions, making remote management straightforward. The platform supports robust patch management, ticketing, and remote access, enhancing productivity and resource allocation. While its scalability and deployment are top-tier, users find room for improvement in areas like reporting, visibility, and ease of navigation. Some users experience slow support response times, and complex scripting can be cumbersome. Despite these challenges, it remains a valuable asset for managed service providers.

What are the key features of ConnectWise Automate?

Automation: Reduces repetitive tasks, boosting efficiency.
Remote Desktop Integration: Smooth remote access for managing IT environments effortlessly.
Patch Management: Essential for maintaining system updates and security.
Ticketing System: Streamlines workflow for incident management.
Scalability: Supports business growth with scalable infrastructure.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from ConnectWise Automate?

Time Savings: Automation capabilities free up time for strategic tasks.
Increased Efficiency: Streamlined processes lead to better resource allocation.
Improved Support: Reliable technical support enhances stability.
Cost-Effective Operations: Efficient management reduces unnecessary expenses.

Organizations in networking, managed service providers, and client administration use ConnectWise Automate for patch management, desktop oversight, and incident resolution. It's crucial for inventory tracking, system management, and remote support, enhancing professional services and integrating with ticket systems for effective troubleshooting and workflow management. Its adaptability supports diverse customer environments and facilitates task automation, maintaining efficient operation across IT networks.

ConnectWise

Microsoft Configuration Manager streamlines IT management with features such as software deployment, patch management, and automation, centralizing operations for Windows environments. Integration with Microsoft products allows efficient oversight of workstations and servers.

Microsoft Configuration Manager provides comprehensive IT management, offering software deployment, patch management, and application pushing. Automation reduces manual tasks, ensuring consistency across systems. Centralized management enables standardized OS deployments, application updates, and configuration integrity. Integration with Microsoft products facilitates seamless operations, while hardware and software inventory, compliance reporting, and remote control functions enhance IT management. Users seek improvements in application deployment for those without deep scripting knowledge and desire better WSUS control, PowerShell and Intune integration, Linux compatibility, and user interface enhancements. Performance improvements are requested for remote user management and third-party application support.

What features enhance Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Software Deployment: Efficiently distribute software across large networks.
Patch Management: Automate and streamline update processes for security and functionality.
Automation Capabilities: Reduce manual effort and enhance consistency in IT tasks.
Centralized Management: Standardize OS deployments and application updates.
Integration with Microsoft Products: Seamless operation with existing Microsoft infrastructure.
Hardware and Software Inventory: Comprehensive tracking for assets and resources.
Compliance Reporting: Ensure compliance with internal and external standards.
Remote Control Functions: Enhance support and troubleshooting capabilities.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Decreased Manual Work: Automation reduces time spent on repetitive tasks.
Enhanced Security: Automated patch management keeps systems secure.
Consistent Configurations: Centralized updates ensure uniformity across systems.
Improved Integration: Seamless operation within Microsoft ecosystems boosts productivity.
Comprehensive Oversight: Detailed inventory and reporting tools aid in strategic planning.
Streamlined Support: Remote capabilities improve IT support and user satisfaction.

Microsoft Configuration Manager is widely implemented in organizations to manage Windows workstations and servers. It is essential for deploying operating systems and applications, managing software updates, and conducting hardware and software inventories. The tool is crucial for endpoint and configuration management, ensuring compliance, and automating processes like patching and vulnerability management. Industries such as finance, healthcare, and education rely on Microsoft Configuration Manager to keep systems secure and operational, adapting it to address their specific needs and challenges in maintaining diversified IT environments.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

I-M Technology, Mainstay Technologies, PC Works Plus, Integrity IT, Kerkhoff Technologies Inc., Marathon Consulting, Christenberry Sales Company, EDTS, Secom Technology, Ready to View, ARRC Technology, DaVinci Digital, JNR Networks, Quinn Technology Solutions, PCIT, Liberty Technology, Capital Computers & Networks, Atlanta Technology Force, Doberman Technologies, First Column Enterprises, CisCom Solutions

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

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September 2026

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