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ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs N-able N-central comparison

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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) (6th), 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 18.7%, down 31.6% compared to last year.
N-able N-central, on the other hand, focuses on Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), holds 5.4% mindshare, down 8.7% since last year.
Client Desktop Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine Endpoint Central18.7%
Symantec Client Management Suite13.4%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)11.6%
Other56.3%
Client Desktop Management
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N-able N-central5.4%
NinjaOne10.0%
Kaseya VSA9.8%
Other74.8%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1908987 - PeerSpot reviewer
Ict Manager at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
Centralized endpoint management has improved patching, software deployment, and asset control
ManageEngine Endpoint Central is what I am personally working with and using, along with the Service Desk, which is another tool we use. We have been working with ManageEngine Endpoint Central for four years or more. The customizable packages in software deployment are very positive; you can apply different policies for the package that you are going to deploy. This is something we are still using and working with. ManageEngine has a very large portfolio of products. There is some functionality that is not managed from ManageEngine Endpoint Central, but you can find that functionality in another module of ManageEngine's portfolio.
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

"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."
"The initial setup process is good."
"In terms of technical capability, it is doing very well, it is doing better than other industry products, it is at a place where we can compare it with Microsoft products, and its scalability is also good."
"Everything is easily centralized and managed under this one product."
"All of Desktop Central's features are valuable, especially its simplicity."
"The ability to patch my servers and endpoints is the most important for me. However, this feature is more pronounced in ManageEngine Desktop Central."
"Windows patching and inventory management are the most valuable features."
"ManageEngine has improved my organization because right now we can actually monitor and find out which software products are installed on each desktop, and we can then figure out which ones have to get patched and so forth."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
"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."
"N-able N-central is very scalable."
"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 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 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 most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"The ability to backup and restore or move user profiles to another PC would be a fantastic addition to the feature set."
"Not many things are needed for improvement, everything seems to be great as it is. One thing that would be good to have would be the ability to add MDM to a tablet running Android 5.0 using the EMM Token Enrollment. If we wanted to add MDM to an older tablet, we just have to go the "long route" to get it added."
"The web interface could use some polishing."
"Its licensing should be improved."
"Technical support is not up to the mark. In my opinion, this is the area where they should look after more carefully."
"The product tends to have some glitches in terms of connection when you have two connections to the same machine."
"The reporting analytics could improve in ManageEngine Desktop Central. However, there are some third-party add-ins or modules you can purchase to do reporting analytics."
"There is room for improvement in the development of custom monitoring services."
"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 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 solution's overall integration should be improved."
"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."
"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."
"It was previously expensive and tedious to manage different licenses."
"The integration with other applications could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 solution is very affordable."
"The price is moderate."
"The pricing of the product is not bad compared to the other similar solutions in the market."
"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 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."
"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
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
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: August 2026.
912,753 professionals have used our research since 2012.