Datto Remote Monitoring and Management vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

"Automation, in terms of the standard patches and standard updates, and remote support are valuable. When it does the standard Windows and patches, it works really well. This is something they focus on. Remote support is also something they focus on quite a bit, and it works really well. Being able to get to an agent or a client computer right away is very helpful."

"It has a single pane of glass, and it integrates well with other software."

"Even when the connection to the server is lost, the monitoring continues without interruption."

"AEM support is great for Macs."

"I also like how Datto integrates seamlessly with the Autotask ticketing system."

"The tool's main valuable features are its ease of use and intuitive console. It's very easy to implement and create policies. I don't need highly technical staff to manage the tool, which is a big advantage."

"The alerting system helps us determine what are high level alerts, and what are alerts which can wait for a day or two. We catch RAID failures, hot servers, bad drives (or predicted failures on drives), etc."

"We support nine different nonprofits, and the billing took the manager three or four days working on spreadsheets. When I finished automating everything with Datto, we cut everything down to a couple of hours. That's a substantial cost savings on the billing side."

"The dashboards have information about our assets."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the availability of being able to manage the Microsoft estate. It handles many areas, such as asset management and tracking."

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

"Patching is very effective and reporting is very good."

"One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined process has significantly improved our software distribution workflows."

"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."

"This has made the management of our environment easier."

"The solution doesn't require any maintenance from our end because it is a cloud-based solution and Microsoft takes care of everything."

"The actual setup and the automation of their product are horrific. When you buy it, there is nothing out of the box. You have to custom design it for everything you want it to do. You pay for implementation, but they don't really do a whole lot to help you get it going. I know it does a lot more than what ours is set up to do, which is frustrating. When I've demoed other systems, their setup is so much better. When you pay for their setup, there is so much more, whereas I just feel like we didn't get a very good setup."

"Sometimes we have some downtime when Datto is doing updates. Maybe it's because of the cloud service they use. I'm not sure if they're going through AWS or Azure or what. That's happened, but the outages have been few and far between."

"The only area where I see room for improvement is the ability to delay the application of patches for a set number of days."

"The CRM capabilities are not very good. It's clunky and could work a lot better than it does. There are no marketing add-ins, for example."

"Be prepared to spend a lot of time on conversions if you have a lot of clients."

"The main challenge was implementing patch management for software that was not in the tool's standard library or catalog."

"We would like to see a little more functionality when monitoring network devices, such as switches and routers."

"They have a tab to provide information about the type of hardware the computers have. One thing they don't specify is what model of hard drive the computers have. Identification of storage models would be nice."

"The solution could improve the functionality for automating, license management. Additionally, more and better-looking reports are needed."

"Regarding this, I'd like to mention the agent situation. When the agent on an end-user device is not functioning correctly, it can be quite problematic. It would be highly beneficial if there were a self-healing mechanism in place. Essentially, if the agent becomes corrupted or encounters issues, it should be able to rectify itself autonomously. This is particularly critical because, in order to utilize a tool like MECM (assuming you're referring to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager), we need to deploy agents, known as AsMs, on all the devices we use, such as Windows 10 or Windows Server. Sometimes, when we deploy configurations or updates, they don't apply properly due to agent issues. This issue has been present since we began using MECM around 23 years ago. Unfortunately, there is currently no built-in mechanism for the agent to detect its own problems and initiate self-repair. Microsoft doesn’t have any feature to scan vulnerabilities and hence, they could include those."

"The database should be made to be more stable and robust, but not so much the configuration."

"Devices like smartphones and tablets are managed very well on VMware, however, they are absent in SCCM. I could configure iPad from the VMware site and it was done very easily. It should be just as possible on SCCM."

"It is not easy to get good technical support, especially at level one."

"The solution can be improved by speeding up the synchronizing of the policies on the devices."

"SCCM should strive to enhance the accuracy of its reporting functions in order to avoid any issues with incorrect or inaccurate data."

"Based on my experience with SCCM 2016, the main, big issue is not having a good user-friendly environment. It needs much better GUI."

"Regarding pricing, Kaseya sells it as part of a bundle called Kaseya 360. This package includes several tools, such as EDR, ransomware protection, and more. Considering the bundle, the price is reasonable. However, where I am in Brazil, the high dollar rate and taxes make it not cheap for mid-sized companies. Still, it's competitively priced compared to similar tools."

"The license typically depends on the number of endpoints. On the RMM side, I think we're paying around $2,250 per endpoint. Then there is also a license per user and tech, so that comes out to about a hundred bucks per tech, give or take."

"It fluctuates on the number of computers you have. Depending on the number of computers you have, it can fluctuate anywhere between $5 to $10 per computer per month, which is not too bad. I am not aware of any additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee. It was one flat rate per device."

"We had to pay out some overtime for a few problematic sites. Sites on domain networks are incredibly easy to install. We learned a few tricks that streamlined the process, but in the beginning, it was a bit tedious."

"AEM is a lot more scalable as you just pay per agent instead of having to purchase expensive licenses."

"It goes by how many endpoints you have. It is about $3,000 a month for us. If we can't figure it out ourselves and need additional help to set it up, we would have to pay for that."

"The price is competitive and reasonable."

"The price model is different for every client."

"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."

"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."

"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."

"There is not a license needed to use the solution."

"We have to pay for a license."

"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."