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ConnectWise Automate 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

ConnectWise Automate
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (9th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

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 7.7%, down 9.1% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.5% mindshare, down 5.3% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ConnectWise Automate7.7%
Kaseya VSA18.2%
NinjaOne13.7%
Other60.400000000000006%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.5%
Zabbix11.7%
LibreNMS4.6%
Other79.2%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

MikeChacker - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's definitely improved the help-desk servicing, et cetera."
"The initial setup is easy and the deployment is quick."
"It is very scalable."
"The database is great. It's a nicely ordered database."
"A good automated scripts feature."
"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."
"This product saves us a lot of time and increases our efficiency."
"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."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"It gives us a map of the network setup and one console to see the entire network."
"The solution ranks as one of the top five monitoring tools."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
"The SolarWinds NPM framework, upon which most of their flagship products are built, empowers a wide variety of admins and users to quickly find value in their installed products."
 

Cons

"They could use some automated alerts particularly when we're talking about an MSP that might shoot over."
"Scheduling of automation could be improved and made more simple."
"They always change the GUI to some dumb-down version of tiles which are more "user-friendly", but slows my team down in the end."
"There could be better linkages between ConnectWise Automate and Manage from a ticketing perspective. Automate and Manage each has its own ticketing system. We use the one in Manage, but it'd be nice if they were linked directly to the one in Automate."
"Patching and reporting need improvements, especially reporting. The reporting engine is quite outdated, so you end up having to use your own dashboard."
"The fixed client for Automate is slow. The web client is not very intuitive."
"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."
"We would love to get feature updates and cumulative updates fixed. I know they aren't really supposed to be pushed with Patch Manager. We've got recommendations from ConnectWise to use the scripted feature update installs, scripted KB updates, etc. Having these in Patch Manager itself would be great."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The price could be better."
"SolarWinds needs to be improved such that it is on par with the leading products in the market."
"They need to work on their automation and automatically discover devices. They are not very good at automatically discovering devices."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I've overheard, it is pretty comparable to other solutions in terms of price."
"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"I pay $85 a month per user for a ConnectWise package that contains multiple solutions."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
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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
12%
Performing Arts
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

Questions from the Community

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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 are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
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 scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Also Known As

LabTech for IT Service Providers, ConnectWise Automate for Corporate IT Departments, ConnectWise Automate for IT Service Providers
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

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
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
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866,561 professionals have used our research since 2012.