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Microsoft System Center vs ThousandEyes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.3
Microsoft System Center boosts efficiency, saves costs through automation and internal task handling, achieving ROI in eight months.
Sentiment score
6.2
ThousandEyes delivers substantial ROI by reducing troubleshooting time, improving network performance, and quickly identifying issues, saving resources.
There has been a great ROI from using ThousandEyes, with significant time saved in troubleshooting as I can quickly pinpoint issues rather than spending time isolating them, alongside enhancing customer feedback and experience.
Senior cloud engineering lead and IT project owner at KDD
I have seen a return on investment by reducing troubleshooting time and having lesser user mapping error issues, in addition to engineering time saved through better observability and reduced organizational MTTR.
Project Manager at Procter & Gamble
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.9
Microsoft System Center support is appreciated but criticized for slow response times, regional dependencies, and cost concerns.
Sentiment score
6.9
ThousandEyes' customer service is highly regarded with responsive support, though there's room for improvement in response times.
As a partner, I cannot create a ticket directly; I have to involve the end user's email to create one, so using the Software Assurance ID to create a ticket directly is not possible, making it very challenging for me.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
We contacted the support team, and they resolved it within a couple of hours.
System Operation Associate at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I would give it a rating of 10 because whenever we have any issues, we can typically reach someone who has the knowledge to help us.
Network Engineer Iii at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The customer support for ThousandEyes is very proactive and supportive.
Project Manager at Procter & Gamble
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft System Center is highly scalable, managing thousands of endpoints efficiently, yet requires careful resource consideration for optimal performance.
Sentiment score
7.1
ThousandEyes is highly scalable, efficiently supporting enterprise needs with flexible usage across sectors, despite licensing cost concerns.
Microsoft System Center is scalable, allowing integration even if I have different sites.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
Scalability with ThousandEyes is straightforward as you don't really need to scale; it's designed to monitor multiple applications, accommodating 50 or 100 applications simultaneously.
Network Assistant Engineer at Staffordshire and Shropshire Health Informatics Service
ThousandEyes's scalability is excellent; it is very scalable and grows with my organization's needs.
Project Manager at Procter & Gamble
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft System Center is valued for its maturity and stability, performing reliably with manageable bugs and efficient update resolutions.
Sentiment score
8.1
ThousandEyes is praised for stability and reliability, with minimal performance issues and effective IT support resolving rare incidents.
From my experience, ThousandEyes has been stable up to 95%; I have not seen any stability issues.
Senior cloud engineering lead and IT project owner at KDD
ThousandEyes is not very stable; sometimes you have to reboot the servers to get actual results.
Network Assistant Engineer at Staffordshire and Shropshire Health Informatics Service
I would assess the stability and reliability of ThousandEyes as good, with no downtime or crashes or performance issues experienced.
R&D at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft System Center needs improved third-party integration, simplified installation, enhanced performance, user interface updates, and better documentation.
ThousandEyes must improve user experience, integration, AI features, and extend automation for enhanced traffic insights and cost efficiency.
The disadvantage of Microsoft System Center is related to the many integrated services; if one service is failing, then all features will be affected.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
Incidents should be alerted on and traced early, before they escalate to full outages.
Software Developer at The Code
I think the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for ThousandEyes are too costly.
R&D at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Having a dedicated incident alert system for URL alerts would help manage noise and streamline operations, especially during patch upgrades.
System Operation Associate at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft System Center is pricey, with annual fees and potential savings from SQL Server, rated 5-7 on affordability.
ThousandEyes' pricing is variable, often moderate to expensive, with licensing based on flows and annual billing options.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that everything was cost-effective.
Project Manager at Procter & Gamble
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it comes in cheaper than alternatives.
Lead Technical Consultant at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing indicates that licensing is somewhat complicated because of the credits system.
Network Engineer Iii at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft System Center offers comprehensive endpoint management with integration, automation, monitoring, and ease of use in Windows environments.
ThousandEyes provides network path visualization and monitoring, offering fast issue detection and integration with Cisco for improved performance.
In Microsoft System Center, all the features are integrated already, whereas in ManageEngine, you have to license each feature individually to access those features.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
I measure the 70% improvement in customer experience through customer tickets and feedback after resolving issues, where previously, users faced problems and limited time on the platform, and after using ThousandEyes, the user time reached up to five to six hours a day, even for teams possibly totaling 30 hours a day.
Senior cloud engineering lead and IT project owner at KDD
ThousandEyes offers the best features including global internet and cloud visibility from distributed vantage points, application and network performance monitoring, real-time outage detection and incident alerts, end-to-end path visualization for rapid troubleshooting, proactive issue demarcation, and historical data.
Project Manager at Procter & Gamble
ThousandEyes has become critical for swift network troubleshooting as well, so anytime that there's potential issues with applications or we want to be proactive in resolving potential issues before they arise, ThousandEyes is really the platform that we're leveraging for WAN monitoring, Wi-Fi, latency, packet loss, etc.
Vice President, Finance and Operations at Fruitist
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
41st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (17th)
ThousandEyes
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (8th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThousandEyes is 1.9%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ThousandEyes1.9%
Microsoft System Center0.7%
Other97.4%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Carl Palapal - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
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.
Shreyans Parekh - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, Finance and Operations at Fruitist
Proactive monitoring has transformed digital experience and now optimizes application delivery
With ThousandEyes, there are some configuration and metric screens that are not entirely intuitive with ThousandEyes, so they can certainly improve in terms of the usability of certain metric screens. ThousandEyes can also offer deeper traffic insights relative to specific applications, so detailed analytics on application-level traffic would help in better understanding and managing our network resources effectively. I would say that ThousandEyes can also, in terms of providing more extensibility with other observability tools, offer more out-of-the-box integrations with other observability tools so that ThousandEyes can serve as that single source of truth, so that we don't necessarily need to go to other tools to be able to be that one-source dashboard. I think there's a lot that ThousandEyes can continue to improve on there. The issues that I've talked about, including extensibility with other platforms and the improvement of accessing specific metric screens in order to be able to provide for fuller access and more detailed access to network-level metrics would make the platform feel less complicated to navigate. It wouldn't require as many manual integration inputs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft System Center?
I am using Microsoft System Center. I use Microsoft System Center for patch deployment and application deployment.
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft System Center?
The connection is not very stable. I rate Microsoft System Center a nine out of ten.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better from a cloud monitoring or APM monitoring perspective. You can check...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
ThousandEyes could be improved by unifying the GUI with the rest of the Cisco products since it remains legacy from its original state when Cisco acquired it.
What is your primary use case for ThousandEyes?
My main use cases for ThousandEyes are troubleshooting slow speeds and investigating disconnection issues that users report.
 

Also Known As

MS System Center
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft System Center vs. ThousandEyes and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.