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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) (10th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

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 6.5%, down 9.6% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.5% mindshare, down 5.7% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Sean Saeb - PeerSpot reviewer
Responsive, integrates well with other applications, and the technical support is helpful
There is always room for improvement. I haven't had any problems, and they're doing a great job, in my opinion. They're doing quite well. In most cases, when we discover an issue, we report it to their engineers, who then schedule a fix. Normally, when we request something, I can see it happening within three to four months. 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. There is a lot of integration with other applications through Automate, and I believe they are working with all of the industry leaders to get the integration going. I am very pleased to be working with them.
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

"Maybe they could improve the capability to be multi-tenant."
"ConnectWise Automate's interface is pretty easy to use. It's pretty intuitive to get around and navigate it. It does what I need, which is usually connecting to the client and customers systems."
"It is very scalable."
"It's definitely improved the help-desk servicing, et cetera."
"The implementation is nice and easy."
"Remote access and detailed monitoring help us support our equipment."
"This product saves us a lot of time and increases our efficiency."
"The initial setup is easy and the deployment is quick."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected. This is very practical."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"I like that SolarWinds NPM is a strong tool for monitoring network devices, switches, and routers. It's also a user-friendly tool. My team also likes how scalable it is."
"SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."
"We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"There are a lot of valuable features with SolarWinds NPM. We can receive a lot of detailed data from the monitoring that can use useful for investigations, especially when you are troubleshooting. It is very helpful. Overall it was a very good experience."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Scheduling of automation could be improved and made more simple."
"The project management needs improvement and there's a section of the product called configuration that also needs to be improved."
"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."
"Technical support was helpful."
"The integration needs to be improved."
"Robustness of network element mapping tool could be better"
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"The solution could be more secure."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"SolarWinds needs to be improved such that it is on par with the leading products in the market."
"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"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."
"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"Price could be improved on"
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"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
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
5%
Performing Arts
5%
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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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856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.