No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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) (6th)
 

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 19.7%, down 34.5% compared to last year.
N-able N-central, on the other hand, focuses on Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), holds 6.0% mindshare, down 8.9% since last year.
Client Desktop Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine Endpoint Central19.7%
Symantec Client Management Suite13.5%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)12.3%
Other54.5%
Client Desktop Management
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N-able N-central6.0%
Kaseya VSA12.8%
NinjaOne10.2%
Other71.0%
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.
NM
Senior Operations Specialist at Tagit cc
Transition has been smooth and integration supports compliance with ease
The transition to N-able N-central was very smooth. We were confident that our migration would not affect any operations. It was easy to migrate our clients into the new solutions. What we have experienced is that only branding has changed along with the way reports are structured. The solution is more advanced and the transition was well thought out. The process is managed properly. Regarding the integration capabilities of N-able N-central, my colleagues who work with this solution recently completed an ISO quality audit. The auditor could understand and manage how we handle our assets and environment because it's quite simple, even for someone who doesn't use the platform daily. This demonstrates that we are using a solution that meets our compliance requirements. N-able N-central is easy to use. Once licenses are provisioned, it's simple for my team to deploy the solution from anywhere remotely, provided there is internet access or remote access to the device.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its value is large because I could free up that person's time to do other work."
"With all the alerting and everything else that you have to set up with it, it takes a minute to get it up and running and have everything the way you wanted."
"The most important feature we found to be useful in the COVID situation is the secure connection, which gives the IT support staff the ability to seamlessly connect with the users remotely and in a secure way."
"Everything is easily centralized and managed under this one product."
"The most valuable features of ManageEngine Endpoint Central are patch management and remote access and management."
"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."
"Honestly, I have to say all features together have become the Swiss army knife of desktop management. They all work hand in hand. Software deployment saves an unbelievable amount of time installing an application on hundreds of computers."
"What I like best about this product is that I can log on to every PC, very easily, and chat with the user via the chat feature."
"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 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."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
"The most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"N-able N-central is very scalable."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
 

Cons

"Even when it shows Java as up-to-date, it might not be. So, to make it better, they should improve the accuracy of Java patch reporting."
"I would like to see them include the ability to find out the network usage but I believe that might be a feature of it already."
"Technical support could be better. They should increase their hours of availability so that they are easier to reach and it's more convenient for us."
"The reports provided by the product are an area of concern where improvements are required. The visibility provided by the reports is not very attractive."
"Improvement of the chats on the web communication through the WAN would be helpful."
"Improvement should be done as per customer requirements."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central is very limited. When you scan your system, it will only recognize Microsoft Windows Defender and BitLocker."
"The pricing could be a bit better."
"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."
"It was previously expensive and tedious to manage different licenses."
"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."
"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."
"At this moment, we encounter stability issues with N-able N-central from time to time."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."
"The price is moderate."
"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 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."
"Affordable for any customer."
"We pay about $250 a year for our license."
"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."
"We had perpetual licenses. The cost was around 36,000, and then you'd have the yearly maintenance fee of 2,000 or 3,000."
"The pricing and licensing are average, almost six out of ten."
"N-able N-central is not an expensive solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Client Desktop Management solutions are best for your needs.
904,836 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
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 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 ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
It would be great to see some additional options within ManageEngine Endpoint Central. A better monitoring tool to analyze network traffic related to patch management would be something good to see...
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
Premier Technology Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine, Quest Software, Broadcom and others in Client Desktop Management. Updated: June 2026.
904,836 professionals have used our research since 2012.