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ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs N-able N-central 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

ManageEngine Endpoint Central
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (4th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (2nd)
N-able N-central
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. ManageEngine Endpoint Central is designed for Client Desktop Management and holds a mindshare of 34.5%, down 42.0% compared to last year.
N-able N-central, on the other hand, focuses on Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), holds 9.2% mindshare, down 11.4% since last year.
Client Desktop Management
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

Charles A - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective vulnerability, desktop, and patch management
We are using ManageEngine Endpoint Central primarily for desktop management. It allows us to deploy patches, manage antivirus, control endpoints like DLP, and more The most valuable feature to me is the vulnerability management. It also has effective patch management capabilities. The main issue…
Dimitri V G - PeerSpot reviewer
Maximizing operational efficiency with comprehensive monitoring and automation capabilities
There are areas in N-able N-central that could be improved. We always started it from the basic purpose of monitoring hardware, where vendors such as HP and Dell try to sell their own services which monitor and provide a dashboard, which is their logic. They want to make their own recurring revenue on that. We notice that SNMP has had a good run and still sometimes is used, but it's becoming an issue to maintain the same capabilities because HP makes it unreliable or even removes certain features that we used to be able to validate redundant array of independent disks. Our service that has been running for 15-20 years suddenly is not working anymore because HP decided in generation 10 plus and above, or generation 10 hardware in servers, storage controllers particularly, they just didn't put the SNMP OIDs anymore. We are now following that market change or business change in hardware monitoring and the future is Redfish, REST API, IPMI type of monitoring with the REST API and Redfish being most common. We have to do the effort ourselves because Enable is not really strategically going there because I assume there's not much money to make to improve that or to convince customers to start with their product. That issue could be better if they would be more prepared for that change and give us customers more tools, preconfigured, pre-available custom services for Redfish, REST API, where we just have to put a few items username, password and address and some dots and commas, but that we don't have to reinvent the wheel, which we are doing at the moment. We are using HP iLO commandlets and REST APIs for Aruba. Dell is making it very hard to monitor their hardware. If it has an iDRAC, I can manage it and monitor it, but if it's something that's less common or due to the portfolio, they have done a good job at not exposing information about health. We would just want to have a red or a green dot that indicates if this device is healthy or not healthy. Since nobody's investing in SNMP because it's a liability in security, they should invest in making a REST API and preferably also do the work on making it easy to pull or push information. That's something that the industry in general and Enable in particular could do a significant job to help us monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is great."
"Desktop Central has improved these organizations and this is why it has been repeated multiple times at multiple organizations. If something works and is getting better it is worth repeating."
"The GUI of Endpoint Central is very user-friendly, which simplifies the process of training new users."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the Patch Management."
"The mobile functionality is very easy."
"ManageEngine Endpoint Central has significantly simplified my device management practices."
"ManageEngine has improved my organization because right now we can actually monitor and find out which software products are installed on each desktop. We can then figure out which ones have to get patched and so forth."
"Everything is easily centralized and managed under this one product."
"N-able N-central has numerous good features. The asset tracking capability is powerful, allowing you to track hardware and software on devices connected to your network. The remote control is smooth, securely enabling remote access to servers and routers. It can be integrated with ticketing systems and other tools like CrowdStrike and N-able EDR for comprehensive network monitoring and security. The automation feature is handy, allowing you to schedule tasks, respond to system triggers, and automate problem resolution, such as handling disk space issues automatically."
"The most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"It's a very robust product. They're continuing to invest and put new enhancements into the product. They're very open about what their roadmap is, which is very good for us because then as a business, we can plan."
"The most helpful features of N-able N-central include providing a single pane of glass for many insights in an environment regarding their patching, their assets, their devices in general, and the active issues that they show."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
"The solution's service is good."
"The support is at a good level. So normally, we can always get to a solution when we are stuck with some monitoring problems that we encounter."
"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
 

Cons

"Desktop Central has very good information, however, you can't customize the dashboards."
"ManageEngine could be improved by giving customers an option to perform certain actions proactively. Since I was a consultant, I worked on different products and some had advantages over ManageEngine. For example, proactive remediation—you want to proactively check something on the computers and run the script. In ManageEngine, you have the option to run the script, but Intune has the option to do so proactively. ManageEngine doesn't have this. You should have the option to act proactively, not just going ahead and fixing it once it's done. Proactive remediation should be a feature."
"The main issue that needs improvement is the pricing."
"ManageEngine should support various browser features, including those that address browser limitations."
"Tech support is mediocre at best."
"The Deployment scheduler needs updating to support various methods for deployment."
"I would like to have the option to install the agent remotely."
"Their support channel could be better. They're an India-based company. They're based out of India. So, here in the States, support can be difficult when you're dealing with time zone requirements. A more global support channel would be a wise choice for them."
"We have to do the effort ourselves because Enable is not really strategically going there because I assume there's not much money to make to improve that or to convince customers to start with their product."
"Involving AI in the platform could improve it further."
"There is room for improvement in the development of custom monitoring services."
"The industry has moved towards Redfish for out-of-band and in-band monitoring, yet N-able N-central still relies on older protocols like SNMP."
"The support from our direct team is very good, but the support from their day-to-day ongoing help desk isn't that good. They have still got some work to do on that, but they have been focusing on that a lot over the last number of years. So, it has gotten a lot better than it was."
"The integration with other applications could be better."
"The solution's overall integration should be improved."
"At this moment, we encounter stability issues with N-able N-central from time to time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not costly. The product is properly priced, especially for SMBs."
"The price could be cheaper."
"The product is cheap."
"There is a freeware version of the solution available as long as you do not breach the number of licenses and users that are dictated."
"The initial purchase was around $6,000 or $7,000. We most probably are not on an annual subscription. We bought it, and then we pay for the maintenance. I'm not 100% sure how that's working out."
"Could provide more services on the standard license"
"I have been using the free version and am in the stage where I have to decide if I will proceed with the paid license, or instead choose another product."
"Choose wisely between the Professional and Enterprise editions, based on your needs."
"The pricing and licensing are average, almost six out of ten."
"N-able N-central is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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 there were some features as the tenant on the earliest version. Now it's it's almos...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
The pricing is cheaper compared to other MDM products, but I don't remember the exact details.
What needs improvement with N-able N-central?
One of my personal challenges with N-able N-central is the monitoring of services for server hardware. The industry has moved towards Redfish for out-of-band and in-band monitoring, yet N-able N-ce...
What is your primary use case for N-able N-central?
Our primary use case for N-able N-central is monitoring. As an administrator, I frequently work with N-able N-central for monitoring, spending approximately fifty percent of my time on it.
 

Also Known As

ManageEngine Desktop Central, Desktop Central, ManageEngine Desktop Management MSP
SolarWinds N-central, SolarWinds MSP N-central
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Strathallan School, BMI Healthcare, Comercial Kywi, First Priority Federal Credit Union, Gerab National Enterprises
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