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Microsoft System Center vs NetApp Cloud Insights comparison

Microsoft and NetApp are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.4, while NetApp is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.8. Microsoft holds a 0.4% mindshare in CMS, compared to NetApp’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.
Microsoft System Center
Read 20 Microsoft System Center reviews
  • 562 Views
  • 298 Comparison Views
85% willing to recommend
NetApp Cloud Insights
Read 13 NetApp Cloud Insights reviews
  • 1,125 Views
  • 495 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Microsoft System Center and NetApp Cloud Insights are notable solutions in IT management. Microsoft System Center garners favor within the Microsoft ecosystem for its straightforward automation and ease of use, while NetApp Cloud Insights excels with advanced multi-vendor analytics and comprehensive visibility.

Features: Microsoft System Center seamlessly integrates with Microsoft products and supports efficient patch management, automation, and native Windows tools. Its user-friendly interface is ideal for Windows environments. NetApp Cloud Insights offers superior environment visibility and analytics, providing decision-making support and cross-vendor compatibility. It excels in inventorying resources and highlighting interdependencies for improved infrastructure management.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft System Center could improve in areas such as non-Microsoft integration, reducing cumbersome installations, and enhancing resource efficiency. There is also a need for better multi-tenant support and modernization of interfaces. NetApp Cloud Insights might benefit from enhanced report management, clearer licensing, and more efficient technical support. Improved visualization and intuitive reporting would further strengthen its user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft System Center is primarily an on-premises deployment, with customer support experiences ranging from complex and costly to satisfactory, supported by robust enterprise accommodations. NetApp Cloud Insights allows flexible deployments across public, private, and hybrid clouds and is generally favored for its straightforward process and alignment with cloud management needs, although user feedback suggests room for enhanced support efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft System Center is typically viewed as expensive, yet its robust automation aids in achieving a strong ROI through operational streamlining and reduced reliance on third-party solutions. In contrast, NetApp Cloud Insights provides more affordable entry points, especially within NetApp environments, with flexible pricing based on management units. Its ROI is realized via cost avoidance and resource optimization, enhancing management efficiency.

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To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft System Center vs. NetApp Cloud Insights Report (Updated: September 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft System Center vs. NetApp Cloud Insights
September 2025
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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

Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (13th)
NetApp Cloud Insights
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (11th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (33rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Insights is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft System Center0.4%
NetApp Cloud Insights0.4%
Other99.2%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Carl Palapal - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides comprehensive system management with effective deployment and integration capabilities
The advantages of Microsoft System Center are significant, and I have seen other products as well. As far as advantages are concerned, they have PXE deployment, which is good for deploying operating systems, such as Windows client systems including Windows 10 and Windows 11. Since it is a Microsoft product, all the patches are proprietary, making it easier to deploy. In Microsoft System Center, all the features are integrated already, whereas in ManageEngine, you have to license each feature individually to access those features. The automated features of Virtual Machine Manager are very useful; it automates as long as the policy that I have created is in line with the objective, especially the templates when I'm going to deploy. Regarding endpoint management, Microsoft System Center is very helpful; it has integrated endpoint protection deployment, allowing me to handle endpoint configuration, system deployment, and patch deployment, making it an all-in-one stop shop for managing and configuring end clients. The impact of using Microsoft System Center is significant; it gives me a whole picture of my environment, making it easy to get inventory details regarding applications and hardware, providing full visibility of my setup within the organization.
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Punit Waghela - PeerSpot reviewer
Reduces troubleshooting time and improves operational efficiency through a single console
NetApp technology, specifically NetApp Cloud Insights, has significantly impacted the way my customers do business. One customer had multiple components, such as a VMware environment, Cisco switches, NetApp storage, and backup tools. Previously, the customer had to monitor all these tools individually each morning by logging into every console to check for errors or performance issues. It used to take them about 1 or 2 hours, but after we installed NetApp Cloud Insights, the time spent was reduced to just 5 minutes with a single console where they could monitor everything. The customer can integrate their VMware servers, Cisco switches, and storage with NetApp Cloud Insights to quickly identify any problems and resolve issues efficiently, demonstrating a reduction in complexity and monitoring time. The values that NetApp Cloud Insights delivers to my customers are evident in real examples, such as an application team running their application on a single VM connected through a switch and storage. When they experience a performance issue, the VMware team needs to identify the source of the slowness, whether it's from the server, switch, or storage, which requires a time-consuming investigation of each component. Without NetApp Cloud Insights, this process is slow and stressful for both the application team and the VMware team, but with the tool, a single click allows the customer to pinpoint the issue directly, improving response times to performance problems immensely. The evolving cybersecurity landscape and the proliferation of AI highly influence my customers' technology decisions, as having NetApp storage in their environment allows them to detect ransomware attacks effectively. NetApp guarantees data recovery in case of such attacks, and here, NetApp Cloud Insights plays a crucial role; it can identify where a ransomware attack originates, allowing the IT team to respond rapidly, such as disconnecting affected devices to mitigate the damage, especially crucial when multiple users are involved.
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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Managment Packs for Microsoft-specific products, help us implement the best practices for each product."
"The installation process is easy."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ease of configuration and the easy discovery of the environment."
"Many processes could be implemented out-of-the-box, and this helped to adopt processes in areas which we lacked."
"Step-by-step documentation that clarifies the implementation procedure."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft System Center is its GUI (graphical user interface)."
"The deployment and asset management features are the most valuable. These are the product's main features."
"The solution is easily available. That's its most valuable aspect."
More Microsoft System Center pros
"NetApp Cloud Insights helps reduce the time spent on problem resolution by up to 50% for my customers, making their operations significantly more efficient and productive, which is a perfect outcome."
"The solution is easy to deploy."
"Cloud Secure is definitely the most valuable feature and being able to see file level activity. It gives real-time alerting on possible ransomware attacks and provides file security review. It helps us to see if something abnormal is happening on the system before it's too late."
"The visibility and assistance with security vulnerabilities are valuable."
"Its ability to quickly inventory our resources, figure out interdependencies across them, and assemble a topology of your environment is brilliant. There is a price associated with it. Whenever you target a NetApp environment, it is included in the price but whenever you want to add different vendors, like VMware and Cisco, the price greatly spikes. Inventorization helps us a lot to visualize the environment."
"Cloud Insights' best features are visibility and the connector to move the workloads."
"All our production clusters are in Cloud Insight. It provides a single pane of glass, giving us visibility into the environment, which allows us to understand if any issues are going on across any of our clusters."
"One feature we appreciate the most is its ability to take snapshots, which adds an extra layer of security and allows us to protect our data effectively."
More NetApp Cloud Insights pros
 

Cons

"System Center hasn't updated to keep up with the industry. It needs improvements in the user interface, ease of use, and overall product functionality, particularly the cloud-monitoring features. It needs more capabilities to monitor AWS and Azure infrastructure."
"We have some bugs but it's stable. It doesn't break every day. It works. Like other applications, it has a lot of bugs but they're manageable."
"Could be more user friendly."
"The platform's performance could be improved. Additionally, its UI needs to be well-upgraded and work faster."
"The solution's dashboard needs improvement."
"Most of the documentation is online, however, there are some gaps there. The product documentation still refers back to the 2012 Server. We're pretty much in 2022. There's a ten-year gap there."
"Less server consumption would help, as would better, more flexible reports."
"They should have some customized solutions or internal development, then maybe it could be easier to use different solutions or some self-developed solution."
More Microsoft System Center cons
"Cloud Insights could offer more detail when we drill down into the Azure environment."
"In my opinion, one area where NetApp Cloud Insights could be improved for the next release is the console, which I find a bit complex."
"Ease of reporting is one thing that they're trying to tackle. If you have a specific set of data you want from Cloud Insights, you can ask NetApp to help you build the reports from the ground up. The dashboards are intuitive, but finding the report you want is sometimes a challenge. If you don't have the report already loaded, pulling it in and letting it build its data can be cumbersome."
"In a perfect world we would have something built, right out-of-the-box, that can identify what we call "noise," and reduce the amount of data. You're presented with so much data when you first start the data collectors. For example, it brings back a lot of change rates that happen just because of standard computing, like profile changes and that sort of thing. Being able to identify things like that and categorize them and strip it down—and it probably can do that, I just haven't gotten there yet—would be very beneficial."
"There is room for improving the creating and managing or modifying of reports. That is still a difficult task to do and requires knowledge beyond the storage itself. I would love to see reporting improved so that we can create reports by dragging and dropping pieces into a report form and publish a report that way."
"The visualization needs some improvement because there are occasional delays while the system queries information."
"The IP-based monitoring could be added in a future release."
"The support is not very quick."
More NetApp Cloud Insights cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We maximized our license investment."
"It's rolled into our enterprise subscription. The entire subscription is around $25,000 a year, however, that covers all the products that we use."
"I rate the product price as five to six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is cheap and ten means it is expensive."
"I know that sometimes there is some reduction in the prices of Microsoft System Center because of the costs of Microsoft SQL Server, which can be advantageous."
"Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Microsoft System Center is quite expensive."
"The licensing model could be improved. We love that you can use it for free for looking at NetApp products. You only need licenses to look at non-NetApp products, but as soon as you do that, you start utilizing licenses that actually would have been free in the public. So, there is a bit of an anomaly in the licensing model."
"The solution's pricing is based on the device you purchase and includes support services."
"Be aware of the capacity licensing and understand how that works, because it is based on capacity. Getting an understanding of that is the biggest thing."
"The licensing is complex. The calculation depends on what you're ingesting. A terabyte of one product is not a terabyte of another product. Virtual machines don't equate so easily. It's all about the end-use managed units and having an easy place to reference how far those units go."
"We are billed based on management units, so we can purchase units based on six months, twelve months, twenty-four months, or thirty-six months upfront or pay as you go depending on our requirements."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
33%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft System Center?
The product's initial setup phase was easy.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft System Center?
Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
The disadvantage of Microsoft System Center is related to the many integrated services; if one service is failing, then all features will be affected. For example, with site configuration, when one...
See all answers
What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Insights?
NetApp Cloud Insights helps with login monitoring and troubleshooting. Previously, if we had performance concerns or needed to interface with other groups and their products, a task that should req...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Insights?
The licensing is complex. The calculation depends on what you're ingesting. A terabyte of one product is not a terabyte of another product. Virtual machines don't equate so easily. It's all about t...
See all answers
What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Insights?
In my opinion, one area where NetApp Cloud Insights could be improved for the next release is the console, which I find a bit complex. Even though I work with NetApp, it still takes time for me to ...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs Microsoft System Center Logo
VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs Microsoft System Center
Compared 38% of the time
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform vs Microsoft System Center Logo
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform vs Microsoft System Center
Compared 28% of the time
IBM BPM vs Microsoft System Center Logo
IBM BPM vs Microsoft System Center
Compared 19% of the time
Veeam Data Platform vs Microsoft System Center Logo
Veeam Data Platform vs Microsoft System Center
Compared 16% of the time
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Dell CloudIQ vs NetApp Cloud Insights Logo
Dell CloudIQ vs NetApp Cloud Insights
Compared 56% of the time
VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs NetApp Cloud Insights Logo
VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs NetApp Cloud Insights
Compared 23% of the time
Datadog vs NetApp Cloud Insights Logo
Datadog vs NetApp Cloud Insights
Compared 21% of the time
More NetApp Cloud Insights Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft System Center
September 2025
Microsoft System Center reportDownload Microsoft System Center product report
Buyer's Guide
NetApp Cloud Insights
September 2025
NetApp Cloud Insights reportDownload NetApp Cloud Insights product report
 

Also Known As

MS System Center
No data available
 

Overview

System Center helps customers realize the benefits of the Microsoft Cloud Platform by delivering unified management. Experience fast time-to-value with out-of-the-box monitoring, provisioning, configuration, automation, protection and self-service.
Microsoft

NetApp Cloud Insights is an infrastructure monitoring tool that gives you visibility into your complete infrastructure. With Cloud Insights, you can monitor, troubleshoot and optimize all your resources including your public clouds and your private data centers.

NetApp
 

Sample Customers

Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Information Not Available
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft System Center vs. NetApp Cloud Insights
September 2025
Free Report: Microsoft System Center vs. NetApp Cloud Insights
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