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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
69
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (2nd)
N-able N-central
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (4th)
 

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 19.1%, down 41.5% compared to last year.
N-able N-central, on the other hand, focuses on Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), holds 7.6% mindshare, down 12.4% since last year.
Client Desktop Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine Endpoint Central19.1%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)12.5%
Symantec Client Management Suite11.9%
Other56.5%
Client Desktop Management
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N-able N-central7.6%
Kaseya VSA15.2%
NinjaOne11.7%
Other65.5%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

MS
Solutions Consultant at Team Computers
Experience improves with intuitive setup and comprehensive features but needs enhancements for Apple integration
From a ManageEngine perspective, there is room for improvement regarding the Platform SSO technology introduced by Apple, which allows you to integrate your hardware with your identity providers. It used to be only a few selected ones via OIDC protocols or some other protocols, which are not necessary anymore. If a customer is already using Microsoft 365, they can integrate with any MDM for Platform SSO, which essentially hardens their device identity with the person logging in for the first time. It also helps automate enrollment and provide a zero-touch experience. Currently, while some MDM tools InTune and Jamf support this feature, ManageEngine still does not fully support Platform SSO via Microsoft or Google. I have customers using ManageEngine who are looking forward to this solution, and if ManageEngine can provide it, it would enhance the overall product value. For enterprise users, the solution needs improvement. For SMB, it is straightforward; if it is a small company of 100 to 500 users, anything below 1,000, they do not have much of a compliance or security requirement—they just want to manage their devices and push applications. Simple tasks are easier to accomplish. However, when it comes to enterprise-grade deployment, many complex configurations need to be considered, such as Wi-Fi configurations, network configurations, VPN configurations, and advanced certification deployment, such as ACME certification deployment practice introduced by Apple. These are a few things that can be improved on that side, but from a basic user perspective, if someone is in the SMB market or a company just starting off pre-IPO, without going into compliance, they typically find Zoho and ManageEngine to fit their needs. For enterprise-grade deployments, it is more than enough for Windows, but for Apple, it is still in development and not up to the mark.
Dimitri V G - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Manager Fiber & Backhaul Solutions Center & South at Telenet BVBA
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

"What is great about the patch management solution, is that it patches OS, applications, browsers, plug-ins, and firmware updates."
"I like being able to image over the network. That's a nice feature that it has. Patch management is pretty decent on it as well."
"ManageEngine Endpoint Central is straightforward to use and implement."
"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 mobile functionality is very easy."
"The product works perfectly for patch management and software deployments."
"The most valuable in Desktop Central is the way it is tightly coupled with the rest of the modules and the entire gamut of ManageEngine."
"One of the benefits of Desktop Central is it made the provisioning process simpler because now we have a provisioning package. We have around 1,500 laptops at the moment and all these PCs were provisioned by a provisioning package. In the provisioning package, we have integrated every aspect of renaming, deploying applications, patching, etc., so we simply execute the provisioning package and as soon as it's executed, it will install the management agent. Once the agent is installed, it will take care of all the tasks, so we don't have to sit in front of the computer to prepare the machine. This really helps us to provision the PC quickly with our agent."
"The solution's service is good."
"The most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
"N-able N-central is an easy tool to implement with customers."
"The transition to N-able N-central was very smooth; we were confident that our migration would not affect any operations, and it was easy to migrate our clients into the new solutions."
"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."
"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."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
 

Cons

"I would like to have the option to install the agent remotely."
"There is a slight delay in customer support, which is something that can be improved."
"ManageEngine Endpoint Central’s scalability could be improved."
"Each of their products is an independent product, and they don't have anything to do with each other. It is a suite of packages. They all run independently, and they all are a little different because they were acquired differently. They could standardize their portfolio."
"In relation to ManageEngine Endpoint Central, ManageEngine NGAV seems to be completely useless right now."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central is very limited. When you scan your system, it will only recognize Microsoft Windows Defender and BitLocker."
"Tech support is mediocre at best."
"Usability is the main issue when comparing ManageEngine with BlackBerry RIM."
"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."
"The solution's overall integration should be improved."
"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."
"It was previously expensive and tedious to manage different licenses."
"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."
"N-central has limited mobile device management (MDM) support, specifically for Android devices. This limitation affected a deal with a client who had numerous Android devices to manage. It would be beneficial if N-central could expand its MDM support to include Android devices."
"N-able N-central could improve the remote access, my technicians have complained about it. They have used other free tools instead to compensate, such as TeamViewer. Additionally, when using remote access on the web, it is lacking reports."
"The integration with other applications could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is average."
"Affordable for any customer."
"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."
"The product is cheap."
"The pricing is very low, compared to other products. Compared to Intune or SCCM, it's much less. I can say it's a good product for less of a price."
"The licensing is very easy to understand and pricing is right for what you get."
"The product is not expensive."
"N-able N-central is not an expensive solution."
"The pricing and licensing are average, almost six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise35
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

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?
I would rate the pricing as seven; it is quite expensive from my point of view for ManageEngine Endpoint Central.
What needs improvement with N-able N-central?
The MSP part of N-able N-central has evolved over the years. They have been trying to move from professional or network server and desktop licensing to make it more comprehensive. With professional...
What is your primary use case for N-able N-central?
We have been dealing with Enable EDR and N-able N-central, which is a management center. It's the NOC solution that we are currently running our asset management on. We are managing tasks in that e...
What advice do you have for others considering N-able N-central?
There's a new node for N-able N-central which they have addressed. Our outstanding items include reviewing our pricing and partnership level, which can provide additional benefits when we exceed 10...
 

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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