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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) (3rd), 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 18.9%, down 40.2% compared to last year.
N-able N-central, on the other hand, focuses on Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), holds 6.3% mindshare, down 11.0% since last year.
Client Desktop Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine Endpoint Central18.9%
Symantec Client Management Suite13.1%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)12.2%
Other55.8%
Client Desktop Management
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N-able N-central6.3%
Kaseya VSA13.8%
NinjaOne10.7%
Other69.2%
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

"A small business perspective replacing SCCM with this product has proven both cost effective and an efficient use of our staffs time."
"Desktop Central has improved these organizations and this is why it has been repeated multiple times at multiple organizations."
"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."
"Managing systems remotely is a tedious task, but thanks to this product we are able to deploy software remotely and silently without interfering with users' work."
"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 stability is great."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"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."
"The most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"The solution's service is good."
"N-able N-central is very scalable."
"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."
"N-able N-central is an easy tool to implement with customers."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
"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 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."
 

Cons

"The team I've currently got is not using it particularly well, due to the fact that they don't know how to use it particularly well. They've not done any training and so on."
"The stability of ManageEngine Desktop Central could improve. We have found that at times it can become a bit unstable."
"I'd like to see Patch Management for Linux Systems, which it doesn't have right now and which we could really use."
"Many features in Desktop Central are licensed separately. It would be more convenient if they could organize these tools into a single package."
"I really feel like asset explorer should be a component of desktop central."
"There are times when we have a particular software installed in our system, but we do not receive patches for it from Endpoint Central."
"Its licensing should be improved."
"Its licensing should be improved."
"The integration with other applications could be 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."
"Involving AI in the platform could improve it further."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products, ManageEngine Endpoint Central is a very cheap solution."
"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."
"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 product is not expensive."
"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."
"Choose wisely between the Professional and Enterprise editions, based on your needs."
"The price could be cheaper."
"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
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Performing Arts
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
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